2018 September Oak Cliff

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OPENING REMARKS

By RICK WAMRE

Last man standing

Life lessons we can learn from Willie Nelson

Want to know the difference between you, me and Willie Nelson? He can laugh about the future, and most of us can’t.

If you and I are talking about friends dying and our own mortality, we’ll figure out a way to make it depressing. Willie makes it funny, wry, insightful and entertaining all at the same time.

And let’s not forget his ability to add a catchy musical beat to the discussion, too: That’s another difference between you, me and Willie.

My only encounter with Willie happened at Billy Bob’s in Fort Worth years ago. A bunch of us transplants from the North trekked west specifically to hear Willie tell us what Texas was all about. Willie strolled onto the stage and did a song or two, as I recall, then started but couldn’t remember the words to one of his standards, “Whiskey River”.

And that was about it. My recollection is that he didn’t finish the concert because he couldn’t — probably derailed then by the same things that have waylaid him periodically throughout his life (drugs, alcohol or a combo). I was upset at the time since we had made a long drive just to be disappointed. But time has tempered my willingness to be mad about stuff, and perhaps I have Willie to thank for that.

It has been hard not to follow Willie’s career since then because there’s no one more noticeable — he was pulling Kardashian media stunts before most of them were even born.

Willie braided hair. Willie bio-diesel. Willie pot busts. Willie T-shirts. Willie’s Reserve cannabis products. Willie headbands. Willie guitar string jewelry.

And, of course, his songs.

His latest hit, “Last Man Standing,” talks about friends and death:

“I don’t wanna be the last man standing Or wait a minute maybe I do If you don’t mind I’ll start a new line And decide after thinking it through…” I like that song and that sentiment, and then I heard Willie talking about his career, his family, his life and the song on an NPR interview the other day. Doing the talking were Willie, his wife and two of his kids — all of them are together on Willie’s latest tour, with one son sounding eerily like his father on stage.

Part of the discussion revolved around dope-smoking, of course, because that’s what Willie does.

But I guess when you’re 85, famous

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and contemplating the future, and when you look back on all that you’ve accomplished and screwed up, Willie sounds a lot more like you and me than I thought.

After everything he’s done over the years, he told NPR, he looks back on life in a way that our parents hopefully do and that those of us who are parents hopefully do, too.

“There’s nothing that makes a parent happier,” Willie says, “than having your kids up there doing things with you, especially if they’re good.”

Rick Wamre is president of Advocate Media. Let him know how we are doing by emailing rwamre@advocatemag.com.

Advocate, © 2018, is published monthly by East Dallas – Lakewood People Inc. Contents of this magazine may not be reproduced. Advertisers and advertising agencies assume liability for the content of all advertisements printed, and therefore assume responsibility for any and all claims against the Advocate. The publisher reserves the right to accept or reject any editorial or advertising material. Opinions set forth in the Advocate are those of the writers and do not necessarily reflect the publisher’s viewpoint. More than 200,000 people read Advocate publications each month. Advertising rates and guidelines are available upon request. Advocate publications are available free of charge throughout our neighborhoods, one copy per reader. Advocate was founded in 1991 by Jeff Siegel, Tom Zielinski and Rick Wamre.

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“There’s nothing that makes a parent happier than having your kids up there doing things with you, especially if they’re good.”

WHAT GIVES

There are so many talented artists in the Dallas area that gallerists frequently have to turn them away

But the best of the rest get their moment to shine in an Oak Cliff Society of Fine Arts fundraiser this month.

The sixth-annual Rising Star events showcase some of the best local artists who are not signed by galleries. Gallery owners nominate the artists, and this is the biggest one yet with 12 artists. Nine are from Dallas and three are from Fort Worth — it’s the first time Fort Worth galleries have participated.

The fundraiser is from 7-9 p.m. Saturday, Sept. 15. Tickets cost $50 for members or $85 otherwise and include a cocktail hour and guest speaker.

