Change

Change is the most constant thing in the world.  Nothing ever stays the same and why would it?  After watching the TV series "After People"  I realized that nothing is permanent in this world.  This is not a good or bad thing it is just something that happens in life.  Since I live in Oak Cliff I thought I would talk about some of the changes I have seen around here in the many years I have lived here.

Construction has always been a fact of life in the Cliff.  Since we are an older section of the city things break more and there are older parts that need upgrades.  The sidewalks in some areas here are in such need of repair that we don't even walk on certain walkways but tend to walk out in the streets.  The other day I noticed in front of Greiner Middle School that they had cut out big rectangular pieces of street.  They were clean cuts and no digging went on after the cement was removed.  They then preceded to lay rebar in the holes and fill them in.  Some were small cutouts and some were large and oddly shaped.  I know the streets were not that bad before and there are other streets that need attention more than 12th street does.  Mind you they did NOT replace the whole street-just sections.  That section of street is now a patchwork of old and new.  Next time I am going to see if they won't fix other streets. ;-)

Other places around Oak Cliff once functioned as one space and now have changed their use.  This place above was once Moore's Grocery store.  Children who went to Rosemont in the 40s, 50s, 60s and 70s loved this place.  I remember saving up enough change each from lunch money to buy a bag of Cheetos there on Friday.  In the late 70s Moore's closed and it stood for many years empty.  Recently it was gutted and changed into a residence.  My husband and I toured this place on a recent Oak Cliff Home tour.  It was great seeing the inside again.

 Some changes are sad.  Especially to friends of mine who grew up here and had dreams of their own that will now never be.  This building above was an old theater named the Vogue.  For people who went to Sunset High School it was a landmark place.  In the 80s or 90s it was bought by a church and renamed "Iglesia del Mundo" but the structure remained the same. A friend of mine recently told me that his dream was to convert this space into a theater for showing old movies. Now the church is making changes to the facade that make it look less and less like a movie theater and more like a church.  It will look nice but not like the old Vogue we all knew before.

Some changes are so astounding that you still can't believe it.  If you have lived here as long as I have you know what the term "Going Across" means.  I remember talking about this with friends, family and even the cleaning crew at school.  It was like we had our own language in the Hood.  Then they had an election and that all changed.  I still walk into to Tom Thumb and wonder what in the world all those bottle are.  It is like some science fiction movie where essences are being kept until right bidder comes along.

In the past few years there have been changes to Oak Cliff that are exciting and sometimes worrisome.  Oak Cliff is experiencing a nice growth and influx of new people and places to go.  People are finding out that we are a great place to live and they are bringing themselves, families and ideas to Oak Cliff.  We are seeing more variety of businesses.  The Bishop Arts area was just the first of many little pockets to have people come in, renovate and open up shop. The revitalization is creeping down Davis.  Ft. Worth Avenue is also having quite a Renaissance.  We are loving all the changes but with them is creeping in a bit of snobbery.  We really don't want Oak Cliff to become a place for only the elite and elite shops and restaurants.  There is a new and growing movement that is keeping an eye on this.  Their slogan:  Oak Cliff - Keep It Real

Odd Folks of the Hood

There are some interesting folks here in Oak Cliff.  I am not referring to the people that I know or that live in the homes around the area. I am referring to people my husband and I see on our walks.  Some are a bit creepy, but most are just odd and amusing.

I will start with this guy in the picture above.  My husband and I were off one morning to search for items for our Halloween costumes.  We spotted this fellow jumping up and down on the side of the road.  I just had to stop and take a picture but his efforts to get us to the garage sale were not in vain.  In our defense we only spent 3 bucks.  Hours later when we came back from our trek he, was still there jumping up and down bringing in the traffic.  I am not sure if he was hired or a friend of the sellers, but I would hire him if we ever have a sale.

Another morning in stand out for sightings of odd folks. We had just started on our 5 am walk when I saw this guy snuffling down the street.  He had a very odd shambling gait.  For about a minute I was convinced that I really should have bought that zombie survival kit that I saw online.  Then I realized he was either drunk, stoned or mental.  I have heard that women have a better peripheral vision than men do but mine has improved greatly because of the online game I play so I was able to divert us before he saw us.  I honestly do not think he would have harmed us but it made for a great story for my students later that morning.  I cannot remember how I worked it into the lesson on Van Gogh but my classes were amused.

For about a year folks around Winnetka Heights were talking about this strange she/he person that walked the neighborhood.  She/he was said to be very tall, very muscular, African American, long hair and usually wearing a black slip.  She/He was never violent but was around a lot and very visible.  I had never seen this person but laughed when I heard about her/him.  One night coming home at around 2 am I stopped at a stop sign and saw this large dark shadow out my side window.  It startled me, and then I realized it was her/him.  After that I saw her/him a lot.  We saw her/him in Tom Thumb buying milk one day and she/he was not that strange there.  I was actually kind of proud that we have such a unique person in our neighborhood.

