My Real Life...from Skating Rinks to Nightclubs (Part 1)

I was born on a snowy 14th of February 1968. In Wichita Falls, Texas. I was supposedly a valentine from my Mom to my Dad. Mom swears I didn't crack a smile until I was six months old so they called me horrible Howard.  My Dad worked for an optician and my Mom, a floral designer, still one of the best in Wichita Falls. Her real passion is writing. She has been a writer since I can remember and has written several books. She recently published two books, Come Hell Or High Water and The Hell About Stallions. You can find them by searching Paula A. Bruno.

Around 1977 my Dad got a job at a new plant being built just outside Wichita Falls called PPG or Pittsburgh Paint and Glass.

His new job afforded us a home in University Park. It was a three bedroom brick house with a garage. The house we were leaving in Sunnyside was a small two bedroom house with a carport that my parents bought from my Grandmother's foster mother, Bobbie. Deidre and I shared a room that was bright red with a bunk bed (i slept on the upper bunk). Hanging on the wall of our tiny room was the now famous red swimsuit Farrah poster. I bought it at the mall at Spencer gifts for $2.50. This is where we lived from approx 1970-1978. Our phone number was 767-7283 and our address was 1670 Hawes Wichita Falls, Texas 76303. Prior to the place on Hawes we lived in a small house at 1318 34th st. About a week before Christmas 1969 my parents and I were at a drive in movie. Upon returning we turned down our street and saw fire trucks and lights at our house. It had completely burned. We lost everything including our cat which was found under the bed burned to death. Luckily I was too young to remember any of this happening. We stayed at both grandma's (Bop'and MawMaw) places for a couple of weeks or so until my parents got us moved to the house on Hawes.

In this 1974 pic, taken after my Uncle Bruce Bruno's wedding, are (lr) Ronnie Griffin with my Aunt Becky, Uncle Jerry Bruno and Aunt Kay. Kay was the manager at a bank in Geronimo, OK. Sadly she was killed in 1984 during a bank robbery. Two guys came into the bank and were evidently denied a loan. As the two men were leaving they said something rude and words were exchanged between the men and my aunt. A little while later the two men returned with guns and knives and killed nearly everyone in the bank. More on the Geronimo Bank Robbery later or go here. The boy in the white shirt and cast on his arm is another uncle, John Bruno. My mom (Paula), me, my dad (Ronnie Sr.), my cousin Donna (Kay and Jerry's daughter), Uncle Bruce and new 14 year old wife (Tanya Sue Bell Bruno) and finally my sister Dee Dee (Deidre).

For as long as I can remember I've always been interested music. As I grew up I would imagine these explosive all night parties where everyone was family and the fun never seemed to end. I got a lot of these ideas from things like the Studio 54 album and shows I would see on television. Since 1976 I have been a huge fan of Farrah Fawcett. It was what I thought every American woman should look like...the hair the teeth the carefree attitude. In 1978 as we had just settled into our new neighborhood on the southwest side of Wichita Falls. One day, while sizing us up from her yard next door, was future friend and new neighbor Stacey Lawrence. After a few minutes she yells, "Which one of you is the boy and which one is the girl?" Looking back a few years later I understood her confusion. Deidre was eight and I was ten. Deidre was topless in the front yard shooting birds with a bb gun. She had short messy brown hair and buck teeth. I however, had perched myself on the top step of our new front porch. My blonde hair was feathered back and to my shoulders. I was reading an article on Farrah in a Teen Beat magazine. I guess Stacey was asking a legitimate question really.

Deidre and I started the 1978-79 school year at our new school Jefferson elementary. I in the fifth grade Deidre the third. I quickly made friends, being the new kid, especially with the girls. After a while the other boys started to resent me. My disinterest in sports and the fact that I wasn't exactly the most masculine of the bunch didn't help matters. Enter football player and Mr popular (and my new best friend of a few months) Eric. He was a really cute kid with thick black hair, tan and cute smile. Most weekends we would stay over at one or the other's place. I remember walking all over his neighborhood one day with a portable 8 track player with the Village People blaring out of it. We would usually stay up late watching Steve Martin on Saturday Night Live. As time went on we silently became more fond of each other. It wasn't uncommon for me to wake up with Eric's arms and legs around me. Which I liked but was too afraid to acknowledge.  I remember waking up one Sunday morning to him tickling me and him calling me little Howie!