Anyone can go see the art during a free open house from 1-5 p.m. Sunday, Sept. 16.

All of the art is for sale. Artists keep 70 percent of the sale price and the remainder goes to Turner House.

“It’s a great way to pick up some art,” says Glen Jones, Oak Cliff Society of Fine Arts board president.

All proceeds from Rising Star go to the restoration of the 100-year-old Turner House.

Visit turnerhouse.org for more info

SEPT. 15

BATGIRL DAY

While other comic-book shops are celebrating Batman Day, Oak Cliff is all about Batgirl. Celebrate Oak Cliff’s own Yvonne Craig, who played Batgirl on the 1960 TV adaptation of “Batman,” at Red Pegasus Comics. The celebration, from 11 a.m.-8 p.m., includes Batgirl stickers and masks as well as a limited-edition Batgirl print by author and artist Sina Grace. Don’t forget to stop by Steve Hunter’s Batgirl mural while you’re there.

Red Pegasus Comics, 319 N. Bishop Ave., redpegasuscomics.com, free

7 things to do in Oak Cliff this September

SEPT. 7

SEPT. 7

DSO ON THE GO

The Dallas Symphony Orchestra performs Bach’s Brandenburg Concerto and Orchestral Suite No. 1 from 7:30-9:30 p.m.

Cliff Temple Baptist Church, 125 Sunset Ave., mydso.com, $9-$19

LUCKY PIERRES

Dallas-based honkytonk band Lucky Pierres perform a free show starting at 7 p.m.

The Foundry, 2303 Pittman St., cs-tf. com, free

SEPT. 8 HAZARDOUS WASTE COLLECTION

City of Dallas Zero Waste will be in the neighborhood from 9 a.m.-3 p.m. to collect hazardous waste that shouldn’t be put in bins, including batteries, oil, paint and antifreeze.

Kidd Springs Park recreation center, 711 W. Canty St., dallascityhall.com, free

SEPT. 8

SOUTH AMERICAN LIT

One of the biggest South American literary festivals comes to Dallas. Hay Festival brings Bogota 39 — a selection of the most promising South American authors under 40 — for an evening of readings, workshops and partying.

T he Wild Detectives, 314 W. Eighth St., thewilddetectives. com, free

SEPT. 14 AND 19-20

‘MANDY’

The Texas Theatre describes Panos Cosmatos’ new film, “Mandy,” as “the most gonzo-full-cagechainsaw-fightingcheddar-goblin-demonbattling-black-metal movie you will see all year.”

The Texas Theatre, 231 W. Jefferson Blvd., thetexastheatre. com, $10

SEPT. 27

THE DANDY WARHOLS

These Oregon-based psychedelic rockers are on tour behind their ninth studio album and a single, “Thick Girls Knock Me Out (Richard Starkey)”, released last year.

The Kessler, 1230 W. Davis, thekessler. org, $28

Fran Gaconnier at City Hall with her dog, Tasha, who is the mascot for Gypsy Dog Ops’ mission

Dallas’ dog problem.

Fran Gaconnier recently planted flowers in her South Winnetka front yard, and she tries to keep the ever-rotating pack of dogs that live in her house from peeing on them.

This is an improvement from six or seven years ago, when Gaconnier began taking in troubled dogs while simultaneously taking on the City of Dallas’ animal-services department.

It all started with a pack that was roaming the Winnetka Heights area in the summer of 2011. Gaconnier and other neighbors called Dallas Animal Services about this menacing pack, but no one came. In a few weeks the pack grew from six to 15 dogs.

“I couldn’t get out to my driveway to go to work,” she says.

Still, the city did nothing.

So she and her neighbors started trapping loose dogs themselves and taking them to the city shelter.

“That’s when we started to see how broken the system really is,” Gaconnier says.

Eventually she captured the injured female from that front-yard pack, and a vet later found it had been shot with an animal-control dart.

