Galveston Lore, Legend, & Downright Lies

Part history, part folklore, with a hearty dash of gossip, Gini Fendler-Brown's five-minute "Love Letters" are legendary. Her subjects range from scrappy East Enders like Leroy Columbo, stone deaf but credited with saving nearly one thousand lives from the treacherous Gulf surf, to Charlie Cronea, the grizzled old watermelon man of the 1890s who told anyone who would listen about his boyhood as a cabin boy in Jean Lafitte's buccaneer fleet. Join that to stories of Galveston speakeasies and gambling houses, fabled names like the Balinese Room, the Turf Club, and the Hollywood Supper Club. Gini Fendler-Brown has been sharing her engaging tales about Galveston with audiences at summertime Beach Band concerts since 1989. Born and raised on the coast of Long Island Sound, she has lived most of her life by the water. Max Rizley, Jr., a native of Tulsa, Oklahoma, began his love affair with Galveston in 1978, after he earned a journalism degree from the University of Texas at Austin. He worked at the venerable "Galveston Daily News" for a decade. He has also served as editor-in-chief of "The Islander Magazine," and his freelance work includes a Sunday column in the "Texas City Sun."