Friends Galleries

Baytown Lunch Bunch : These pictures are made of people who call ourselves the Baytown Lunch Bunch. This title is loosely defined to mean people who worked in Baytown at earlier times in their lives. Most (but not all) of them worked at Exxon in Baytown, Texas. Most (but not all) of them attended Baytown First Baptist Church. Now that we are no longer living and working in Baytown, we are mostly (but not all) retired and living in Central Texas in the Hill Country. There is no 'membership' card to be a part of this group. We have regular meetings of this group for lunch, usually (but not always) at a public restaurant in the greater New Braunfels/San Marcos/Wimberley/Austin area; hence the name "Baytown Lunch Bunch". A typical group for lunch will be 10 to 15 people, meeting at 12:30 PM for lunch. Needless to say, spouses and family of these people are considered to be part of the BLB community. The BLB came to be in the early-to-mid 90's, when many of us were retiring and moving to the Hill country to live. These pictures have been made mostly (but not all) by members of the BLB at different BLB lunches. Pictures here are arranged in chronological order, beginning with four photos of LaNell Stuart's 1973 house warming. The BLB had not been formed at this time, but LaNell (RIP) was the founding spirit and inspiration for the group.

Baytown Lunch Bunch

These pictures are made of people who call ourselves the Baytown Lunch ...

Updated: Aug 12, 2009 8:44pm PST

Allens and Whites in San Antonio : On July 13, 2009 our longtime friends from childhood days in Amarillo, Alden and Kathryn White, were in San Antonio for a day of vacation. So we met them at San Antonio's Sheraton Gunter Hotel for an afternoon of visiting and reminiscing. This album has pics of them and us, including pics of their daughter Charis and her family who were with them.

Allens and Whites in San Antonio

On July 13, 2009 our longtime friends from childhood days in Amarillo, ...

Updated: Jul 27, 2009 12:35pm PST

Stricklands Visit with the Allens in Florida, 1969 : What single event happened in 1969 which shook the world up? The landing of men on the moon! And where did this journey begin? From Cape Canaveral, Florida! We were there to see the launch of Apollo 11! This album of pics shows us, the Allens, hosting our good friends from Texas, the Stricklands, in our Miami, Florida pool. Then we took our campers and both families camped on the beach near the Space Center to watch the launch! This friendship continues today, 40 years later!

Stricklands Visit with the Allens in Florida, 1969

What single event happened in 1969 which shook the world up? The land ...

Updated: Jun 06, 2009 4:40am PST

Leavelles and Allens at Nimitz Symposium 2007 : This was a special occasion for me! I reconnected with two of my childhood friends and neighbors after a period of 65 years! The Leavelle family and the Allen family were next-door neighbors on East 12th Street in Amarillo, Texas until the Leavelles' moved away to another part of the city in 1942. We three, Harold Leavelle, Gene Leavelle, and myself, David Maurice Allen, never saw each other again until Sept 14, 2007, when we met as a result of a designed trip at the Nimitz Museum Symposium 2007 in Fredericksburg, Texas. These 8 pictures were taken at that time.

Leavelles and Allens at Nimitz Symposium 2007

This was a special occasion for me! I reconnected with two of my chil ...

Updated: Sep 17, 2007 7:57pm PST

Allen/Gibson Family Friendship : We became friends at Texas Tech, where Bob and Maurice were engineering students. Sue and Matha both worked at jobs in Lubbock while their husbands studied to be chemical engineers. All four of us went to high school at Amarillo High. Bob and Maurice both graduated with BS degrees in Chemical Engineering, and took jobs in the petroleum industry. We continued to be friends over the years. This album has pictures taken while we were at Tech, and a few pictures taken since when our two families met for visits. These pictures are taken from original 35mm slides, scanned to digital images from some not-so-good slides. Thank goodness for modern-day digital cameras! (Sue found three pictures in their photo archives from our 1958 visit, and I have added them to this album. Thanks, Sue.)

Allen/Gibson Family Friendship

We became friends at Texas Tech, where Bob and Maurice were engineerin ...

Updated: Aug 09, 2007 7:38pm PST

My visit with Billie and Owen Cameron, April 19-20, 2008 : I visited Billie and Owen Cameron at their home in Baytown, Texas April 19-20, 2008. I was returning to my home in San Marcos from a 2-week motorcycle trip to Alabama with my brother. Billie and Owen treated me like a king! They took me to dinner at El Torro Restaurant, put me up for the night, and fed me breakfast on Sunday morning! Billie and I were co-workers at various Exxon locations for the period 1955 (when I joined the Company at the Baytown Refinery) until Billie retired from Exxon's Baytown Olefins Plant in 1981. The pictures included here are ones I made during my visit. They include copies I made of pictures from Billie's retirement book. Billie, I am thrilled to see you doing so well in retirement! We must not let 27 years pass again without seeing each other!

My visit with Billie and Owen Cameron, April 19-20, 2008

I visited Billie and Owen Cameron at their home in Baytown, Texas Apri ...

Updated: Apr 29, 2008 3:31pm PST

Lunch with Billie and Owen on June 11, 2008 : These candid shots were pictures I made when my wife Matha and I met our good friends Billie and Owen for lunch at the Pier Restaurant on Lake Travis in June 2008.

Lunch with Billie and Owen on June 11, 2008

These candid shots were pictures I made when my wife Matha and I met o ...

Updated: Jul 16, 2008 7:36pm PST