She rehabilitated that dog, Tasha, now a house pet and a muse for Gaconnier’s work.

“I committed that another dog would not be worse off for our intervention,” Gaconnier says. “She was treated inhumanely, and that is completely unacceptable to me, and I pledged not to stop until things change.”

Dallas Animal Services had messed with the wrong dog lady.

Gaconnier and a loose network of neighbors began calling themselves Gypsy Dog Ops. It’s not a rescue, Gaconnier says. It’s a mission to fix Dallas’ animal-control system. They’ve been described as “rogue rescuers,” and they’ve gone toe-to-toe with Dallas Animal Services, whose former director currently is under investigation around dealings with a nonprofit that serves the shelter.

Dallas Animal Services is under new

management, and things have improved, but Gypsy Dog Ops is still watching.

“My story is a complicated story,” Gaconnier says. “But in a way, it’s the story of our neighborhood.”

The first step was training their watchdogs. They encouraged neighbors to call 311 when they saw loose dogs. Use the system that’s in place, however broken, and then hold it accountable.

Gaconnier asked neighbors and friends to alert her when they saw certain strays that she was trying to catch — one in-heat breeder equals six new dogs in two months. A neighbor bought Gaconnier a professional catchpole, and she’s made herself an expert at catching and rehabbing street dogs.

Less than a year after that attack, in May 2016, a pack of dogs mauled 52-year-old Antoinette Brown in South Dallas. She was put into a coma with more than 100 dog bites and died a week later.

“We kept saying, ‘Someone is going to be killed,’ and then someone was killed, and it’s heartbreaking,” Gaconnier says. “She died because of a civil rights violation, because the city was not serving the north and south sides equally. And to me, that’s the tragedy.”

The city finally shook up the leadership of animal services. And some big money was given to Dallas’ animal problem.

A $13.45-million private grant, which deploys mobile surgery units to perform free spay and neuter operations in neighborhoods that need them most, fixes 46,000 animals a year.

“It’s an intense amount of money,” Gaconnier says. “The funders know that it’s a public safety issue and it’s around a disparity of service for communities of color.”

But more work is needed.

Catching stray dogs can be difficult, but also, it’s the easy part.

Gypsy Dog Ops started investigating animal services. They found the department had taken 15,000 unanswered calls in one year. They mapped dog-bite data and found that the vast majority of attacks happen in southern Dallas.

Through open records requests, they uncovered a swamp that invited a Dallas Morning News investigation, heat from City Council and eventually, procedural and financial audits.

Change came too late, unfortunately.

In August 2015, a stray dog attacked Winnetka Heights resident Charlie Howell while he and his wife were walking their dogs. He was bitten in his hand, face and groin, and his injuries were so severe that he almost lost his hand.

After that, he sued the city, hired a lawyer and scheduled a deposition before they would release information about what happened to the dog that attacked him.

Ronnie Bell lost an arm and nearly died after a dog attack in South Dallas this past June.

Stopping dog bites means shining a light on problems at the core of Dallas, including poverty and transportation, Gaconnier says. She hopes the city will do more to “elevate pet culture” in southern Dallas.

Meanwhile, Gaconnier took a hiatus from her career in broadcast post-production to tackle Dallas’ dog problem fulltime. She spent money that was meant to renovate her house to instead pay for vet services and open her home to difficult canines.

They’ve ripped up linoleum and destroyed a fridge.

It’s taken over her life.

“I cannot sit down and live in this city and not do anything about it,” she says. “Raising up our community is the most important thing we can do. Who cares what we can accomplish if people are being mauled to death?”

“My story is a complicated story, but in a way, it’s the story of our neighborhood.”

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DOGS ON BIKES

Tito the shop dog gets to work on two wheels

Story by RACHEL STONE | Photo by DANNY FULGENCIO

When Tito comes home from a full day of work, he doesn’t eat.

