The Ever So Short Story of Nick Beef and Hash Brown.

Come this November, the stories begin all over again about Lee Harvey Oswald and the President John Kennedy's Assassination. But, also, there is a more human side. 

 

Mr. Oswald is buried in Rose Hill Cemetery, Lot # 258 in the Fairlawn Section in Ft. Worth. Along side him is a tombstone that reads Nick Beef. His real name is Patric Abedin and was 56 years old in 2013 (the last interview that I heard him tell this short story). 

Nick said that he purchased the grave site at the age of 18 for $175.00; the marker for another $987.19.

He continued to say that he was a writer and his nickname came about on a trip with a friend from Lubbock to Dallas. They had stopped at a bar and grill. Having been trying to make each other laugh on the trip, Patric said while waiting for their order, his friend had taken the name Hashbrown. Patric decided that he would take the name Nick Beef. It was a joke but later turned into the tombstone name since the cemetery would not allow a blank stone to be placed on a grave. 

In 2003, I drove out to Rose Hill Cemetery and set in search of the Oswald grave. In a retrospect way, my old friend that was a photographer and reporter for AP (Associated Press) and had taught me how to find things like that where high volume visitors had been. I found the grave with little problem and walked up to the grave. I must admit that it was an errie feeling standing there, having seen Lee Harvey murdered on national TV by Jack Ruby. I was 1200 miles north, still a senior in High School.There was just something that seemed to be around. A presence felt but not explained. 

Since, I have visited the grave of Bonnie Parker, of the Bonnie and Clyde fame. I know where Clyde Barrow is buried but access to the cemetery is restricted. Other famous names that are buried in Dallas that have also been visited are those of  baseball great, Mickey Mantle, Ross Perot and British-American actress Greer Garson, who knew my mother. Her grave and that of her husband Buddy, are buried together in a private corner spacious lot as they stood in marriage, surrounded by high hedges. It is a very humble setting for such an amazing woman.

 

Others that are yet to be visited are none other than Tom Landry and his bronze fedora marker and Mary Kay Ash, founder of Mary Kay Cosmetics. There is also a senator that was killed in a plane crash that is interred there. I have passed his grave with a Historical Marker outside the high hedge plot much like Greer and Buddy's lot. 

 
 

Move Over Orange County, Dallas has an OC, too!

There are three times in my life that I have vivid memories of where I was when a major historic even took place. First and foremost was November 22, 1963 in Dallas. I was in my senior high school history class 1200 miles away from here when the radio transmissions began to come over the PA system without introduction. Second, was the landing on the moon.I was crossing the Ohio River on Interstate 71/75 on my way north toward the Michigan/Ohio line. Third was the attack on the World Trade Center in New York. Opening my mail box at my apartment here in Dallas, my maintenance man, Dave, was sitting in his truck listening to the report on the radio here in Dallas. I stood outside his truck as we both were silent listening to the boradcast. There was time before I left for work that morning to return to my apartment and watch the second tower fall on TV.

Times change and time moves on. The older I get, the more I come to realize (I'm a science nut) that we are most likely living in parallel worlds and what we think we are (something really special) is in reality, at best, a hologram. In fact, there is growing evidence (and science needs evidence to acknowledge something as true) that we are a holographic universe. Now, before you think me weird, I do believe in the Apostle Creed. Counterpoint? Not at all. There is so much we don't understand about religion and if you follow the bible as a historic book, it even tells us that there are things that we will never understand because we are not ready to have that level of understanding.

Okay, so this is headed toward my trip yesterday to OC.  Here in Dallas, we call it Oak Cliff. Some locals call it the Bishop Arts District and others call it 10 blocks of the most active retail traffic in the United States. But, a whole lot of people call it home. It is an amazing area of beautiful homes, cliffs and scenic views. It is also the the end stop from Dealey Plaza at the Texas theater for Lee Harvey Oswald and officer J.D.Tippit at Jefferson near Zang.

Since it was again in the 80s for early February, it was also the first time that I have worn shorts in 2017, although I could have worn them a couple of previous times. There will be plenty enough times to wear them in really hot Texas summer weather when it hits sooner than we all think it will. But, I do admit that it was much more comfortable with shorts and a t-shirt as I walked both sides of the Jefferson and Bishop crossings. And, I also keep forgetting that the Dallas Streetcar now will take me there with a little walking, too. So, I hope to explore the fab architecture that I like so much later on in the summer or fall.

As I stood outside the Texas theater, I was still left with a rippling emotion that while life goes on and history marks only time, something that day came together in a way that I cannot fully explain. I've been to Dealey Plaza and watched the tourist walk out into the center of Elm Street and stand where the mysterious "X" always reappears, or to look up at that 6th floor window that somehow isn't the real thing but still conveys the event. Or that quiet and ghostly feeling you get standing at Lee Harvey's grave when you should not have that feeling at all.

Hopefully, this summer, I will make it to Laurel Land quietly and peacefully to bring together a moment in history that for me has always felt somewhat incomplete. Perhaps because of how it all began, with a radio signal being rebroadcast through a schools PA system. It's something that I cannot explain, but know where it is coming from in this boy that grew up with a radio station in the family and how those signals have always meant more to me than I could ever explain. That radio station is well documented on wikipedia, but by it being in the family, it is a magnetic charge that draws me to things like a compus.

The Sign

The Ticket Window

Now Playing theatre marquee

When I used to fly  with our pilot on the company plane, that radio signal was like a beacon  to me and I was never lost although it was in a sense a navigational beacon transponder. Looking out the window from thousands of feet above the earth, I knew where I was. That ability is still with me today and days like yesterday gave me a more completeness to the history that I have lived through. All three of these historic events have come to me over a radio signal. JFK. John Glenn's moon landing. 911 on the radio of my maintenance guy, Dave, on a radio in his truck. Don't even try to tell me that a force of nature--quantum physics, no less- is at work and I have tapped into it somehow and feel deep emotional ties. Weird? Even I have to say at this point. Somewhat!

Upcoming ----yet today----
There will be an additional post of pictures for the Acrocats. For my youngest brother-- yes, the car had California plates! I bet it's been in Truckee, too!