2022 November Lake Highlands Advocate

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COYOTES & RODENTS & BOBCATS, OH MY!

Story by RENEE UMSTED

Spend any amount of time at White Rock Lake, and you’ll see wildlife.

That’s just one place in Dallas, but lurking in grassy patches and flying across the skies are animals and birds large and small that, if they could talk, would call our neighborhood home.

At this point, we’ve all heard about the coyotes, the bobcats, the bald eagles — critters that can cause havoc

and generate a lot of chatter on social media and during community meetings.

But often overlooked are animals such as rabbits and rodents.

Curious about our non-human neighbors, we called Brett Johnson, an arborist and wildlife biologist with the City of Dallas. Here are a few highlights from our conversation.

THERE ARE TWO TYPES OF RODENTS IN THIS WORLD. Well, that’s a generalization. But for our purposes, this is true. There are species such as Norway rats and black rats that are commensal to humans; that means they enjoy living in human habitats. Then there are species such as cotton rats and deer mice, which live in natural areas.

“Just because you have a prairie or a wildflower area across the street from you does not mean that’s where the rodents in your house are coming from,” Johnson says. “Because the ones that are typically found in your house don’t like living in those natural areas.”

HERE’S WHERE BOBCATS COME INTO THE PICTURE.

Most of us don’t see bobcats every day. But if one is spending a lot of time in a neighborhood, Johnson says there’s a really good chance that somebody has a rodent problem.

“All it takes is one house in that neighborhood to be unintentionally feeding rodents, and you’ll have a bobcat that’ll hang around,” Johnson says.

The scariest part is that in the bobcat cases he has seen, Johnson says the homeowners — most of the time — have no idea they have a rodent problem.

WHAT ABOUT COYOTES?

They feed on rodents, too, but they’re omnivores. They eat flora and fauna, as opposed to bobcats, which are exclusively meat-eaters. That’s why bobcats are more likely than coyotes to be seen sick because of too much rodenticide in their body, ingested by their rodent prey. Both coyotes and bobcats can injure humans and pets, but it’s

rare. Though the Lake Highlands coyote attack is still fresh in our minds, it really was an outlier, statistically speaking.

OH, DEER

Texas Parks and Wildlife estimates there are about 4 million whitetailed deer in the state, and they can be found in urban areas where deer overpopulation is a problem.

But they aren’t common here.

Historically, Dallas was part of the Blackland Prairie area, which wasn’t a deer habitat. Now, there’s a small deer population near the Trinity River Audubon Center.

“It’s really only been the last 20 or 30 years that we started seeing more,” Johnson says. “You would have a periodic deer down along the creeks and along the river.”

SPEAKING OF BODIES OF WATER…

White Rock Lake is attractive to wildlife, and one reason why is because of the water, especially during droughts.

And it’s not just the lake. Almost all of the neighborhoods surrounding it are covered with lush lawns, which provide additional food and water to animals. Many homes have English ivy, which holds moisture, making it attractive to rodents and rabbits and thereby, maybe some bobcats.

BUT WHAT HAPPENS WITH UNDEVELOPED LAND?

When plowing and construction starts, predators including bobcats, coyotes, owls and hawks flock to the area because rodents are stirred up. That’ll last for a few weeks, until most of the vegetation is gone.

Then, over a course of months to years, wildlife numbers decrease; it’s displacement.

Populations can begin increasing again around five years after construction ends. Landscaping is

growing and maturing, making the area again desirable to wildlife.

In short, Johnson says: “You spike. You go down. And then you start going back up.”

ONE THING TO REMEMBER ABOUT INTERACTING WITH WILDLIFE

“In the end, the best thing you can do is let them fend for themselves, and let them figure out what they’re doing,” Johnson says.

“Supplemental feeding, or feeding them in general, in the long-term, does not help them. It makes them dependent on people. It can turn them into borderline pets, and that’s when we start seeing more nuisance issues.”

HOTEL FROM HELL

Story & photography by CHRISTINA HUGHES BABB | Illustration by JESSICA TURNER

A hotel property that police say has been a hotbed of criminal activity could become an apartment complex if the Dallas City Council approves the owner’s rezoning request.

The more neighbors learn about the New York City-based landlords, the angrier and less supportive of that application they’ve become.

