Cars, Taxis, Buses and (Gasp!) Walking

If you're curious about how people got around back in the late 1940s and early 1950s, it was just like it is today, only better. At least I think it was better.

Private cars, of course, but for those who couldn't afford to own a car there were plenty of other options. Taxi fares were very reasonable (dirt cheap by today's standards) and the same went for buses. If I remember correctly, bus fare was something like ten or fifteen cents on the city bus. Incidentally, instead of being called the T, as it is today, it was the Fort Worth Transit Company.

Walking wasn't done for exercise but was, instead, a perfectly normal…and safe… means of getting around. No one thought it unusual to walk half a mile or a mile to one of the few neighborhood groceries (a slightly larger version of what we now call convenience stores) and then walk back home carrying two or three large sacks (paper, not plastic) of groceries. When you needed to buy a large supply of groceries, or items that the neighborhood groceries never carried (such as candied fruit in bulk, not pre-packaged, for holiday fruitcakes) you took the bus downtown to Leonards Department Store (they had a huge grocery section on the ground floor, comparable to today's smaller supermarkets). After buying a full shopping basket of groceries (which might have cost you all of ten or twelve dollars, if that) you splurged and took a taxi home for the phenomenal sum of $1.50 or $2.00. For that price, two passengers rode and the taxi driver even helped unload the groceries from the taxi.

If you're wondering just how safe it really was in those days, consider the following. Many's the time my mother was waiting on a bus (which ran every fifteen minutes during peak periods) when a rank stranger driving down the street would stop and offer her a ride to work. That's it…just a ride to work. The person, either man or woman, was simply headed toward town and didn't see the point of leaving another person standing on the curb waiting for a bus. It was nothing more than simple consideration for a fellow human being. Once they got downtown, my mother would get out near the phone company to go to work, thank the person for the ride and go on, knowing she'd never see that person again.

Even more shocking by today's standards is the fact that when I seven and eight years old, it was commonplace for me to walk two blocks to the bus stop…by myself…ride the bus downtown and meet my mother for lunch at the phone company, maybe spend time in some of the shops downtown (particularly bookstores or newsstands), then ride the bus back home…alone. I was never bothered, assaulted, abducted or otherwise threatened by anyone. And believe me, I talked to any stranger that I happened to be near!

Oh, yeah, one other thing. Waiting for the bus out in the neighborhood was always fun because you could entertain yourself by catching and playing with Horned Toads. When the bus came, you put'em back on the ground or in the grass where you found them. And at night in the summer, fireflys were virtually epidemic. Try finding either one today!