Small
World
Tuesday, April 21, 2015
A vintage picture was posted
to the “Alamo Senior High Friends” Facebook group by Deb Engel which showed the
old “Happy Booker” building on 10th Street, which used to be across
the street from what used to be “Yucca Newsstand”. The old Happy Booker building was torn down
to make way for the “Alamogordo Founders Park”.
I only knew within the last decade that the artist of the Founders Park
was Ernie-Lee Miller. Ernie-Lee’s
daughter, Tonya (Miller) Williamson, and my Dad used to work out at Ratscat, a
division of Dynalectron. Tonya’s
husband, Rick, is the contractor who built the housing subdivision, Alamo
Heights, where I currently live. Rick
was only about 25 years old when he and Tonya lived across the street from me,
in the first house in our neighborhood.
Our house, the 2nd house in the neighborhood, was just a slab
of concrete with the framing laying on it when Rick and Tonya got settled in
their new house. It just happens that
the street I live on, McDonnell Drive, is connected to “Holloman Boulevard” to
the Northeast and “Martin Boulevard” to the Southwest.
I had the privilege of being
friends with Terry Clarke, the late proprietor of the “Happy Booker”, and his
girlfriend, Maria Divet. Maria’s
daughter, Maria (Divet) Wagner, was called “Little Maria” by Terry and
Maria. My friend Russ and I used to go
to “Gigi’s Pizza” regularly to eat at the buffet with Terry and Maria. Now, Terry, Maria, and even the proprietor of
Gigi’s, Willie Gower, have passed on.
Terry wasn’t a “dirty man” as some might think for owning his adult book/adult
video store. Terry told me that he was
in the right place at the right time when a friend was selling his business,
and Terry was financially able to buy his friend out, so he did. Terry was also a news broadcaster for radio
station KALG, Alamogordo. I thought that
with those call letters, that station would have been perfect for my dad, Al
Goddard, if my dad had been in the radio broadcasting business. As it was, my dad was an Extra Class Ham
Radio Operator who received his license in 1937, during his junior year of High
School at North Denver High School.
Terry was also a founding member of the Otero County Crime Stoppers
program. Here’s a link to a letter
(dated June 1, 1959) Terry sent to Edward J. Ruppelt (see Ruppelt’s bio on “Wikipedia”)…
http://www.nicap.org/docs/571104orogrande_letter.htm
regarding a local UFO sighting.
Happy 50th
Birthday today (April 21, 2015) to a “Todd McCracken” living in Texas. I found this Todd McCracken listed as a
friend of a Leslie Ewell on Facebook.
Leslie’s wife, Duanna Bryson Ewell, liked a picture of a “MACE missile”
posted by Scott Christie, to the “Alamo Senior High Friends” Facebook group.
The name “Todd McCracken”
brought back memories of my living at 1812 Crescent Drive in Alamogordo. My family and I moved to Crescent Drive in
the summer of 1976. The McCracken family
lived across the street from us. Todd
was a classmate of mine and the 1979 Chaparral Junior High yearbook page
showing Todd is posted separately. Todd
has an older brother Rick. Members of the McCracken family were Pioneers in this
area, including Cloudcroft and Timberon. Todd’s grandfather, Manson Wright
McCracken, even worked with another local area Pioneer, Buster Lane. My classmate Todd McCracken is now the
president of the NSBA, the “National Small Business Association”. Here’s a link to a page showing Todd talking
with President Obama… http://smallbizbeat.smc.org/business-calendar/nsba-president-todd-mccracken-carries-small-business-message-white-house/
. My classmate Todd McCracken is not the
Todd McCracken from Texas. My classmate
Todd currently resides in Virginia.
The Norton family lived next
door to us at 1814 Crescent. The Ford
family (including Michael and his sister Michelle, if I am remembering their
names correctly) lived a few houses down to the South of us (on the same side
of the street), as did the Severson family.
Kids in the neighborhood used to ride bicycles in the empty field which
is now occupied by houses on Crescent from 15th Street to 18th
Street. A few doors to the North of us
on the same side of the street lived the McGeeHee family, including daughter
Vivian, whose picture is posted separately from this letter. Around the bend on Crescent where the street
runs to the West, the Sheahan family lived (on the North side of the street),
with their son Steve, another classmate of mine. I sent my condolences to Melissa Zaleski (her
Facebook name), on the recent (February 2015) and sudden death of her brother
Luther in a pedestrian accident. I knew
it was “Missy” when I found her pic on Facebook, just by seeing her Auburn
hair. Her brother Henry and I used to
rock hunt and hike in the area just East of Scenic Drive at 18th
Street, which was a big desert. Another
school classmate, Michael Yannacone and his younger brother “Tigger”, used to
live on the Northeast corner of 18th Street and Scenic. The Collins family lived next door to the
Yannacones. John Collins is a little
older than me and has a younger brother, Leslie. Their mother might be the “Mrs. Collins”
pictured with a very young Vivian McGeeHee.
On the Northwest corner of 18th Street and Scenic lived my
Elementary School girlfriend, Brenda Bazel, “B.B” as I called her, and her family. Her father was a local contractor named True “Bob”
Bazel. I couldn’t help but notice on an
obituary for Bob Bazel I found on the Internet, that Bob and his wife were
married on October 20th. As
most people who have been following my Family History, the date “October 20” is
significant in three ways… 1) October 20, 1835 (the date my great great
grandmother, Mary Ann Pace, was born)… 2) October 20, 1850 (the date when Mary
Ann’s family arrived with other families in the area and founded the town which
would be named “Payson, Utah”, after her father, James Pace… and 3) the date my
next oldest brother, Tom Goddard, was born.
Brenda is now “Brenda Hampel” on Facebook. I met Brenda one day while I was squatting
down in the alley behind Crescent Drive, just a few feet from 18th
Street. I was collecting ants (at an
anthill) for my horny toads (horned lizards) and she was bringing out the trash
to put it in the dumpster.
Leslie Ewell might even be a
distant cousin of mine. My “Scott”
family is descended from Henry Ewell, whose property is supposedly the property
on which the “Old Oaken Bucket” well was located. Henry’s wife, Sarah (Annable) Ewell, was the “Heroine”
of the Indian Attack on Scituate, Massachusetts in 1676. As the story goes, Sarah noticed some Indians
approaching her house and left in a hurry, giving alarm to the nearby garrison,
where she took shelter. In her hasty
abandonment of her house, she left her grandson, John Northey, lying in his
cradle. The Indians came in to the house
and only took her bread out of her oven, then left. Sarah returned to her house later to find her
grandson still sleeping in his cradle, safe and sound. The Indians returned later that day to burn
the house down. See “Wikipedia” for reference to the “Old Oaken Bucket” poem
and its author, Samuel Woodworth, whose step-mother, Betty Northey, was a
descendant of John Northey.
Next Post… I will mention two
“Goddard” family lines, which I have found to be unrelated, and the New Mexico
history of my Goddard family. Also in my
next post I will mention “KRWG”, call letters for a Las Cruces, New Mexico-based
TV and FM radio station, named for “Ralph Willis Goddard”.
… My nephew Thomas Goddard’s fondness
for the Chevrolet brand of vehicles, and Family History relating to William
Durant, Co-Founder of Chevrolet Motors, along with partner, Louis-Joseph
Chevrolet.