The Extended Stay America on Vantage Point near Greenville Avenue, owned by hospitality

equity group Three Wall Capital, has a recent past marked by drug trafficking, sex crimes and murder, police told Lake Highlands residents at an October meeting to discuss the rezoning case. In fact, two of the hotel’s former staffers are in federal prison after a Drug Enforcement Agency bust that resulted in 44 arrests, said Dallas Police Lt. Brian Payne, who oversees the Northeast Division’s Project Safe Neighborhood team.

“This property has a torrid history,” he said.

For the past year the address has been an official Habitual Crime Property, which makes it subject to regular inspections from Dallas’ community prosecutor’s office.

“People staying on the property weren’t the best clientele for the area,” District 10 community prosecutor Ariya Villegas told attendees. But since the city stepped in, improvements —

COULD CONVERTING AN EXTENDED-STAY PROPERTY WITH A ‘TORRID HISTORY’ BE ONE WAY TO TAMP DOWN CRIMINAL ACTIVITY?

— have been made.

Since it’s a hotel, inhabitants do not undergo background checks or sign leases, she said.

The addition of those processes would be one potential benefit of the proposed zoning change that would allow conversion of the property from hotel to multifamily, said Council member Adam McGough, whose district includes the hotel.

“In theory, if you turn this into multifamily, and you manage it appropriately, get the proper security measures in place, it’s better than it is now,” McGough said.

He added, “But I don’t get a great feeling that they are going to do the right thing.”

Attendees also expressed little confidence that the property owners will do more than the bare minimum in the interest of public safety.

Landlords were unaware, misinformed by their man agement and therefore not culpable in the previous ly mentioned crimes, said DPD’s Payne. But McGough said he thinks they should have known what was going on, and several neighbors, including Richardson ISD school board member Rachel McGowan, said they blamed the owners for turning a blind eye.

The site is approximately 2.881 acres. The hotel has 136 rooms in 70,828 square feet of floor area. Villegas added that the occupancy rate to date is only about 20%.

The site is zoned an MC-4 Multiple Commercial District. The proposed MU3(A) Mixed Use District

would allow for the adaptive

of the existing hotel

into a multifamily complex.

win says the apartments would be rented at market rate — he guesses about $800-$1,100

what he says are mostly tiny units, some smaller than a typical hotel room, but with a kitchen and accommodations for longer tenancy.

of the United States, is facing a shortage of housing for all income levels. According to an article in globest.com, turning extended stay hotels into apartments is the latest solution to the housing supply problem.

this trend is the confluence of strong demand for apart ment units, which is caused by numerous issues that have been percolating for years across the country, and reduced demand for hotel units, mostly due to the pan demic,” David Reina, a part ner in Morris, Manning & Martin Hospitality Practice, told globest.com.

application to rezone the hotel has been recommended for approval by the City Plan Commission and was delayed once at City Council.

McGough says before the case appears again on the council agenda Dec. 14, he wants to ensure all commu nity stakeholders are en gaged and have the opportu nity to provide feedback.

The most popular sug gestion at the October town hall: Delay the re zoning approval and make the owners of Extended Stay America prove that they can fix their crime problem.

TELLING STORIES

Directing for ESPN put this Lake Highlands filmmaker on the map

Story by SIMON PRUITT | Photography by HUNTER LACEY

Thaddeus Matula recalls being ob sessed with Star Wars at a young age and inevitably finding his calling in filmmaking.

The Lake Highlands native began his career in 1999 with The Dreamer , a short he wrote and directed. He continued to produce short-form fiction stories for years until the op portunity arose to direct for ESPN’s 30 for 30

“It was the first time I had ever tried a documentary,” Matula says.

That episode, “Pony Excess,” told the story of the 1986 Southern Meth odist University football scandal, in which the university secretly paid top recruits and their families to com mit to SMU. The scandal rocked the American sports world, and in 1987, the NCAA slapped SMU with the “death penalty,” a one-season suspen sion, plus a ban on home games for the following season. That’s still one of the harshest penalties imposed on a Division I athletic program.

The documentary was an immedi ate hit, becoming the most-watched 30 for 30 at the time of its release and receiving stellar reviews across the board. In 2014, Matula directed “Brian and the Boz” for the series.