The last interesting person I want to write about is "That Mexican".  I am not using this term as a put down this was just how he was referred to.  We heard about him from a woman who owned a house in the neighborhood.  When we first met her she always talked about "That Mexican"  He had done some work for her and she never bothered to find out his name.  She told us not to hire him.  We would see him sit on her porch for hours.  We assume that he was hoping she would show up and give him some work.  We would also see him walking the neighborhood with a female who we assumed was his wife.  They seemed to get around Oak Cliff very well on foot.  Things got bad between this neighbor and us.  We would see him outside siding with her as they ranted about us.  He was always on her side even though he never knew that she spoke about him that way.  It always struck me as sad.  A few years later a custodian at my school told me that some "Mexican" had been shot by the police.  I am not sure why I thought it was this same man but the description fit and I never saw him on her porch after that.

I know not many will agree with me but these people are another reason I love living in Oak Cliff.  They are humans and are unique.  Wouldn't the world be a sad place if we were all the same?

Halloween In The Hood

Halloween over the years has gone though many changes.  I think it is amusing that it is the only holiday that some people HAVE to tell you, "I don't celebrate Halloween".  Halloween started as either a Roman feast of Pomona the goddess of fruits and seeds OR a Celtic festival of Samhain which celebrated the end of summer. My husband and I saw something on TV last year called A Haunted History of Halloween.  It was very interesting.  However in this day and age there are a lot of folks who do not celebrate Halloween for one reason or another.  In Oak Cliff that is not the case.

When we were growing up in Oak Cliff,  Halloween was the best holiday next to Christmas.  What other holiday can you go around to homes and people just give you candy?  I remember those store bought costumes they started selling when I was about 8.  They came in nice neat boxes which I thought were very organized but when I looked at them closely they all looked cheap, and they were.  I decided that I would always make most of my own costume and that I would NEVER wear one of those masks that look like a flattened version of the character we were trying to portray.  About a week before Halloween my friends and I would decide at whose house we were going to meet and where we were going to go trick or treating.  There were also school carnivals during the month of October that featured haunted houses.  I remember helping my parents change one portable at Rosemont into a place of horror.  It was such fun working with my parents and seeing the creation of a haunted house.   As a teacher now I cannot even imagine my room being taken over for this kind of event.  The school sold cakes and candies with spiders and ghosts.  We played games and got real gold fish as prizes.  My dad always said he thought Coomb's Creek was filled with fish from Rosemont's carnivals.  Halloween and October in general was magical.  We used our imaginations and faced our fears.

Then came the poisoned candy.  There were stories popping up all over about children being poisoned by tainted candy.  Other stories told of razor blades hidden inside apples.  People all over America freaked out and started refusing to let their children trick or treat. This media blitz affected Oak Cliff too.  However, we just had more rules than before.  We could only go to homes where we knew the people; our parents had to check the candy and we could not keep any candy that was not wrapped.  However, the spirit of Halloween was tarnished.  It felt like some of the magic was gone.  Years later it was revealed that there were only a couple of cases of poisoning.  One where a dad tried to poison his child and one where a child tried to poison himself for attention.  By the time all these facts came out we were in high school and the holiday had become an excuse for having another dance.

After I got married my husband and I realized that we both loved to dress up.  We started tracking down and going to ANY party where we could go to just to dress up and have fun.  Over the years we have worn many costumes and they have become more and more elaborate. Our friends Monty and Rodney have a party that we go to every year but this always falls the weekend before Halloween. We also found that Halloween had come back to Oak Cliff with a vengence.  Oak Cliff was getting a large Hispanic Catholic population that enjoyed the holiday.  It is so much like their Dias de los Muertos celebration. We were overjoyed that we could now be the adults who gave out candy!  Yet we were determined not to be the little old lady or man who came to the door.  We decided to scare them too.  So with my brother's help we staged elaborate porch productions featuring double and sometimes triple scares.  I swear we smelled pee sometimes.