He doesn’t go potty. He goes straight to bed.

“He’s so tired,” says Kristie Holt of Kings Highway, who owns Local Hub Bicycle Co. in Deep Ellum.

About once a week, Holt puts her 2-year-old Chihuahua/dachshund mix in a canvas basket and brings him to work at the bike shop.

Tito makes employees happy, and he greets customers.

“Anytime someone he knows walks in, he does this little butt wiggle,” Holt says. “He likes children, and he really likes ladies. I think he knows they’re going to pet him.”

When customers leave the shop, Tito sometimes barks at them because he doesn’t want them to leave.

A customer, Adam Frelin, asked Holt in October 2016 if she knew anyone who wanted a Chihuahua puppy. She told

him to bring the dog in, and it was love at first sight.

“He’s just the best dog ever,” Holt says. The dog was only 7 months old when she got him, and Holt started bringing him on bike rides right away. She straps Tito into his “sidecar” so he won’t jump out, and she places the basket on the right side of her bike so that he won’t be next to traffic.

Local Hub even led a dog ride last fall, and about 10 people and their pets showed up for a cruise to the dog park.

When Tito is in the shop, Holt keeps him on a leash if the overhead door is open, but when it’s closed, he has the run of the shop.

Still, he gets tired sometimes and has to go up to the office loft to take a nap.

Since his arrival at Local Hub, Tito has become the shop’s mascot as well. Artist Mariel Pohlman made a doodle of Tito’s face that since has been used on a sticker and a T-shirt.

And of course, he’s all over the shop’s social media pages.

“We try to incorporate him as much as possible,” Holt says. “Anything with Tito gets a lot of likes.”

These stunning smart homes feature spacious modern interiors with wood flooring in all living areas and10-foot ceilings. Homes include smart door locks as well as the Nest Smart Home system, a private two-car garage, multiple outdoor landings and a stunning 665 square-foot rooftop deck with views of the Dallas skyline.

OAK CLIFF OAKLEY

Most Oak Cliffers remember Dallas County Schools, whose headquarters were at the northeast corner of West Davis at Zang for decades.

But who remembers when it was Fred Oakley Motors?

The auto dealership opened with a brand-new building, constructed for $130,000 in 1948, and originally was the city’s second Studebaker dealership, later adding Packard and Chrysler. In 1952, they expanded to include a lot on North Beckley behind the original dealership.

Now-defunct Dallas County Schools later owned all of that land. They sold it to Crescent Communities in 2014, and their mixed-use development, Novel Bishop Arts, currently is under construction there. Crescent later sold the Beckley parcel to Central Market, which has not yet announced any plans for it. Oakley, who lived on Kessler Parkway and worked in some of Dallas’ earliest car dealerships in the 1930s, died in 1976. The dealership moved to Irving in the late ’70s and was acquired by AutoNation USA in 1999. — RACHEL STONE

Top: Image courtesy of the Boston Public Library. Above: Photo by Danny Fulgencio

Photo by Danny Fulgencio

By RACHEL STONE I Photos by KATHY TRAN

offee and chocolate are not so far apart.

Oak Cliff Coffee

Roasters owner Shannon Neffendorf started forming relationships with coffee growers years ago and developed a direct trade for coffee beans. Now he’s working on a similar system for chocolate.

For now, Five Mile Chocolate, which is based out of Neffendorf’s Davis Street Espresso, buys beans from California-based Uncommon Cacao, which works with farms to create a fair and sustainable cacao supply chain.

Culturally speaking, chocolate is about 10-15 years behind coffee, says Jessica Beeman of Five Mile Chocolate. “Bean-to-bar,” which starts with roasting cacao beans and several days later ends with a perfect bar of chocolate, is a bigger deal in America than other places, she says.

While there are a couple of chocolatiers in Oak Cliff, including beanto-bar maker CocoAndré, “no one in Dallas has devoted a whole business to bean-to-bar,” Beeman says.