Since then, Matula has continued to work in the sports documentary niche, directing a TV series about social justice for NFL Network. Re cently, Matula executive produced a feature on Alina Fernandez, the daughter of former Cuban dictator Fidel Castro, who is an anti-commu nist activist.

“It’s in her DNA,” Matula says. “That’s what makes this so unique.”

Matula’s plate is full with projects that are all set to release in the next couple of years.

Into The Spotlight follows the Dal las-based Spotlight Musical The ater’s return to the stage after the pandemic. The theater company is made up of adults with developmen tal disabilities and has been creating shows and short films since 2010. The documentary focuses on the the ater’s production of In Our Hearts , their 11th-annual show.

Unreleased investigates America’s homeless and wrestles with how dif ficult the problem is to solve.

“I think that as humans, it doesn’t matter how empathetic we are,” Mat ula says. “We’re all guilty.

“It’s fun for me to open myself up to being uncomfortable — finding my own shortcomings and challenging myself.”

Matula also has two sports docu mentaries on the horizon, covering the University of Houston football team and the four pitchers who have pitched a 20-strikeout game in Major League Baseball.

“You can get anyone to root for a certain team or individual by getting them to root for their passion,” he says.

He says he takes a deeply personal approach to all of his work.

“I get to live in joy,” he says. “And I didn’t even know what this was for most of my life.”

Matula believes he’s entered the prime of his career as a result of this joy. He’s doing what he loves with as many projects as he can.

Matula moved back to Dallas in 2019 to take care of his parents, after 14 years in Austin.

“We’re all dreamers in Dallas,” he says. “Dallas has no geographic rea son to exist. It’s a place we dreamed into being.”

Story by ALYSSA HIGH | Photography by JESSICA TURNER

KEITH CEDOTAL practically grew up in the kitchen. Between his French and Mexican grandparents, Cedotal was exposed to many different cooking styles and flavors. Far from the gadgets found in the high-end eateries in his portfolio, Cedotal learned to cook by eye and taste. “I just remember watching them cook and I was always

amazed by the flavors of their dishes,” Cedotal says. “They both inspired me because they were both so humble and confident in their skills.”

Cedotal brings these blended cultures and experience in Dallas’ top restaurants to his own “bakeaurant,” called KEESH, or Keith’s Epic East-Side House.

“I’m a Texas native,” he says.

“But I got to visit my family in France this past year, and I thought that I’d kind of make it (KEESH) a Texas bakery on tour and give it a French twist.”

These inspirations are evident in his pastry menu, with current items like a breakfast taco “KEESH” with housemade salsa or a chocolate pecan eclair with brown butter custard. The menu

A quiche made with spinach and goat cheese.

rotates regularly to keep up with seasonal trends.

Cedotal was also influenced by his history as a chef in many of Dallas’ top restaurants. He started his career at The Art Institute of Dallas, before working as a pastry chef for venues like Hotel ZaZa, the Adolphus, Craft, Uchi and the Joule Hotel.

“I took a little bit from everybody, the good and the bad,” he says. “After working with so many

people, you get to a point where you’re like ‘I can do this,’ and I’ve learned a lot from their knowledge and education.”

The “bake-aurant” serves more than pastries and token keeshes. Cedotal handmakes a seasonal fruit jam (apple-jalapeño), granola, pickles, hummus and hot pockets. For Thanksgiving, KEESH is preparing East-Side pumpkin pie, White Rock apple-pecan pie, savory turkey KEESH, light and buttery

dinner roals, spicy or sweet cranberry sauce and turkey bone broth to round out the feast. These items are available to order online now.

While Cedotal started the business baking the pastries in his home kitchen, the pastries soon took over, and he began baking in a ghost kitchen downtown. He then delivers them himself to East Dallas and Lake Highlands. But he’s on the hunt for a building to turn KEESH into a local spot.

“I love Dallas,” Cedotal says. “It reminds me of San Antonio’s vibe, so I wanted to focus on the community and the east side.”

Customers can order by 1 p.m. Thursdays and receive their pastries and other foods hand-delivered that Saturday or Sunday from 8-11 a.m. for a $4 delivery fee. From order to delivery, Cedotal is KEESH’s one-man show. Some of the eggs used in the pastries are even from his own backyard, where he has seven pet chickens.

