Pages

Sunday, January 24, 2016

Sentimental Sunday: TAMU RPTS Stories: Hill Country Parks and a Wedding, May 1976

This isn't part of the scrapbook I was keeping as the 1976-77 Reporter-Historian for the Recreation and Parks Club at Texas A&M University, but it's an event that involved a number of graduates of that department, not to mention a couple state parks as well.



At the wedding reception:  Above from left:  Tomye Folts ('05, Master of Natural Resources Development '08), Karen Secrest (not RP), Steve Philipp (MS '75 and PhD '79, both in Recreation & Resource Development or RRD), Eva Zweifel ('71, MS RRD '76), Denise Abendschein ('76, not visible), and, across the table, Hap Weaver '76 and Curt Alling (MAg RRD '78).  In the photo below, the order from the left is Tomye, Denise, Steve, Karen, Eva, and (across the table) Curt and Hap.


These photos are from my personal album, or are images off color negatives (hence the poor quality of some).  The description comes from a letter I wrote to my long-time pen pal (also an Aggie) dated May 26, 1976:

Last weekend [May 21-23], I went to the wedding of Carolyn Vogel, RP '76 and the club's former social secretary, and Kenny Scheffer, RP '75.  It was in Stonewall.  Friday night after work I was picked up [in Houston] by Denise Abendschein, a senior and former club Recorder-Historian.  We drove to College Station that evening and spent the night with Tomye Folts, the former club secretary....we also went to the [Dixie] Chicken, where we...ran into Curt [Alling], who...was invited by Tomye to accompany us because he happened to mention that his roommate (Steve Philipp, another grad [student]), was living up there while working at LBJ National Historic Site...
We left College Station about 8 a.m. [Saturday] and arrived in Stonewall at 11 a.m.  We checked into the only motel in town ($14 for we three [girls]), which happened to be owned by the same lady who owned the trailer park Steve lived in.  The lady told us the wedding was at 3 p.m. - we thought it was 1 or 2!  So the five of us drove to Pedernales Falls State Park, about 20 miles east.  Wow, was it neat!  The river falls at about a 70 degree from horizontal angle and is fairly shallow, and the rocks it falls over are smooth--therefore, you can slide down the falls!  I wanted to really badly, but unfortunately I didn't bring a swimsuit.....

Above and below:  Steve and Curt slide down the falls at Pedernales Falls State Park.  Not surprisingly, the following year, the falls area was closed to swimming for safety reasons.


The "page 2" that is supposed to follow in the letter quoted from above is missing, but based on my photo album, it looks like we visited nearby Enchanted Rock before heading home on Sunday.  This was back before it became a State Natural Area under the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department (in 1978) and was under private ownership.  Note that the sign says admission for adults is 50 cents, and 25 cents for children:


At right is a not-so-good backlit picture of Carolyn on her wedding day.  About 18 years later, my parents retired and moved to Fredericksburg, just west of Stonewall.  This area is peach country in Texas, and Carolyn's family ran an orchard between Stonewall and Fredericksburg that my parents frequented, often seeing Carolyn there helping out when she was home visiting her family.

That was enough to keep us in touch, and when I was in Texas from Seattle for my parents' 50th wedding anniversary in September 2004 (and also here for the start of my library school program), Carolyn and I got together in Austin for lunch, pictured below.

Click on the links for the underlined names to find out what some of my old friends have been or currently are doing.



© Amanda Pape - 2016 - click here to e-mail me.

No comments:

Post a Comment