Bill Shellorne:  

I was born at home on Alto St (now a vacant lot) in Alice, Texas, and had 5 sisters, 3 older, 2 younger. My father worked at an oil refinery near Banquete. My mother had a nursing degree. We had a great group of neighborhood guys: Peter Leyba, Morris Lobrecht, Raymond Garza, Ralph Garcia, "Bitsy" Garcia, Alonzo Herrera, etc. The only neighborhood girls I remember (besides my sisters) were Linda Hunt who lived next door on the right in pre-school days, and later, Sandra "Smokey" Beaver who lived next door on the left. I used to walk across town to Schallert Elementary where I was always getting in trouble. One time I was sent to the principal's office because I let some girls put lipstick on me. A friend and I once tied a guy to a tree at recess so that the teacher had to untie him later. I missed the last 3 months of 3rd grade when I was burned and in a hospital in Corpus Christi. Throughout my grade-school years, my teachers would mention how they had also taught my older sisters. After 6th grade, we moved to Banquete for a year (where I was crowned king of the school while Sherry Davenport was queen). My love interest there was Maria Louisa Garza. Then we moved back to a house (which is now under a supermarket) on E Second St in Alice while I attended Dubose Jr High and Wm Adams High. I remember the day in 8th grade when a girl shot a boy in science class (I think it was Mr Schneider's) over a love triangle. And they say school shootings are new! It's just that back then it was personal instead of random. At Wm Adams, I was president of the Science Club. I remember that day in Mr O'Rear's class in '63 when they announced over the PA about Kennedy's assassination. While living on Alto, we saw movies at an old theater on S Reynolds which cost 10 cents. Later, we went to the Rialto on Main where they were 25 cents and Diane Daily sold popcorn. I was once treated to a midnight showing of 2 of my favorite movies of all time, "Thunder Road" with Robert Mitchum, and "Blood and Roses" with Annette Vadim. And, of course, we went to the Buckhorn Drive-In where the movies were free (if you fit in the trunk) and they gave away free speakers (if you had wire cutters). Many memorable make-out sessions there, extending several years beyond graduation. My best friends throughout my school years were Bill Flowers and George Wyche. I met Bill because my older sisters knew his older brothers. Bill and I had a lot of adventures together, like cave exploring, parakiting, stock car racing, etc. We would fill large plastic bags with natural gas which caused them to rise like helium. Then, we would attach a slow dynamite fuse to them and let them go at night. They would float over Alice and then produce a large ball of fire. It got into the Alice Daily Echo once: "Street Scene What HO! The Crowd Doth Moves in Divers Way. "Area officers lawmen (sic) checked out reports of a fiery glow northeast of Freer Thursday night but had obtained no answers today. "First reports were received by the Alice Police Department about 8:30 p.m. The caller said he saw a 'ball of fire' north and west of Alice. "Duvall County Constable Reese Hughes said the glow appeared to be about 15 or 20 miles northeast of Freer. Hughes said he had ruled out the possibility of the fire being around an oil rig in a check with a pipeline station in the area. "No aircraft were reported missing in a check of surrounding towns." About half of my good friends in Alice are now dead: drowning, car accident, murder, natural causes, etc. If you are reading this, then you are most likely alive. For my senior year, I had an old '54 Buick Century that I bought for $100 and painted it blue. It needed a lot of work and I learned a lot about fixing cars. When I was young, we attended an old wooden church which I think was somewhere on Second St. When they built the new Immanuel Lutheran Church on N Texas Blvd, we attended it. I was an altar boy, attended Sunday school, and was in youth groups. I have yet to hear a pipe organ as magnificent as theirs. I'd like to return someday to hear it, if it's still there. We had freezing temperatures every winter in Alice, but it seldom snowed. In fact, it only snowed twice during my first 18 years. The first time was in Feb on Lincoln's birthday while I was in 5th grade or earlier. I woke up early one morning and looked out the window and there was snow covering everything and I said to myself, "Yeah, sure," but in the morning it was still there! (I had never seen snow before.) The second time was exactly 7 years later on Lincoln's birthday while I was in high school. After I graduated from high school, we moved to Corpus Christi where I attended Del Mar College for 2 years (pre-engineering). Again, I was president of the Science Club. Then, 1n 1966, I moved to Austin to attend the University of Texas. To help pay my way, I w...Expand for more