Kress Sandwich Shop... the Venus and Globe Theaters... Weingarten's Supermarket... Fitzgerald's Texaco... Weiner's Clothing... Blakey's Drugstore... Burt's Meat Market... Trahan's...

To those of us who grew up during the 50's and 60's in the part of east Houston called Denver Harbor, these are familiar names. They are the businesses that lined Lyons Avenue, Denver Harbor's main artery - the places where our parents took us when they bought the week's groceries or had the family car serviced; the places where we young adolescents savored summer afternoon milkshakes, or turned in the pop bottles we had scavenged, for their deposit.

On Friday nights we biked to "The Hat" - El Sombrero Mexican Restaurant - and wolfed down dripping enchiladas, and on Saturday afternoons after fabulously greasy burgers at Kress's (five for a dollar), we huddled in the last row of the Venus or Globe and peered through finger-slits at horror movie double features and cliffhanger serials.

Later when we grew into teenagers and had our own cars and the freedom to go where we wanted, we still returned to these familiar places to eat, shop, watch movies. Saturday nights begun in distant nightspots on the far side of Houston would be capped off by a 2:00 a.m. breakfast at the S & T Grill on Wallisville Road.

Home turf.

We went to school at Resurrection Catholic, Eliot Elementary, Pugh Elementary, McReynolds Junior High. We played pickup baseball and football at White Reilly Field, Denver Harbor Park, countless unnamed vacant lots. We were Polish, Hispanic, Czech, Irish, Italian, all of the above, none of the above. We were Catholic, Lutheran, Baptist, Pentecostal. Whatever.

Overriding it all was the fact that we shared the same neighborhood genealogy: we were from Denver Harbor . "Podunk" as it was known to the rest of Houston.

We were blue-collar: "lower middle class", as our folks put it, perhaps a bit too generously. Our fathers worked for a "living wage" at Englewood Yards, the vast rail complex that formed Podunk's northern boundary, or at the factories and warehouses along the Ship Channel a few miles to the south. Or at Hughes Tool, or as truckdrivers or bus drivers, or as carpenters, or welders, or pipe-fitters.

The point is, they worked.

They didn't complain. They didn't picket city hall when times were lean. They simply went to work every day and put food on the table. And if there were a few dollars left over when summer rolled around, they took us on vacations to Kerrville, or San Antonio, or Dallas.

They were good men, the very best. It has been hard to measure up to their legacy.

In those pre-liberated days, many Moms stayed home and took care of the family. They worked no less hard than their spouses, and Lord knows, most of the time her hours were longer than his. But they didn't complain either. They, too, simply went to work every day and put food on the table. And got us up, clothed, and off to school on time. And nursed us when we were sick. And comforted us when we ached with unseen wounds of the heart.

Their legacy has been no less enduring.

We loved them dearly, though at times we didn't show it or even realize it. Now that we do, for many of us it's too late to let them know.

* * *

Funny, the whole time we were growing up there, we couldn't wait to get out: we saw how others lived in Memorial and Braeswood, and we wanted that for ourselves

And yet...

Along with the twinge of embarassment we sometimes felt in the company of kids from the "better" parts of town, there was also just the slightest bit of... pride? We knew that those same kids who might look down on us for where we lived, also viewed us with a certain respectful fascination. We were from Denver Harbor - Podunk. And "...man, it don't get no badder than Podunk..." We had a reputation.

* * *

Most of those businesses are gone from Denver Harbor now, along with most of us. What remains is the memory of simpler times, when kids could walk ten blocks at night, alone, to a movie. When Halloween had not yet been targeted as a time for madness by perverts with apples and razor blades. When you knew your neighbors, and doors didn't have peepholes and security chains.

And yet, in spite of the problems my old neighborhood shares with many others, hope survives alongside those memories. It is one commodity people in Denver Harbor have never lacked for. And maybe that, as much as anything, is the glue that binds us to our shared neighborhood genealogy.

Today, Denver Harbor is undergoing a rebirth, at least partly through the efforts of a strong civic association coupled with concerned and active representation in Austin. I am told the neighborhood remains family-oriented, and that new brick homes and schools are being built. That's good.

The purpose of this website is to provide a place for those of us who at one time or other called Denver Harbor home to relive and share memories, and maybe reestablish old acquaintances. I write about the fifties and sixties because those are "my" Denver Harbor years. They're all I know. But there are others of you out there with Podunk memories also, from other times. Please. Let us hear from you.

Read. Enjoy. Drop a line if you have some memories of your own to share.