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‘The main attraction …was the Coca-Cola sign’
By Mary Elizabeth Felscher Fleming
Published July 27, 2003
It was the summer of 1943 and a storm was brewing in the Gulf of Mexico. I was 11 years old.
My dad, Erwin Felscher, was the manager of the Crystal Palace Amusement Parlor at 23rd Street and Seawall Boulevard.
It was the practice of my family, and members of other families whose dads worked at the bingo parlor, to gather up bedding and food and head to the building where they knew they would be safe. The building was two stories and made of stucco, I think. It was a very strong building that housed a dance hall upstairs and a restaurant on the corner. The front of the building had floor-to-ceiling windows, and the adults and the children would watch the storm blow in and the gulf come crashing over the seawall, along with all types of debris.
There were huge trees from who knows where, as well as small boats and stairs and pilings from the buildings built across the seawall.
The main attraction, if you can call it that, was the large Coca-Cola sign across the street attached to the side of the Buccaneer Hotel. The adults would all try to guess the time the sign would come crashing down.
There we would be, weathering out a storm that no one knew how strong it was going to be when it came ashore, but gambling on the strength of the wind and the weakness of the sign.
After awhile the winds calmed, the rain stopped and the sun came out. The eye was over Galveston. Everyone was outside checking the destruction. But we all knew it was just a lull in the weather. The hurricane would be back in full force in just minutes.
Mary Elizabeth Felscher Fleming League City
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