Cedotal named his first three chickens after the Golden Girls, and after two of them died, he got two more: Heckle and Jeckle. Four chickens later, (Stevie, Amy, Plum and Violet) Cedotal’s husband said, “enough,” and Cedotal was left with seven bakery helpers.

“It helps with egg production,” he says. “It’s weird and they’re a weird animal, but I love it.”

KEESH, keeshbakery.com, keith@ keeshbakery.com

“I took a little bit from everybody.”

A savories and pastries box is available for delivery.

in a pickle

THE KINGS & QUEENS OF LOW-KEY ATHLETICS

Story by RACHEL STONE Photography by EMIL LIPPE

Tricia Whisnant makes a shot at the Lake Highlands North Recreation Center.

She’s brought at least a dozen people into the fast-growing sport, described as a cross between tennis and pingpong, and she plays every day. Paine-Drennan packs paddles and balls and plays pickleball on vacation. She uses tournaments for fundraising, and although she has a career and volunteers at her kid’s school, she generally organizes her life around playing pickleball.

“I didn’t say I was good at it,” she says after whiffing a shot. “But I love it.”

With its ridiculous name and cult-like status, it’s easy to make fun of pickleball. But the sport is addictive and rewarding, players say. It’s a cardio workout and a social outing that can seriously shake the blues away.

Pickleb all is the fastest-growing sport in the world, with an estimated increase of 40% to 4.8 million players last year, ac cording to a 2022 report from the Sports & Fitness Industry Association.

Interviews with about 15 people in Dallas who play pickleball daily turned up no one who played before 2017; most took it up in 2019 or later. Pickleball is taking over rec centers and tennis courts all over town due to high demand.

The City of Dallas Park and Recreation Department has reconfigured at least five public tennis courts to the 50% smaller pickleball courts in the past year, says Assistant Director M. Renee Johnson, who has also taken up the sport and plays every Wednesday at Thurgood Marshall Rec Center in Red Bird.

Indoor pickleball courts can be found at about 20 rec centers around Dallas, and there is a game somewhere every day.

The premium outdoor courts at Camp bell-Green rec center in Far North Dallas can draw 50-60 players at a time, who mark their place in line by shoving the handles of their paddles into the chainlink fence.

At the Lake Highlands North Rec Center, about 30 players take turns, two to a side, on four pickleball courts painted into the

floor of the basketball gym. Most of them are here every Tuesday and Thursday from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m., but they also see each other at Cole Park, Samuell-Grand and Walnut Hill Rec Center.

There is a no-nonsense urgency to turn-taking — Who’s next? Whose turn is it? Who’s playing? Cheers and congratulatory paddle taps are mixed with light-hearted trash talk. But it’s not like things get heated.

“We call it chuckleball,” says MerriLee Anderson, who started playing after the start of the pandemic.

“That was my lifesaver. That’s the only time I was seeing people.”

Pickleball has since become a thing at her church, Northridge Presbyterian, and it’s a growing trend among neighborhood churches that have gyms they can convert to courts.

Joleen Decle of East Dallas started playing about two years ago when a friend who works for a pickleball company took her out to Cole Park. This was before the tennis courts were converted, and they used tape to mark out pickleball courts.

Now she plays at rec centers all over town, and she organiz es the Lake Highlands group, sending out a group email and overseeing the system of play — paddles are stacked on the bleachers to mark players’ places in line. She recently cele brated her birthday with rec center pals at Chicken N Pickle, a restaurant and bar in Grand Prairie that has multiple indoor and outdoor courts.

“The nicest thing about pickleball is that it’s a social event,” she says.

They call Cynthia PaineDrennan the pickleball pusher.

Decle used to play racquetball, and lots of former tennis players take up pickleball, but plenty of players have no prior experience with racket sports.

“Most of the people we play with are older and retired,” Decle says. “Some locations have reputations for being very competitive.”

Getting into pickleball is inexpensive. There are start-up sets with two paddles and balls costing less than $20. A good paddle can be had for $30-$70, and a set of balls costs less than $10. Tennis fashions are part of the fun for some, however, and opportunities abound to spend money on pickleball gear.

On Cloud tennis shoes and Lululemon (or knockoff) skirts are trendy among the pickleball set in Oak Cliff.