On April 10, 1979...now known as TERRIBLE TUESDAY. Eric's grandmother dropped us off about noon to Sikes Center Mall to see the new Superman movie with Christopher Reeve. When she picked us up she told us there was really bad weather coming our way. Was it ever. Just the thought of a tornado had always fascinated but terrified me. I got home and watched the constant weather updates on KAUZ TV Channel 6.  Lynn Walker, Kay Shannon and Rich Segal were anchors looking very nervous as it became more and more evident that this thing was huge (a mile and a half wide at some points) and headed straight toward the city.

   At about 6:03 pm the power went off. My Dad was standing in the bed of his 1978 Silverado pickup trying to see the tornado. I walked out onto the front porch and noticed the sky was turning orange in the direction the storm was coming. My dad yelled very sternly to get back into the house. The tone in his voice was enough to scare the crap out of me because it was seldom I ever heard fear and panic in my dad's voice, if ever up until that day. We sandwiched into the hall closet as the roar became louder. One of us yelled for TJ our doberman. If I remember correctly, during all the panic, she ran out into the backyard barking and there was no time to chase after her. As the house shook I was just waiting to be hurled out onto the ground outside. All I remember hearing was the roar of the wind and all four of our voices saying, "Oh God!" After approximately three minutes we opened the door. Our house was nearly unrecognizable. Broken glass from every window and door with mud and debris covering everything we owned. Once outside the destruction was unbelievable. Uprooted trees, cars turned in every direction and upside down. The further down our street you walked the more houses were destroyed leaving only the inner walls or less. Many houses were completely flattened. My dad ran up to the main intersection two blocks from our house to see if any help was needed. Some people were trapped in their vehicles. He and another guy picked up a car using a piece of wood as leverage. Under the car they found a woman shaking from shock and the sight of her husband dead beside her.

There was an unrecognizable odor in the air and a dusty haze over everything. As we stumbled through debris the hardest rain I had ever seen came down. Huge drops with no wind for about two minutes. Then the sun came out for just a few minutes revealing the destruction and then leaving the city pitch black. The sound of military rescue helicopters circled all through the night as well as the sound of different relatives calling out in fear that we might not all be ok. You could hear them calling our names blocks before reaching our house. The voices seemed to echo and became more frantic as they got closer and saw all the damage. Then the sighs of releif as they were told we were all fine.

The amount of relief and help from the Red Cross, various volunteer groups, and the government was incredible. For about a month or so trucks with catered food drove down our street 3 times a day to make sure we had food. The government provided thousands of temporary trailer homes for the homeless. They would either deliver it to your destroyed home if you planned to rebuild or it was parked in Kawanis Park, two blocks from our house. It was surreal to see all of the white trailers, cloned as far as you could see, in perfect alignment. Then after a few months the trailer park started shrinking. They had a hell of a time getting some of those trailers returned. The temp trailer park became an annoyance and a nuisance to the city. Seems like they eventually had to come and run the remaining dwellers out of Kawanis Park and seize the trailers .

Since the tornado had wiped out our junior high school we would endure one more year at Jefferson Elementary (pic at left). As 6th graders we would have normally started attending McNiel Jr High. The 7th and 8th graders had to be moved to nearby Rider High School.

One of my best friends in the sixth grade, Stephanie T, lived around the corner from us so we usually went to school together. Stephanie was adopted by her Aunt Bo. She was a bit different than the other girls. I liked her. She wore really nice clothes and was knowledgeable in fashion.  She wore LuvIt jeans with all the designs on the pockets and cuffed them at the ankle. My favorite pair had gold records on the pocket and "DISCO" inscribed on them as well. Stephanie was also really funny. We would spend hours in class breaking rules - eating candy, laughing at things our teacher or other students would do or say. It seems like Steph and I laughed through an entire year of classes. We did get caught at least once eating candy which resulted in the two of us having to stay after school and write I WILL NOT EAT IN CLASS a few hundred times each before we were allowed to leave school that day. We often hung out evenings in my room playing records or roller skated around the neighborhood. Music was always the biggest part of our entertainment. At the end of my sixth grade year I threw a party in my parents backyard. My dad hung colored lights from the top of the trees. Some of the kids paired off and were kissing in the dark corners of the yard. I played 45 rpm singles all night, well until midnight at least. I remember playing Shalamar's Second Time Around and Full Of Fire, Gary Numan's Cars and Anita Ward's Ring My Bell.