2007 BOOK AWARD WINNER
Mel's Books












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SAN ANTONIO PHOTO ALBUMS

SAN ANTONIO IN VINTAGE POSTCARDS
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This is an album of antique and vintage postcards depicting historic San Antonio, Texas from the turn of the 20th century until the 1960s. Chapters include the old Spanish missions especially the legendary Alamo. Another chapter features the downtown area with its hotels, railroad depots, theaters, and parks, etc. Others show scenes of schools and universities found in colorful San Antonio as well as its lively Battle of Flowers Parade and Fiesta held each April to celebrate Texas independence from Mexico. GARRISON TOWN is the chapter full of military scenes from the four USAF bases and historic old Fort Sam Houston home to the US Army since 1876. The last chapter has modern views of some of those places seen in the old postcards to show what has changed and what has not.
















Each of Mel's books can be ordered directly from him by writing to; melbjr@earthlink.net

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WINGS Over San Antonio is another photo album with over 200 images from private colections and military archives. Each of the first four chapters gives ample photographic coverage of the city's historic flying fields beginning with Fort Sam Houston in 1910. Following chapters cover Kelly, Brooks and Randolph Fields as they became the core of instruction for U. S. Army flight training from WW I until WW II and beyond. Those chapters also detail non-training missions of the bases as they evolved along with American airpower. The final chapter takes a look at the theatrical films made at those sites beginning with 1927's WINGS, the first winner of an Oscar for Best Motion Picture of the Year. Also shown are WESTPOINT OF THE AIR and I WANTED WINGS from 1934 and 1941 respectively. Each of those films supplied Hollywood's version of the training and social lives of America's fledgling pilots before WW II from the Golden Age of movies and Army aviation.