Jan and Jim Dauterman of Preston Hollow started playing at the Walnut Hill Rec Center about a year ago because they wanted a little exercise and socializing without having to join a country club.

Now they play four or five times a week at various rec centers around town.

“We’re not competitive,” Jan Dauterman says. “We’ve had a lot of fun meeting people and playing with different folks.”

What is pickleball?

Pickleball is a professional sport with televised matches that are played around the world. But it’s also accessi ble for many people of all ages and easy to pick up. The game was invented for children in 1965 on Bainbridge Island, Washington. It was named the official sport of the state of Washington this year.

Basics

A pickleball court is 20 feet by 44 feet, about half the size of a regulation tennis court, with doubles or singles using the same lines.

It is played with paddles, not rackets, and light plastic balls with holes.

A pickleball net is a couple of inches lower than a tennis net in the center.

A 7-foot box directly in front of the net on both sides is known as “the kitchen,” or non-volley zone. Players cannot hit the ball from this box unless it has bounced once.

Rules

Games are usually played to 11 and won by two, with only the serving side winning points. Serves alternate between the right and left sides of the court.

A ball that hits the baseline or sideline line is in. A server faults if the ball lands inside the kitchen or on its line.

Unlike tennis, there’s only one shot at the serve, which must hit the diagonal crosscourt.

Underhand serves only in pickleball, and they must be from the waist, with contact on the upswing. Drop serves are also allowed.

The “two-bounce rule” means a serve must bounce once before it is returned, and the return must also bounce once before the opposite player can hit. After that, “vol leys” are allowed. That is, hitting the ball before it has bounced.

Terms

Dink : This is an onomatopoeia for a soft shot that usu ally lands in the opponent’s kitchen.

Kitchen: This 7-foot zone is essential to the game, and strategies are built around it. If a player’s foot or even part of their clothing is on or over the line while returning a volley, it is a fault. Players’ feet cannot land in the kitchen in execution of a shot, even after the ball is dead. It’s similar to an offsides rule and best to stay out of the kitchen.

Rally: Volleying, or hitting the ball before it bounces, is not allowed until the third shot. A rally is the continuous play before a fault.

Claire Stanard starts her work day at 8 every morning, and she often finishes after midnight. Her days are filled with conversations with developers of all kinds, from hotels to daycare facilities to liquor stores across the entire city, as well as chats with community members. This job is not paid.

That is the life of a Dallas City Plan Commission member.

The 15 members are appointed by the Dallas City Council and the mayor to oversee and make recommendations for land use and development in Dallas, enforcing zoning rules or deciding when it’s OK to break them.

Stanard represents District 13, which includes Vickery Meadow, on the commission.

“Even though we are unpaid, the upside is that we can be independent of political influcences and make our determinations based solely on the merits of each project,” Stanard says. “I am not running for office or looking for a job, so I am able to make objective considerations.”

This is just the latest of many careers the 72-year-old has collected. She started out as a professional singer in her teen years, traveling across the United States and abroad. She participated in Eurovision and sang in pubs in Europe.

She left her folk singing career to work as a press secretary for U.S. Sen. Vance Hartke, a Democrat from Indiana who served from 1959-77. She continued working in politics and became the director of the Women’s Division of the National Democratic Party.

In her 30s, Stanard obtained her master’s and worked as a marriage and family therapist for over 20 years, but her career collection wasn’t over yet. She

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obtained a master’s in education and taught English at Faith Family Academy and Christ the King schools.

Those experiences prepared Stanard for her current position, she says.

Presenting to the commission comes naturally after a singing career. Politics taught her some things about law and negotiation. And she’s always educating people on the nuances of development and zoning, especially when they have grievances.

“One of the things that constituents need to do is get in on the ground floor,” Stanard says. “Don’t wait until the meeting happens in front of the City Planning Commission. Have a community meeting and organize your opposition.”

Because the commission handles zoning and development, affordable housing is a topic Stanard knows well.

“There is confusion between ‘affordable housing,’ which is low-income housing, ‘attainable housing’ which is workforce housing, and ‘mixed-income housing’ which is having slightly below market rate renters combined with other multifamily lessees,” Stanard says. “The bottom line in Dallas right now is that working-class people are being uprooted by the lack of attainable housing and rising rental rates.”