The bars take about five days to produce, starting with a roaster in the shop’s front window. Each bar contains 75 percent cacao, 25 percent organic sugar and nothing else. Flavors come forward depending on the beans and the roasting.

“We’re always tweaking that roast profile,” Beeman says.

Our neighborhood is home to three chocolatiers — CocoAndré and Dude Sweet Chocolate in Bishop Arts and Kate Weiser in Trinity Groves — and now a chocolate maker. They’ll all be participating in the three-day Dallas Chocolate Festival this month.

The festival, at the Fashion Institute Gallery in Downtown Sept. 7-9, is one of only two major chocolate festivals nationwide. It’s open to the public and includes demonstrations, workshops and samples.

FIVE MILE CHOCOLATE

Ambience: Coffee shop

Price: $8 per bar

Hours: 6 a.m.-3 p.m. Monday-Friday, 7 a.m.-6 p.m. Saturday, closed Sunday

Address: Davis Street Espresso, 819 W. Davis St. fivemilechocolate.com

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The best of the pets

Celebrating the enduring loves of our lives

BY RACHEL STONE

My ol’ Mama Dog walked me all over Oak Cliff for nine years, and now she’s gone.

If neighbors don’t know me as Rachel from the Advocate, they’ve usually seen me. I was that lady always walking her dog around L.O. Daniel, where Mama Dog and I went around the block twice a day minimum in any weather and lived in the same apartment, slept back-to-back together, for nine solid years.

This is the ninth Advocate pets issue I’ve written and the first one since I lost my best friend this past May. In a way, having to put down Mama [my pet, not my mother — Mary is fine!] was harder than anything in my life so far. Which says something about how easy I have it, I suppose. Although I’ve suffered deeper loss, this one presented the hardest mountain to climb, emotionally speaking, because it is uniquely personal.

I’m the lone surviving insider to the bond between my protective cuddle bug of a cow dog and me.

You don’t realize how perfect love can be until it’s gone. You don’t know that your dog is part of your identity, that your life will never be the same without her.

This demanding dog that caught Frisbees and hated DART buses was holding my life

together. I’m putting one foot in front of the other now, but I never dreamed losing a pet could be this hard. Naively, I thought I was a strong person all on my own, without the love of my dog.

Around the time

Mama Dog died, several of my friends also lost their longtime pets, a coincidence that felt like a dreadful trend.

Everyone who owns a pet loses a pet eventually. But when it happens to you, it happens to you.

The sorrow is real. It’s permanent heartbreak. That is the price of receiving the pure heart of a good, good girl.

And it’s worth it. 10/10 would adopt again, although not for a while. Let the poor heart mend a little.

In honor of all the pets we’ve loved before, these are the best stories we could find of beloved Oak Cliff pets surviving the odds, God bless ’em all.

BUDDY THE SMILING PIT BULL

When Buddy the Smiling Pitbull celebrated his 10th birthday at Ten Bells Tavern last year, 12 dogs and 25 people showed up.

“This year’s party is going to be epic,” says his person, Michelle Taylor.

That’s because Buddy, who is one of the most popular patio dogs in Oak Cliff and has helped Taylor foster more than 100 dogs in the past decade, is in remission from leukemia.

Taylor decided in December 2017 that she wanted to take a break from fostering and give Buddy some alone time. And then in February, she discovered what felt like marbles beneath the skin under his collar.

After tests confirmed leukemia, the vet gave him two months to live. Friends helped Taylor raise $10,000 for chemotherapy.

He took nine rounds of chemo. The drugs left him weak, and he had a couple of accidents, but otherwise, he handled it great, Taylor says. Now he’s in remission, and Taylor is keeping up hope that he has many more years left.

“Buddy has affected so many people. He loves to hang out at Nova and Ten Bells,” she says. “He’s just a charmer. He goes and works the crowd. He loves kids, loves to give kisses. He’s a big ol’ ham.”

