Reflections on the death of the Queen of England.
As a child, about age 10, my family moved from St Louis to Austin. My father's boss/mentor/friend was Don Williamson. Both worked for American Liberty Oil Company. They worked out of a two man American Liberty office at an old office building on the NE corner of 6th and Congress. The Littlefield Building. It is a building that is now pretty rare in that they had their own DC electric supply. 12vdc, as I recall. So, appliances used in the building had to run on 12vdc.
It has been relatively easy to identify the period during which we moved to Austin. We had our first TV viewing experiences in St Louis, which had at least three TV stations at the time. So, a TV set was in our household goods moved to Austin. The first Austin TV station, KTBC, was still about 6 months away from broadcasting at the time of our move. A big early Austin advertiser was Willie Kocureck, father to Neil. He ran an appliance store. "You don't need money! Just a little bit a month". We lived in Austin around 10 years before KTBC, owned by the LBJ family, finally allowed other stations to get licenses.
The Williamsons were more affluent than we were and we got a lot of hand-me-downs from them. I recall a wood Old Town canoe complete with small outboard motor and an upright piano. For some reason, unknown to me, the Williamsons were anglophiles. Probably due to some wartime experiences. Anyway, they decided to make the trip to England for Elizabeth's coronation. They brought back MANY coronation tourist souvenirs and distributed them to friends. We had a printed/painted platter for a long while. I wish I could say I knew what became of it. I think it was Don that gave me an autographed Dana X Bible football. I mistreated by using and treating it like a common football. Eventually, I lost it.
I had a QE commemorative tea cup for sale on eBay for many months. It finally sold yesterday. I had forgotten about it.
ReplyDeleteSad news of the death of Queen Elizabeth. It is like losing a family member. I remember singing God Save The Queen for the first time, standing with all of the students in the Central Butte, SK school lobby where each morning the entire school gathered before class. We sang the British National Anthem and O Canada, then said the Lord's Prayer before going to classes. Until the death of her father, George VI in 1952, we had been singing God Save the King and were told of the lyric change that day. She has been my queen for nearly all of my life.
ReplyDelete