Dallas’ biggest problem is that we have very few workingclass rentals, she says. Though affordable or low-income housing is a huge need, even attainable housing for the workforce is lacking.

When making zoning decisions, Stanard has to take into account median income, transportation, proximity to a park and other factors. However, she’s found in many instances that rent prices

exceed affordable or attainable.

“Dallas, Texas, is the ninthlargest city in the United States, and it promised to have workforce housing within the city limits,” Stanard says. “But they are being pushed out, and I don’t know where these displaced families are going to go.”

Though Stanard doesn’t have an answer to this crisis, says she believes more people need to be aware that this is a citywide issue which needs to be addressed with a comprehensive plan to slow gentrification and address rampant displacement through community engagement.

“The shame of it is that we need young people on the city planning commission, but young people are working,” Stanard says. “This is not part-time; this is a whole job.”

Some days, Stanard is reminded that the long hours and lack of paychecks are worth it, like when the owner of apartments in Vickery Meadow’s refugee relocation area donated apartments for children to get tutoring after school while their parents worked, calling it Heart House.

For 20 years, licensed teachers volunteered to help refugee children at Heart House acclimate to life and schooling in the U.S. That is, until the February 2021 winter storm, when firefighters went into the building to inspect for damage. They shut the child care center down because that use wasn’t allowed in the apartment complex’s zoning.

Heart House received a specific use permit to qualify as a child care center, and Stanard spoke to the commission to share their story. The horseshoe at City Hall was left in tears as they granted the permit, allowing the Heart House homework club to continue to serve refugee children in the area.

“That is what makes this job worthwhile,” she says.

On the

Much more than church ser vices and childhood edu cation goes on within the walls of St. James Episcopal Church. Three of the church members host a podcast about fly fishing, a sport which may, at first, seem unlikely in this part of Texas.

A large table behind the pews and altar of the parish hall also serves as the studio set of the podcast, Cast Your Faith . Clayton Christian, Kenneth Law rence and Jeff Jacobie started their fish ing journeys at different points, but fly fishing was a life-changing experience for each of them on and off the water.

Old Republic Outfitters, much like the podcast, was an outgrowth of the

Cast Your Faith trips. A website for the business is in the works, but for now, most of their marketing is word of mouth.

“And we have a little bit of success in terms of bringing in people and kind of getting the logistics of getting out fitting down,” Lawrence says.

Old Republic Outfitters provides guided kayak trips and equipment for anyone interested in fly fishing.

“We do offer kayak fishing trips on some of your larger waters. We don’t re ally do any private water fishing, which in Texas is pretty much people’s farm ponds,” Christian says.

The 1992 film A River Runs Through It may come to mind at the mention of

faith and fly fishing. The characters in the film, played by Brad Pitt and Craig Sheffer, cast their fly reels with a special technique and use artificial fly baits to catch fish, like trout, red drum and other fish in rivers.

“Me and a good friend of mine, we had watched the movie; we were ob sessed,” Jacobie says. “And my family has been going down to New Braunfels. There’s a really well-known fly shop down there that we’d always kind of ducked our heads into, but now we’d seen A River Runs Through It , so we were convinced that we needed to learn how to fly fish.”

Together, the trio have hosted fellow ship fly fishing trips with men from St.

Story by RAVEN JORDAN

Three buddies inspired by their fly-fishing trips started a podcast

James — and across Dallas — for the past three years.

On these Thursday through Sunday trips, men — typically aged 21 to 71 — are encouraged to try their hand at fly casting, decompress from the noise in life and share stories they wouldn’t share in a church setting.

“We’ve noticed that the focus should be more on mental health: men’s mental health, and how we can help each other and support each other in those daily endeavors,” Christian says. “We found that the magic combination for all of us guys that go on these trips is as soon as we light the campfire, after two, three beers, someone will ask a question. Once that first question is, not even asked but just brought up, everybody else kind of feels comfortable enough to share something that’s bothering them.”

Those shared experiences and sugges tions from fellow fishers sparked a fire of inspiration in the trio, particularly Chris tian, to start a podcast and share their stories with anyone who’s interested.

“What happened was we went to the Texas Freshwater Fly Fishing Fest, and then I came to you guys as soon as I heard our voice being broadcast na tionwide,” Christian says. “And I said, ‘Hey, guys, we should do this (podcast).’”

