I don't have the energy either....but I could enjoy sipping a cocktail at the Adolphus and watching the crowds and traffic go by.
So WTF do fans do? Now it's been awhile since my days of opening a window at the Baker and screaming **** at okies but I assumed the baton had been passed. I stay in Las Colinas and drive through downtown to my prime parking spot on Saturday. I guess it does seem a little clean but sure hate to think the troopers from Texas and okiehoma are no longer marching up and down Commerce drinking and having fun. Hell, I guess next thing they will want to do is move the whole celbration to Jerryworld so that pig ******* can charge for everything prior,during and after THE TEXAS/ou GAME!
my uncle, who graduated from UT in the late 60's (was there when Whitman went crazy) told my mother when I was a high school senior getting ready to attend The University, that anyone has never attended an ousux-Texas game until they threw a commode out of their hotel on Commerce street (and no, I didn't do it)...
What stops us from going there? He11, the west end was a dismal failure. Maybe if I could get the okie boards and the TX boards to go to Commerce we could reinvigorate a lost tradition. There sure isn't anything else that Compares with the old days on commerce. There
We did throw a lawn chair off the top of the Statler Hilton in 72 or 73. Cops rushed to the top but only found a couple making out. That lawn chair luckily fell between 2 cars on commerce and crushed like an accordion. Ahh, the good ole days.
So you and your g/f pulled a bobby knight, and then hid from the cops in plain sight by just making out until they got there? Sounds like a good deal...
I don't know if I am still up for it, but we cruised up and down Commerce and Main every year for hours. It was a blast. So many memories. The first year my dad took me downtown was 1963, and we got there too early, no one was out, so we went to "How the West was Won" at the Cinerama theatre. Four hours later we walked around the corner where the Adolphus was, and the event was in full swing. The very first thing I saw was a television set descending from an upper balcony, crashing in the middle of the intersection. The first people to stroll by were chanting, "OU F___ YOU! OU F___ YOU!" My father had told me I wouldn't believe how wild it got down there, and he was right.
It was wild. A shame some thugs help put an end to it. 700 cops (or so I was told) were lining the streets back then. Now many of us old time Sooners and Horns meet at Ozona's on Friday Night before the game. A bit more subdued.
so when was the last yr they allowed the "parade" on Commerce before shutting it down?? my last jaunt down there had to be '84 or '85...
Yup, we were still doing it in the early 90s. But I've heard it ended because the local Dallas gangs started showing up and it got too violent, not the rah-rah college rivalry kind of stuff, but much worse. The Dallas police shut it all down at that point. If that's wrong I'm sure someone will correct me...
Somebody got killed by thugs....I can't remember whether it was an OU fan, TX fan or just some innocent bystander. But that is what caused the shift to the west end. You would think that 700 cops lining commerce would make the gangs leery of starting trouble. I don't see how moving it to the West End would keep thugs from showing up there, either.
I was there with some friends ('88, I think) and I started teasing one of them-- can't remember why. So he JOKINGLY says, "you want to settle this?" and we started shoving each other. The police apparently missed the part where we were laughing. The next thing I knew, my buddy was at the bottom of a Dallas PD dogpile and I was face to face with a cop who had the baton high over his head and screaming, "Get on the ground!" So everybody settles down and gets back to their feet, and my friend is protesting, "We was just playin'! That's my best friend!" and the police all turned to me for my response. To him: "Whatever, dude." And then turning to the police, "That guy jumped me." Alcohol was involved, btw. Shocking, huh?
You were playing with fire there Alcohol being involved on Commerce? Can't imagine that. Amazing how different Saturday night following the game on Commerce was vs Friday night. The losers are quiet (or gone) and the winners are too tired or too hanging to make much noise.
Heck. Am I the only one who remembers the Friday night parties at the Dallas Convention Center Arena? From 10 p.m. to 4 a.m., continuous live music on two floors; one quart per person (couple?) and no ID's were checked; social groups from Texas and OU would actually share tables with other groups or with their respective counterparts from the other campus. It was great, and the only arrests were those who got out of hand inside the Arena (and there were student "chaperones" to help control the crowd), or who ventured out and got in trouble on the way home. Commerce Street was crowded, but more with people going elsewhere. (I can remember passing out salty dogs to passengers in other cars in the slow traffic through the Farmer's Market area.) It was great - started to decline when some students (I think I remember who, but won't say here) decided to have a competing affair at the Dallas Market Hall. From there the parties at the Arena were discontinued, and the real partying flooded onto Commerce Street. Ah, the good ole days.
How far back are you going with the Convention Center? I was on Commerce in the early 60's with my Dad and it was chaos way back then.
My friend and I take his sister with us in 78. Drunk as a skunk she decides to get out of the car and walks up the street kissing the driver in every car stuck on the street in the traffic. We lose her and get worried and start checking the jails and hospitals. Somehow someone drops her off about 3:00 AM and she was not raped. Man was she lucky someone took care of her and brought her home.
Yes, I went to the Texas-OU parties at the convention center. Never forget, took my high school girlfriend, out strolls the headliner-Doug Clark and the Hot Nuts, with his signature song, "Hot Nuts." Wild and crazy group, kind of like Otis Day and the Knights, except more profane.
