…And not because you are turning into a pifflicated person. Poles are down.
In addition to providing scholarships and supplemental assistance for area schools, the year-round volunteer labor provided by a multitude of volunteers working to stage the King William Fair, which takes place on Saturday, April 16, benefits projects improving the public spaces in the neighborhood, such as the park at Constance and Painted Lady (Crofton) Streets.
Since this past year’s fair, the King William Association has worked to re-landscape King William Park. While those improvements are obvious, you might not notice the major sidebar project.
What is missing from the picture? The awkward, cumbersome overhead utilities previously framing any view of the historic park.
While the original installation of utility poles in the neighborhood represented a welcome technological advancement – a status symbol testifying to the affluence of the neighborhood – a century-or-so of jerryrigged add-ons marred the view.
The project to convert the overhead utilities to underground has been complex, traversing the terms of three or four presidents and committee chairs and finally involving a funding partnership, forged with the support of Councilwoman Mary Alice Cisneros’ office, of the Community Infrastructure and Economic Development Fund of CPS, the City’s Economic and Tourism Department and the King William Association.
To appreciate what is missing, compare today’s views to the “befores.” Don’t think these photos need labeling for you to judge which looks better – 2010 or 2011?
“Some men get new wives when they turn 40,” said Lamar. “All I want is an electric guitar.”
He is a practical man. Probably had weighed out the economics of the situation pretty carefully. Happy I made the cut. Probably was a close call.
Even I could see the equation clearly. Amazing I made the cut.
Fine.
Even though I thought I had married an acoustic man who had wooed me sitting on the front porch in the mountains of Virginia listening to records (did I mention we were old?) of the exotic (hey, I’m not from Texas) Willie Nelson, Jerry Jeff Walker and Willis Alan Ramsey.
My husband kept his electric roots repressed for two decades.
But this is a man who had played the Bonham – not today’s gay Bonham – when it was the USO. Captain Midnight headlined a St. Mary’s Hall dance; that was when the band found out Jeff Richmond only had one harmonica in one key that he played discordantly throughout the evening.
The high point must have been opening for ZZ Top at the Teen Canteen. Neglecting to mention Captain Midnight, Margaret Moser wrote in The Austin Chronicle:
Forget the cute, silly name – the Teen Canteen was the staging ground for San Antonio’s vibrant rock & roll scene, from before the Beatles until the dawn of punk. Owner Sam Kinsey opened the first Teen Canteen in 1960. It moved around to several locations, including a ballroom dance studio, settling at Wonderland (now Crossroads) Mall in 1963. In 1968, the Canteen moved to its last location on Bitters Road across from Northeast Stadium, the place it would occupy until it closed in 1977….
Local bands like the Pipelines, the Outcasts, the Spidels, the Stoics, the Swiss Movement, and the Virgil Foxx Group, plus touring bands of the day such as the Strawberry Alarm Clock (“Incense and Peppermints”) and the Syndicate of Sound (“Little Girl”) played there. More importantly, it was one of the places for Texas psychedelic bands such as Sweet Smoke, Zakary Thaks, Bubble Puppy, Shiva’s Headband, the Moving Sidewalks, and Lord August & the Visions of Lite. ZZ Top played their first gig at the Teen Canteen; others who got their start there include Mike Nesmith of the Monkees and Chris “Christopher Cross” Geppart.
Talent, and perhaps a smidgen of nepotism, continued to boost the band’s profile. Band member Galvin Weston, whose royal lineage can be substantiated online, managed to get the band booked on the family’s cruise line. Don’t know why Captain Midnight did not get an offer for a second summer cruise. Surely people our parents’ age were into songs by Cream or Spirit’s “I Got a Line on You?”
Even nepotism must have its limits. Alas, college dispersed the members of Captain Midnight to far corners of the map.
But fast forward past forty.
One electric guitar gets lonely. The first black guitar led to a red guitar. And then a woody-looking guitar. And now a really cool Teye (Guitar men are rolling their eyes in their heads over my superficial descriptions. If Captain, or After, Midnight’s band members want to get the details right, they have to get their own blogs.).
Plus, one does not play the electric guitar alone. Lamar had to seduce our friend Richard Nitschke off the acoustic. And Richard’s first electric guitar seemed to procreate as well (People, ducks, guitars. Does just say no ever work?).
Strangely, it turned out our CPA is an amazing drummer, Karl Yelderman (whose drumsets reproduce like ducks as well), and he brought along bass player Daryl Chadick (with his multiplying bass guitars). Now the band even has a keyboard player, Steve Chase (whose wife must have had his keyboard spayed).
Then there is Claytie. Claytie Bonds has the type of voice capable of singing the national anthem a cappella at a chamber of commerce gathering when she was only nine. She can belt out the blues.
After Midnight Blues Band: Daryl, Richard, Karl, Claytie, Lamar and Steve
You can catch the band this Saturday, April 17, from 7 to 10 p.m. at Alamo City Pizza and the following Saturday, April 24, at from 4:45 to 5:45 p.m. at the King William Fair.
Someone asked me if the band stuff drives me crazy. The answer is no. I love the blues, and, even without nepotism to help, in my unbiased opinion, After Midnight is great.
The blues are great therapy, and, Lord knows, living with me, Lamar needs large doses of that. So I’m standing by my man.
Update Added on September 5: No reunion performance of the members of Captain Midnight is planned for today’s Canteen Fest at Floore’s Country Store in Helotes. The band’s glory days are yet again overshadowed by ZZ Top.
ZZ Top made its first public appearance there. “The scene was that of a drugless rave,” Kinsey said. “We had black lights; we had strobes and overhead projectors. It was fantastic.”
Admission was 25 cents in the ’60s. Imagine “Where the Action Is” and “Hullabaloo” incarnate, albeit amateurish and fresh out of the garage.
Seeing the vintage photo of the Pipelines in the paper made me yearn to see a group photo of Captain Midnight, but, if he ever possessed one, my husband must have destroyed all evidence prior to our marriage.
The teaching-the-teachers workshop conflicted with the February 27 opening of a revitalized pocket park perched above the San Antonio River at Crofton and Constance, directly across the river from the Blue Star silos. Coincidentally, the historical materials Bill Perryman included for “River of Dreams” attendees included a Crofton Avenue reference from an oral history interview of H.T. Edwards Hertzberg conducted by Lupita Fernandez about the 1921 flood for the San Antonio Conservation Society:
The water was flowing down Crofton Ave. at least three feet deep and our house was sitting on piles just high enough not to be inundated.
Today, the Olmos Dam and a 16,200-foot-long flood tunnel keep Crofton and Constance safe from such dangers.
In addition to the public sponsors of the park re-do, the King William neighborhood association – thanks to thousands of volunteer hours and King William Fair-goers’ unselfish willingness to consume beer for a good cause – kicked in with a substantial donation to the San Antonio River Foundation.
The public/private partnership resulted in two wonderful faux bois benches crafted by Carlos Cortes, whose massive grotto in the Museum Reach invites exploration. If you can’t visit the grotto personally, explore it virtually via Flicker.
Postcards from Barton Springs 