Lawrence says otherwise.

“I mean, the depth of my recollection on the matter is I got a text message on a Wednesday that said, ‘Hey, just want to let you know we’re recording our podcast on Saturday.’ Did I miss something?”

THE VOICES

At the helm of the podcast is Chris tian, with a southern drawl and a boom ing laugh. His fellow hosts are quick to point him out as the goofiest.

Lawrence comes in a close second with the voice of a sports broadcaster. His voice was also a contender for Big Tex last year, but someone else landed the part.

The softest voice of the hosts, Jacobie speaks with a calming caliber, a contrast Clayton Christian holds a striped bass during a fishing trip. Photo courtesy of Clayton Christian.

that provides balance to the whole podcast.

DFW isn’t quite known for fish ing, so where do they fish?

It may come as a surprise to learn that fly fishing can actually be done anywhere. That includes White Rock Lake and White Rock Creek, which happens to be the guys’ go-to spots for fly fishing on their own time.

“If there’s a fish there, I’m gon na go after it, and Clay’s the one that kind of got me doing that,” Jacobie says. “You don’t have to take a trip to these places, but I like doing that too. But that idea of ‘I’m going to hop in White Rock Creek and catch 6-inchlong bass,’ for me that is a real stress relief type of activity right, and you can do

he’s fished drainage ditches and caught fish.

“You’ve got to remember your odds exponentially increase on catching a fish when you’re in the water.”

THE PODCAST

It all started with a phone re cording in 2021 for the first cou ple of episodes. Now they’re using professional mics and equipment.

They’ve come to agree that ep isode seven, otherwise known as “The Mother-in-Law” episode, is their favorite of the 19 currently released.

Their guests have been just as colorful and unique as their fishing trips, which have reached Bolivia at one point (Frederico Maran cenbaum, co-owner of Angling Frontiers) and included a herpe tologist and Mitch Kempe, or Fly Fish Mitch.

listening to a few buddies chat ting at the bar or over a barbecue hangout.

“We didn’t lay down very good ground rules about the vocabulary that was and was not appropriate for a podcast. And some of us, my self included, slipped up and took some liberties,” Lawrence says. “We went back and listened to it and we asked Jeff to edit it and edit that out and he goes, ‘Yeah, if I edit ed it out, it would just sound like one long bleep.’ We had to rein in ourselves with some level of broad casting professionalism.”

The podcast was on hiatus starting February since Lawrence and Jacobie were pursuing their master mason licenses. Basically, it’s the highest of the three degrees in masonry that you can get.

The Cast Your Faith podcast can be

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By KIMBERLY HERZOG COHEN

What troubles you, Hagar?

See the caring souls who embrace us when we are heartbroken

Iturn to Scripture to learn about cultivating gratitude amidst life’s trails. This Thanksgiving month, we find ample material in the Book of Genesis, which Jewish communities around the world are reading at this season.

When Sarah was barren, Hagar bore a son to Abraham, named Ish mael. As the boys grew up togeth er, Sarah feared that her son Isaac’s future inheritance was at risk, so Sarah and Abraham banish Hagar and Ishmael to the wilderness. When mother and son run out of water, Hagar sits down and cries, and in her moment of despair, a messenger of God appears and asks her:

“What troubles you, Hagar? Fear not, for God has heeded the cry of the boy where he is. Come, lift up the boy and hold him by the hand, for I will make a great nation of him. Then God opened her eyes, and there was a well of water. She went and filled the skin with water and let the boy drink. God was with the boy, and he grew up.” (Genesis 21:17-20).

From this story, we are challenged to expand our vision beyond our own needs, an essential expression of gratitude. The divine messenger asks a simple question that makes room for Hagar’s heart: “What trou bles you?”

Questions are the opening to em pathy. If a coworker’s eyes fill with tears during a meeting, do we re main on task and assume we know what troubles him or her? And what about those we don’t know well, who provide a service that benefits us? Do we wonder about them when it’s evident they are struggling?

Curiosity can illuminate where we are as individuals and as a commu nity. Are our eyes open to what is happening around us and to what the future might bring? The angel’s question “what troubles you?” — the question of seeing and response — still resounds in our day, teach ing us to choose a more just and compassionate world. This choice starts right in our own families and neighborhoods.

