Dallas / Fort Worth and Me

A few weeks back, on April 27, I had the privilege of attending the Denton Arts and Jazz Festival — one of about 200,000 people to do so this year. It was free, after all, even if they wouldn’t let you carry any coolers inside (didn’t want to stifle the beer concessions, y’know). The festival was a wide, sprawling event that took up the Denton Civic Center area and Quakertown Park in downtown Denton. The park itself is kind of a surprise — it’s a big, open space that seems out of place in the middle of a town as densely populated as Denton is.  A historical plaque near the entrance of the park, however, tells the story. Apparently, back at the turn of the 20th century, Quakertown was a thriving African-American community. In 1922, Denton’s city fathers (who were all white, of course), decided they needed Quakertown’s 27-acre site for a park, so they held a bond election to raise the money for development, passed it, and booted the people of Quakertown out of their homes despite their opposition to the idea. Nothing unusual — it only happened a thousand times back in the old days.

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A pretty sad topic really.   As I’m sure you don’t need me to tell you Mesothelioma is a form of cancer that is almost always caused by previous exposure to asbestos.

I’m please to read that finally the Covington Homes public housing complex in Texarkana is going to be cleaned up.  Those people who lived there are going to be watching their health and visiting their doctors with fear for the rest of their lives.  It’s not a pretty picture.

We wish them the best, but if worst comes to worst they should take appropriate legal action.  It’s not just for the money (though medical bills DO need to be paid) but for the principle as well.

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This blog uses the NoFollow Free and is (or will be) listed in the Do Follow directory.

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LEST WE FORGET

September 11, 2001

New York, New York
Washington, D.C.
Shanksville, Pennsylvania

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 Before we return to our regularly scheduled program, folks, I wanted to point out that May is chockfull of exciting events to attend — so many, in fact, that I expect to be writing about them well into June (which is also an eventful month).  While the various Cinco de Mayo celebrations and Richardson’s Cottonwood Arts Festival are over, there’s still lots to do.

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Deep Ellum is well known for its artistic inclinations (one need only look at all the murals all over, not to mention the Deep Ellum Art Park), and once a year they hold a fun little blowout called the Deep Ellum Arts Festival. This year’s took place April 4-6, and was sponsored primarily by Jeep and Chrysler. When I attended, on Saturday, April 5 (a beautiful day, incidentally), it wasn’t terribly crowded; however, I enjoyed myself immensely. One caveat: it’s a good idea to eat before or after the festival, rather than during; while they had plenty of food  and drink for sale, it was of the extremely expensive carnival kind. In other words,  a 16-ounce beer cost the equivalent of $5.00 in festival tickets. Guess what I didn’t drink? The tickets came in batches of 10 for $10. That’s worse than the State Fair. If you must eat while you’re at the fair next year, try one of the restaurants or bars along the edges of the displays; they’re slightly more reasonable.

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Deep inside Dallas, just west of Fair Park and a mile or so east of the West End, you’ll find a historic district called Deep Ellum.

Exactly why it’s called this no one really knows, except that “Ellum” is a corruption of “Elm” perpetrated by the jazz and blues musicians who used to congregate here ninety years ago. The name itself probably comes from one of the streets than passes through the district, since there are no elm trees here now, and probably never were (trees are plentiful, but they’re mostly live oaks). One thing I do know is that Deep Ellum has been there since 1873, because that fact is proudly included on all the sign posts.

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In previous posts I’ve discussed a number of interesting and historical attractions that grace the downtown Dallas district we call the West End, but I’ve never actually addressed the reality of the West End itself. Well, that changes today! If you’d like a quick-and-dirty tour of the West End, hop in, fasten your seatbelt, and read on.

In a way, the West End is Dallas’ answer to San Francisco’s Haight-Ashbury, or maybe Sixth Street in Austin. We’ve also got something called “Deep Ellum” (about which I’ll blog another day) that fills that role to some extent, but the West End has fewer artists roaming the streets, and better shopping.  The area has its own brand of gritty urban charm, if you like that sort of thing, as you can see in yon photo.

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Welcome to my new blog about the wondrous complexity of the Dallas/Fort Worth Metroplex. My intention here is to prepare you for your vacation to our fine conglomeration of cities, and to give you a few clues about what to do, where to go, and how to act while you’re here. Dallas is the ninth largest city in the country, and Fort Worth is the 16th; put them together, along with all the associated smaller cities and towns, and the Metroplex is right behind New York and Los Angeles in size and population. Like any big American city, D/FW is a melting pot of cultures, peoples, and languages, but we’ve got a few idiosyncrasies I think you’ll enjoy.  So hop aboard, but be sure to fasten your seatbelt. We may be off to a slow start, but I think you’ll find we’ll get up to speed pretty quickly — like one of those whirlygig rides at the original Six Flags, right here in Dallas, the one after which all others are patterned.

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