Being Woke is Such A Joke!

A lazy late winter's afternoon for this peafowl.

The High Meadows are just now greening, but the low meadows have been green for months. What I like about this shot is that it shows natures abstract work at 100%.

The pile of dirt is all that remains of the former Valley View Mall in Dallas. The dirt pile is also sitting on the actual site of the former anchor store,Sears. The construction on the redevelopment is now fully underway and the changes are going to be amazing. Just the past 18 months,the landscape in North Dallas has changed so much, its now a totally different place that even when you can remember how it was, it is still almost unrecognizable.

As I was about to land back in this country in Miami, having gone out of the US for the first time on a trip to Brazil, never had I been so excited to be back in the states. As I cleared customs, the thought settled into my mind that we, as Americans, take to much for granted about this country.

Growing up, being an American was just who I was. There were dreams about what it would be like to travel to other places and in the fourth grade, my teacher, had given our class a project to work on over a weekend. That project was a question from the teacher. Simply, "If you could go anyplace on earth, where would you go?" she had ask. I chosen Brazil. Rio de Janeiro. Why I picked Rio most likely was because at the time growing up, it was a place that people talked about whether it was good or bad, but it was filed away in the old brain  for several decades.

As I cleared customs  a flashback to  a few days earlier during climb out from Rio's airport hit me on the way to Sao Paulo. I had looked down on the Harbor surrounded by two of; the most famous beaches in the world, Ipanema and Copacabana Beaches.The old file in my brain suddenly opened up and I remember thinking that I had been to my favorite place as it fell from view with wakes from boats in the harbor trailing them were visible and then like the beaches disappeared. The question that I recall also was myself asking silently, "where would you go next?".

As reality struck me, I was walking  away from customs, From what I had seen in Brazil from the stand point of freedom (Brazil at the time was under Military Control but the first President had  just been elected) being back on American soil for me was the greatest feeling I had ever experienced emotionally, even having experienced my beloved maternal grandfather's death and funeral not quite five years ago at the time.  Seeing soldiers on every level of a large shopping complex with their rifles slung over their shoulders was a wake up call. In less than a year, I was outside my hotel in Mexico City as the military police walked the perimeter of a park outside the Presidential Palace. So over the course of a year, became aware of just how spoiled we Americans had become and how much we took for granted about this country and what it stood for. It was a wake up call for sure, but calling it 'Woke' is such a misnomer on all fronts.

Those who think that they are 'woke' need to wake up! As the TxDot worker that I quote often had said to me, "People are asleep at the wheel." Amen, brother! There are just somethings in the use of our English language that need to be stopped on social media. It's destroying our culture and our country and don't even think about saying anything negative toward Donald Trump being in office. There are a few things that he does that even I do not like, but I have the respect for the office regardless of who is in the oval office but not disrespecting them for the office that they hold.

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!"

As the Tuna says," the circus doesn't stay in town for ever."

Well, yesterday, we can say we saw that come to pass. It was an International Circus with a very big "Big Top". They have played Dallas in Mall parking lots to open fields, to any place that could handle the equipment and the cars and the crowds. This, venue, however, will not host them again, most likely as the entire mall is headed to the scrap dealers!

We will give you a moment to thing that one through. Well, you know what they say----- a picture is worth a thousand words. So, in following that template according to the blog rules, we can only post three images per post. So that,by sheer numbers is a three thousand word post eliminated---NOT. Words, whether they are wordy words or not, is what connects us all as human beings. And, I like to write about my day in the field of photography. Never mind if  all the rules are not observed. It is the thought that counts and I don't worry about what those with degrees in English might say. Years ago, usually on weekends, Milly Benson and I would hash those thoughts out in debate 101. Milly, of course, was one  of the books  ghostwriters of the Nancy Drew Series,  as others were part of that number of authors also. They were published under the collective pseudonym Carolyn Keene.Milly worked for the Block family, owner of the The Toledo Blade and the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. I had liked Milly and thought the world of her. There are times, when I miss the banter with her, too. She was good!



So, as this story goes on---I will not. I'll spare you that agony. As they say in the steel biz--- I'll give you a quarter this load, you give me the quarter back on the next one. That's twenty-five cents per hundred weight. A flat bed truck can haul 42, 000 pounds legally and with an aluminum trailer, you might be able to sneak a total load weight of 48,000 pounds. Get your pencils ready. Begin!

Tower Mast Rise 75 feet plus or minus a foot here or there.

Once upon a time, even the traffic signs were upscale like the mall.

Piles and piles of Iconic Upscale Retailers past stores are ready to ship out to the scappie.

A Great Redo to a Multi-Screen Complex

The Feature
The Studio Movie Grill Chain has taken over the old multi-screen movie theater at 75 and Spring Valley. What a great remake to a remarkable building. In fact, several  sources are telling me that US75 (North Central Expressway) properties are part of a remake along 75 itself. This facility will be the chain's second along North Central Expressway. One is just south of the High 5 and this one is just north of the High 5 as seen here..

The Area
The old Valley View mall property is up for a remake. That makes the Tollway to 75 and Spring Valley to LBJ 635 a very active redo for North Dallas. I'm so glad to see this happening. As for me personally, I always would rather see a structure remade than to demolish it and start all over. It has always seemed to be such a waste from my viewpoint. Yes, I am a romantic at heart. There are some structures that need to come down. I can appreciate the argument.

The redo will be a great addition.

New life to an old multi-screen  theater

 

                         Dallas as a resource pool.

Just one project can spark so much more development. Especially when people are using the creative juices more than the jingling money bags to drive a project. If the juices flow from far enough back to attach the area into a mosaic of the community, the money bags will fill and refill for years to come. Dallas is lucky to have such a creative pot of developers.