Like Hagar, we may be overcome by the fear that all is lost. We might tend to avert our eyes from the world around us. At times, this can be the only way to cope, a necessary step in making our way forward. However, if casting our eyes aside becomes a more permanent state of being, we can miss sources that will sustain us through life’s trials. Especially in these moments, a force greater than ourselves, what we call “God” of many different names can help lift our eyes.

In our celebration of harvest, the Genesis account reminds us what it means to see. To see the caring souls who embrace us when we are heartbroken after the loss of our partner, our best friend. To visualize our pain transforming over time with the trusted help we need.

Hagar embodies the kind of seeing that helps us taste a sense of hope and feel gratitude for the spiritual sus tenance ever within and around us.

KIMBERLY HERZOG COHEN is a rabbi with Temple Emanu-El and serves the congre gation’s social justice efforts, including ad vocacy, community organizing and service projects. To support the worship column, email sales@advocatemag.com.

WORSHIP

BAPTIST

PARK CITIES BAPTIST CHURCH / 3933 Northwest Pky / pcbc.org Bible Study 9:15 / Worship Services 10:45 Traditional, Contemporary, Spanish Speaking / 214.860.1500

WILSHIRE BAPTIST CHURCH / 4316 Abrams / 214.452.3100 Open to all / Worship at 11 a.m. Sunday School at 10 a.m. / wilshirebc.org

BIBLE CHURCHES

NORTH HIGHLANDS BIBLE CHURCH / nhbc.net / 9626 Church Rd. 214.348.9697 / Sun: LifeQuest 9:00 am / Worship 10:30 am / Sun: Youth 6-8 pm/Wed: AWANA 6-8 pm

DISCIPLES OF CHRIST

EAST DALLAS CHRISTIAN CHURCH / 629 N. Peak Street / 214.824.8185 Sunday School 9:30 am / Worship 8:30 am - Chapel 10:50 am - Sanctuary / Interim Senior Minister, Rev. Dr. Larry Ross. / edcc.org

EPISCOPAL

ST. JOHN’S EPISCOPAL CHURCH / stjd.org Worship: Sat 5:30 pm, Sun 8 & 10:30 am / Christian Ed Sunday Morning & Weekdays, see calendar on website / 214.321.6451 / 848 Harter Rd.

LUTHERAN

CENTRAL LUTHERAN CHURCH, ELCA / 1000 Easton Road A Welcoming and Affirming Church / Rev. K.M. Truhan Sunday School 9:00 am / Worship 10:30 am / CentralLutheran.org

FIRST UNITED LUTHERAN CHURCH (ELCA) / 6202 E Mockingbird Ln. Sunday Worship Service 10:30 am / Call for class schedule. 214.821.5929 / www.dallaslutheran.org

METHODIST

FIRST UNITED METHODIST CHURCH RICHARDSON 503 N Central Exwy / fumcr.com / 972.235.8385 / Dr. Clayton Oliphint 8:45, 9:45, 11:00 am Traditional / 11:00 am Modern

LAKE HIGHLANDS UMC / 9015 Plano Rd. / 214.348.6600 / lhumc.com Sunday Morning 9:30 am Sunday School / 10:30 am coffee Worship 8:30 am & 11:00 am Traditional / 11:00 am Contemporary

PRESBYTERIAN

LAKE HIGHLANDS PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH / 214.348.2133 8525 Audelia Road at NW Hwy. / www.lhpres.org Sunday Worship 10:00am, Traditional 1st & 3rd, Contemporary 2nd & 4th(5th). Sunday School/Christian Ed Classes: 11:00am

NORTHPARK PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH / Summer Worship at 10:00 a.m. www.northparkpres.org / 9555 N. Central Expy. / 214.363.5457 Welcoming Seekers, Thinkers and Doers.

NORTHRIDGE PRESBYTERIAN / 6920 Bob-O-Link Dr. / 214-827-5521 northridgepc.org / Regular skd returns Sept 11th. 9am outdoor & 11am sanctuary service. A community of people dedicated to doing life together

PARK CITIES PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH/ 4124 Oak Lawn Ave Sunday Worship 9:00 & 11:00 A.M. To all this church opens wide her doors - pcpc.org

ANTIQUE MALL