It's All Gone, Folks! Both of Them And Maybe Our Pelicans

Valley View Only A Memory

Life has long gone in cycles. The moon has two cycles. One that happens once a month, give or take a day. The second cycle is the 18 year cycle. Yet, another cycle is the annual move of the earth's Axis from the Tropic of Cancer to the Equator to the Tropic of Capricorn and then back again giving us our seasonal changes we call the four seasons. I notice that more and more as I make my way on my 18-mile wagon wheel cycle covering the Metroplex. In that cycle, change is dramatic in the Metroplex. The growth factor drives a lot of it. But, it seems that Dallas, as well as the smaller cities are making changes that cost the loss of what once was in order to advance the future. It does not always agree with me, personally because I am, for better or worse, a traditional type of guy that loves old building and would much rather see them reused after a make over than to see them torn down and the property redeveloped. But, on the other hand, this is Texas and Texas puts more value on land than they do on buildings.

Currently, two malls of the 70s-90s era are falling and a beautiful old colonial Presbyterian Church fell this week, but the developer did agree to save the Chapel. The malls, of course, are Collins Creek in Plano just off 75 Central Expressway. It is now officially closed and up for redevelopment. The second mall is my favorite, the old Valley View that is still in the shadow of the Dallas Galleria at The Dallas North Tollway and LBJ 635 on the west to Preston Road on the East. I liked that mall for many reasons,but I also lost my favorite Bar-B-Que that lived in the atrium food court. It had, in recent years become a place where art shops lived and after having my leisure lunch, would walk both levels to see what was happening in photography, paintings, and other mediums. The latest that I had found technical interest in was a shop of 3-D printers that were churning out amazing things that were not only useful, but could match anything that could be reproduced with a drawing scan. Amazing.

So, on Sunday, the fist day of  fall on the meteorological calendar (Sept.1to Nov.30), I set out for a look at the demolition of the rest of Valley View after the fabled Sanger Harris (later Macy's)  had fallen first, then the Sears Store. The old J.C. Penny's followed by the parking garages where a large part of famed Dallas families had arrived to do their shopping. Pretty much all that remains now is the AMC 16, which is the only life breathing of the past structures. Redevelopment is reported to have spared the theater during the redevelopment and then it, too, will go for a new theater.

It was sad. but the sadness deepened when I saw the Casa Linda Presbyterian roof of the sanctuary crushed into the sanctuary, the massive white columns of the colonial structure's red brick also gone in organized form of confused rubble.

In one last cycle to list in this post is the most sad of all...

The American White Pelicans  that come each year around the 12th of October may not come back this year to greet the one lone pelican that remains here because of old injuries that keeps it from making the flight to the spring nesting sites.

It has been reported by main stream media, was well as the National Park Services Wild Life Section, that a sudden and unexpected hail storm with hail the size of baseballs had killed 13,000 waterfowl at Molt,Montana's Big Lake, which is one of the main nesting sites of the Eastern Fly Way's American White Pelicans. The pictures were disturbing at best. The majority of the casualties were pelicans, that were totally caught off guard. There are no trees around Big Lake, outside of Billings.

The nesting cycle this year may have gotten  the majority if not all of the 72-90 American Whites that arrive at White Rock Lake to spend the winter until the end of March when they leave for Molt. Because our birds are on the Eastern Fly Way, most of our birds go to Molt's Big Lake, a lake about the size of White Rock.Some that have bands have been checked show some have taken the odd ball nesting sites near the Great Salt Lake in Utah, but those have been some of the oldest of our flock of birds, I've been told.

So, while this post sounds more like Death and Destruction, it's just a part of life's cycles that we pay little attention to until something happens.

I saw two cars in the Filtration Building Parking Lot last week. One had New York plates and the other one was with California. Coast to coast like jam on toast! and then, The hurricane parked over the Great Bahama Island Nation off our East coast  and a boat full of underwater divers off the Channel Islands of California.

The last life at Valley View, for now.

Facing Preston Road near Spring Valley

Presbyterian at White Rock's Casa Linda

The cycle theme seemed to have raised its head and said," I'm not done with cycles, yet!"