About 10 years ago we moved to Winnetka Heights.  We bought a very old house that just looked spooky from the get go.  A friend of ours would not stay in the house for any length of time because he said if felt creepy.  We also discovered from the former owner that a girl had died here in the Influenza Pandemic of 1918-1919.  We have never seen anything but we loved playing up the spookiness of the place.  People around Oak Cliff also enjoy decorating their homes.  Every year we see more and more decorations popping up around the area.  We love to see the creativeness that people show.  What about the trick or treaters?  Well their numbers have increased to an amazing point.  We have one of those VERY large containers that we fill twice with candy.  We give out just ONE piece per child and by the end of the night we are out of candy.  We give good candy not cheap stuff.  It cost us a small fortune but it is worth it to sit on the porch every Halloween night and watch the parade of children and their parents.  It is heart warming to see older siblings refuse candy for themselves when they are taking the young ones around.  It is amusing to see grown adults in costumes out walking around.  AND it is GREAT that our whole block participates in this celebration.  It is like a great block party each and every Halloween.

I can not think of a better place to spend Halloween than in Oak Cliff.  People here know how to celebrate this holiday right!

Yard Art?

As we have been walking we have run across some odd yard "art".  Now these items we find are not the cutesy little items people find at craft fairs.  You will not see a cow with a sprinkler tail, a plywood fat lady/man picking weeds or wooden ducks with propeller wings. Here in Oak Cliff those items are few and far between I am happy to say.  We have our own unique way of expressing what we think art is.  For us this is far more interesting than any mass produced craft project.  The three photos above are great examples of Oak Cliff's creative voice.

This picture was taken early one morning on a quite busy street.  It was an old trophy that had been taken apart and stuck a top a 5 foot pole.  The pole was right against the chain link fence that was bordering the property.  As we passed I immediately stopped and took a picture.  I would like to think this represent someone's pride at an accomplishment. However when we went back a few weeks later the object was moved to another spot in the front yard.  So maybe it was just a toy or maybe in was performance art.

This picture was taken on another busy street.  The yard was filled with cars in all stages of working condition.  There were garbage cans, weeds and a basketball hoop in other parts of the yard but the area immediately surrounding this sculpture was pristine and clean.  It also had its own makeshift base.  I think it is a image from a Greek myth but I could not tell which one.  This was a take the picture and run shot.  There were dogs in the yard and even behind a fence I did not want to stay around and chat.  I just thought the contrast of this sculpture that you might find in a European country estate and the surroundings it was in was great.

This last picture was the most original one I have ever seen.  This was taken on another busy street.  I think I am seeing a trend here.  As we came down the connecting side street we noticed this basket hanging in a tree.  At first we thought there was some live animal in the cage.  Then as we got closer we thought it was something they had trapped and had died there.  My husband said, "If there is a real animal in there I am calling SPCA."  When we finally got close enough we discover that it was a stuffed gorilla.  We really could not believe our eyes. WHY would anyone put a stuffed gorilla in a cage, in a tree and in their front yard.  Oh they yard is covered with cinder block tiles.  I guess that is one way to not mow.  This place cracked us up!  When I up loaded it on Facebook my friends were just as amused.

• Michael: What the heck is it?
• Sara: ummm.....stuffed monkey in a cage?
• Dixie: interesting
• Alison: They change things around in the cage. But I have never seen a real animal in there. Thank goodness :)

You would never see something like this in other parts of Dallas.  Life would be so boring without the Cliff. :-) 

The Photo That Started it All

This was the photo that started my blogging.  I had started posting the photos I had taken on our walks the summer of 2010 on Facebook.  My friend Geniva (Karen) commented on this one and suggested that I put a book together of all my photos.

I met Geniva while my husband and I were playing an on line game called Dark Age of Camelot (DAOC).  She and I started chatting and I knew that she was a "normal" person with some of the same interests and  values as me.  Geniva was born in Canada and met her husband playing Everquest (EQ).  She moved from Canada to Memphis, TN to marry him.  We met them a few months after they were married  while they were playing DAOC.  I can not even imagine the culture shock she went through with a move like that.  She convinced my husband and me to follow them to a new game called World of Warcraft  (WOW)  After our move there we decided to actually go and meet the two of them.  We had a blast with them there and one day I hope they will come an visit us here in Texas.   I thought it was amusing when she told me how nervous she was in meeting me.  I mean come on she met her husband on line.  I was just some chick that she clicked with. LOL  Anyway, she and I have remained friends through all different games.  We do have a lot in common even though she likes the cold and I like the hot.  I like pizza and she does not. ;-)

I got her to join Facebook and that is where she saw this photo.  She is very good about looking at my page and commenting on my things I post.  She said, "oh I love this ... you need to put all these pictures in books ;)"  I smiled and thought yea right!  Then my friend Michelle said, "Or a blog that others can see and share! Terrific collection that really shows off the uniqueness of the hood!"  Now that I thought was a great idea!