EYE-POPPING PUG

Eva Creel found her puppy in the kitchen, pawing at the eye hanging out of her socket.

Then 3 months old, Onyx had been playing with a Labrador retriever they were babysitting. Who knows what happened?

She lost the eye.

“We took her to the vet, and she doesn’t know the difference,” Creel says.

Now 11 years old, Onyx is beautiful as ever.

And she has a 2-year-old brother, a Labrador retriever named Opie.

“That’s her best friend,” Creel says. “She keeps up with every bit of energy he has. She puts him in his place when she needs to.”

Onyx is now losing sight in her remaining eye, but she’s active as ever, enjoying hikes and running in the grass.

“She does walk a little sideways now and then.”

Sophie

the medicalone-eyed wonder dog

Afungal infection so rare that her veterinarian had to call around to colleagues, and no one had heard of it.

Kristie Thornton, a teacher who lives in Wynnewood, noticed her dog Sophie was afraid of the dark and figured out that she’d gone blind.

One of Sophie’s eyes later ruptured, and a veterinarian ophthalmologist found it was caused by a common fungus that rarely infects the body.

“The eye doctor told me there are several vets who are following Sophie’s case just because it’s so rare,” Thornton says.

The prognosis was bad. They expected her to decline quickly and only live a few months longer. That was two years ago.

When Sophie does go, Thornton has agreed to let her vet do an autopsy so they can investigate why she’s managed to survive this long.

“I’ve gotten so much extra time with her, and I’m not ready yet. I’ll be devastated when it is time,” she says. “She’s my sidekick. I’ve had her for nine years.”

One-leg Louie M

iriam Ortega has children and owns a business. But Louie is her baby.

The 3-year-old chow rides with her in the car, wears sunglasses and sleeps by her side.

One year ago, Louie got out of their house in Oak Park Estates and was hit by three cars, Ortega says.

He had broken bones, and his body was mangled.

“This lady who stopped to help me drove Louie and me to the emergency vet. I had

never seen her before,” Ortega says.

They gave Louie a 40 percent chance of surviving the night, and to make matters worse, they handed Ortega an estimate of $1,500-$1,800 for treatment.

She didn’t have the cash at the time and wasn’t sure what to do, but the neighbor told her to email Duck Team 6, the street-dog rescue nonprofit.

“Thirty minutes later, they contacted me and spoke to the doctor and made all the arrangements,” Ortega says. “The next day, we had him transferred to City Vet, and they literally gave him life!”

Louie had a leg amputated, but he’s sweet and funny as ever. And Duck Team 6 picked up the $1,800 tab.

“They were his guardian angels,” Ortega says.

CAT-ELLITE NAVIGATION

Jack the well-traveled cat showed up like he owned the place.

Lanel Welsby, visiting from Colorado to get her mother’s Kessler Park house ready to put on the market, met him in the driveway.

“There was this cat that came running down the alley and meowing at us like he was our cat,” she says. “He wanted to eat. And we fed him packages of tuna salad. He ate three whole packages. But then he just wanted to hang out with us.”

They bought some cat food, and he kept hanging around. A week went by.

“Everybody was in love with him,” she says. “They were like, ‘he’s a great cat.’ ”

He must be somebody’s cat.

So they had his microchip scanned and found he belonged 20 miles away in Garland.

He had been missing for two years, and his family was devastated to lose him. Since then, they’d adopted two more

cats and a dog.

How Jack spent those two years and how he covered so much ground is a mystery.

But when he arrived home, it was like no time was lost. Jack fit right in with the new pack and took up his same old sleeping spot at the foot of the bed.

“She had just been telling her husband that nobody had ever found Jack in all this time,” Welsby says. “She’d still been missing him all this time.

“It just seemed like he needed someone to help him find his way home.”

DOG ON THE RUN

Life hasn’t always been so silly for Uma.

The 5-year-old greyhound had to work for her supper.

