In the late 1950s, Houston’s metropolitan bus service didn’t reach out nearly as far as it does today. So, a laborious transportation process was my tricky, no-missed-deadline method for getting to the University of Houston for classes and a job.
After two years at Sam Houston State (then) Teachers College in Huntsville and a year’s interruption of my education to earn enough money to continue, I transferred to the UH where I could live with relatives economically, still work and continue my studies.
My Aunt Olga, Mother’s sister, and her family lived in northeast Houston — the hinterlands in those days — and to reach the University, it took an hour and a half and involved a transfer from the privately owned Pioneer Bus Lines to Houston Rapid Transit downtown. HRT carried me to the campus on Cullen Boulevard, just off the Gulf Freeway (also known as IH-45 South).
Aunt Olga’s house was just over a mile from the end of the Pioneer route that ended downtown. Pioneer indeed.
That necessitated that my aunt and her son, Lowery, drive me to the end-of-line bus stop for the ride to connect with the city bus line to the campus. The area near their home — close to a major Northeast Houston street, Laura Koppe — was the area in which the then notorious Laura Koppe Gang, allegedly led by one Pug Barfield, operated.
The gang would catch unknowing, ill-prepared and defenseless pedestrians, then beat them unmercifully and rob them.
Economic needs were aided to a large degree by a Houston Press Club scholarship for my junior year. Still, working was necessary to finance my education.
My day at UH began at 8 a.m. with my $1-per-hour job as secretary-receptionist-job placement director (yep, what of it!) for the journalism-graphic arts department. That required catching a 6:30 bus a mile from Olga’s house, which put me out at the Pioneer station downtown and then walking to an HRT stop to catch the bus to UH. I then had to jog about 200 yards with a full load of books and a sack lunch to get to J-GA on time to start my job.
Part of my duties also included compiling a syndicated column from microfilm copies of 1860s and 70s Texas newspapers. It was then mailed to 150 subscribing Lone Star State papers.
The job ended at 1 p.m. at which time I had a two-day-a-week, $5 job as copy editor of the student newspaper. Three afternoons a week, I was a commissioned ad sales representative for a suburban weekly newspaper.
Then, it was back to the campus for two classes an evening (Monday-Thursday), 6-9:30, then sprint to the HRT bus stop to catch the last bus downtown which would get me there in time to catch the final Pioneer “stage coach” home. There, a mile from the house, Olga and Lowery would wait in the car, windows rolled up and no air-conditioning. Lowery sat there with a baseball bat in his lap in hopes that they’d never be challenged since it was probably not enough to face off a gang.
Friday was strictly a daytime schedule with work and no classes. The first year, though, there was a Saturday morning class of three hours duration, then a bus home to an afternoon job as a commissioned salesman in a men’s store at a nearby mall. The owner taught me to hold a pair of slacks for a customer and say, “Nice material.”
My senior year, 1959-60, Dad helped me buy a 1952 Chevrolet coupe and I had a full-time job as general manager of the aforementioned suburban newspaper, attending night classes four nights a week. I actually had Saturday’s off.
No more bus riding. I certainly didn’t miss it a bit.
Willis Webb is a retired community newspaper editor-publisher of more than 50 years experience.
wwebb@att.net.