Michelle is the wife of a guy that my husband and I knew in church while we were growing up.  Michelle is not a home grown Oak Cliff person but she got here as soon as she could.  Michelle has a voice that is to die for.  She sings with her hubby in a band and every time we see them we are blown away.  She always has a very unique take on things and I value her opinion and thoughts.  When she suggested this blog, it got my mind racing.  I grilled my friends on Facebook and decided on blogger.com.  I have told my father about this and he was thrilled that I was writing again.  He had no idea about what what a "blog" was but as long as I was writing he did not care.  More about that conversation later.

I am not sure why this photo intrigued folks but I have had lots of comments on it.  It was taken outside a small theater company here in Oak Cliff.  Personally I have never been to a production there but I know folks who have.

It is interesting how one little comment like, "Hey sweetie hold on a sec and let me get a picture of this." can change so much.

Trouble

Sometimes when we are walking we actually run errands too.  Even though I am better at multitasking, Paul loves to do it too.  This picture was taken at a local store the first time we went there after I had started documenting our walks.  Yes I know you all know which store it is. :-P

This new building was opened in the 90s after much anticipation.  The building across the street had kind of outgrown its usefulness and even though it looked ok I could start to see the years of wear and tear on it.  I remember there use to be a funeral home and car wash on this same site where the new building now stands.  I had never been in the funeral home but the car wash was a source of many problems for people in the neighborhood.  I think everyone was so happy to see the car wash go and this building come in, even if it was smaller than other stores of the same chain around the Dallas area.

The day this picture was taken I had been taking some great shots of the produce inside.  I will post those later.  We were getting ready to go back home when I looked up at the sign.  There were all these little rods sticking out.  I think they are there to keep pigeons off the sign.  Anyway I thought they were such a cool effect so I got my little camera out and tried to get an interesting shot of those rods.

If anyone knows me they know that I am one of those people who IF I am doing something wrong I will get in trouble.  Now a hundred other people could do the same thing but NOOOO it is always me that gets caught.  When I was a senior in high school, I skipped school one day to work on a English paper.  My friends Homer and David were the ones who convinced me to go.  We went to the downtown library and spent the whole day researching stuff for our projects.  We got back to school just as people were getting ready to go home and I really thought I had gotten away with it.  I went home and nothing was wrong until about 9:30 when my father comes home from a Choir Boosters meeting.  Of course my choir director had asked my dad if I was sick.  I was so busted.

Then when I was in college I went with some friends to Hot Springs one day instead of going to class.  We were going there to drop off a car my friend Tim was borrowing.  We went with two other people so there were 4 of us.  I figured I was only missing one class.  We got down there and dropped off the car and were starting back in one car when BAMMMM!  A car came through the intersection and ran into one the cars we were traveling in.  This was before everyone and their grandma had cell phones so we went to the nearest Waffle House, called the school, called a tow truck and sat inside and waited for someone to come get us from the college.  When he finally showed up we saw that he had come in the smallest sports car he could find WITH a friend.  So the 6 of us piled into that small car and headed back to college.  The drive time was usually about an hour and a half but since the car had O ring problems we had to stop every so often and add more oil.  When we got back finally people asked us where we had been.  My friend Tim said,"Hell".  Oh and then I found out I had missed a major test. O.o

SOOOO anyway you can see that I am a type of person that ALWAYS gets caught when they are doing stuff they are not supposed to be doing even if I don't know it is wrong.  So this day as I snapped off a couple of pictures I heard behind me one of those golf carts that the security uses.  The security officer said, "You can not take pictures of the front of the building. You have to have permission.  I am going to need to see that camera and delete those photos."  I was freaking out!  Luckily my lucky charm , my husband, was there and convinced the guy that we would do that ourselves.  OMG he scared me.  However I think this is a good picture and I think the store would too no matter what Billy Bad Ass said. :-P

Eye Candy

Ok see THIS is what I am talking about.  THIS is the essence of Oak Cliff.  Here in Oak Cliff people feel free enough to express their creativity in so many different ways.  We were just walking home from the store and BAMM this was in front of us.  I was so excited to see this car!

There was this certain student that I had known since kindergarten.  He had ALWAYS been into cars and ALWAYS had an adult point of view every since kinder.  I always knew I could reach him if I related it to cars.  He was put into my art class as an 8th grader and I enjoyed every minute of his company.  He laughed at my jokes, discussed politics and finances and was ok with his mistakes.  He brought me an article from some car magazine about "Art" cars.  These were cars that were totally decked out with images.  I fell in love with the idea of decorating cars.  I scanned the pictures which were a on a full page spread across the fold and Photoshopped them together.  The student was as much impressed at my ability to do that as I was with him.  I hope someday he will see this blog and see himself in it.

The only thing this car lacked was the top lacquer coat.  The images were starting to  peel and flake off.  I am glad I got a picture before they were all gone.