She ran 95 races in Florida from 2014-2016 as PJ Untitled.

George Baum of Oak Cliff took her in via the Greyhound Adoption League of Texas Inc.

“She is the sweetest, most loving dog you can imagine,” Baum says.

Uma joined Baum’s other dog, a mutt named Fizzy, who was given to a friend and then to Baum by an Oak Cliff family who could no longer care for her.

SENIOR SOLVERS

A few tech startups received help from Dallas ISD high school students in Oak Cliff who had internships with Capital One this summer.

They were given real challenges from startups including Doxa Collective, FactorZ, First Stream Clean and Bubbl . The students then worked together with Capital One mentors to find solutions.

Senior students from Sunset, Adamson and Kimball competed in a “Shark Tank”-style competition at the end of their internship on Aug. 10 to present their ideas.

The challenges included social media campaigns and mobile applications.

Brandon Parrish of Sunset said his project helped him feel more confident with digital skills.

“I’ve learned leadership skills and feel free to share my ideas,” he says.

The paid internship for a total of 90 students offered professional mentors who help with building professional skills and learning about college life.

Araceli Ramirez of Sunset says the

internship helped her realize that she wants to be an entrepreneur.

“I’ve learned that it’s about how the customers feel, so you can learn from that and grow your company,” she says.

NO. 2 PENCILS, NO. 1 IN OUR HEARTS

City Plan Commission member Chad West rallied neighbors to raise dozens of boxes of school supplies for neighborhood elementary schools. The supplies were delivered to Hogg and Peeler elementary schools. The supply drive received help from the Rosemont Early Childhood PTA, Cooper’s Meat Market and Nice Ice Shop.

Bishop Barbers on West Jefferson also hosted a school-supply drive and back-to-school party on Aug. 12. The shop served hot dogs and nachos and gave free haircuts to dozens of Dallas ISD students.

Capital One interns, all Oak Cliff high school seniors, give a “Shark Tank”-style presentation. From left to right: Brandon Parrish of Sunset, Araceli Ramirez of Sunset, Bryanna Harris of Kimball, Brianna Limones of Adamson and Juan Camacho of Adamson.

Oak Cliff neighbors deliver school supplies to Hogg Elementary.

BUSINESS BUZZ

OAK CLIFF

IS A BEER NOW

We’ve come a long way from dry Oak Cliff. Our neighborhood’s namesake brewery makes its debut this month. Oak Cliff Brewing Co. is the project of Oak Cliff native Joel Denton and partners, who built a brewery and taproom at Tyler Station. It is a 900-gallon capacity brewery on the second-story of a 100-year-old industrial building. It took 13 tons of structural steel to shore up the cavernous room that holds the brewhouse and its 10-ton tanks. “We knew coming in that it would be very challenging to put a brewery here,” Denton told the Advocate in December. Denton took up brewing in his garage in 2007, and he began winning home-brew competitions. Plans for a brewery started in 2015. The brewery is throwing a grand-opening celebration from noon-7 p.m. Sunday, Sept. 1.

TEX-MEX FRO-YO

The Bishop Arts District recently attracted a couple of new ice cream shops, Azucar and Melt . Now comes a new frozen yogurt place specializing in flavors such as horchata and chile lime. Yaya Best Tex Mex Yogurt is taking a space at 408 N. Bishop Ave. Oak Cliff resident Ralph Isenberg is opening the shop with his wife, and they expect it to open in October.

A NEW DAY FOR WYNNEWOOD

The Wynnewood Village Shopping Center is finally having its moment of renewal. The shopping center’s owner, Brixmor Property Group, signed leases with a cinema and a gym. LA Fitness will build a 34,000-square-foot fitness facility near the entrance on Illinois Avenue, which Brixmoor is redesigning as the center’s main entrance. California-based Maya Cinemas is building a 73,000-square-foot “megaplex” with 14 screens at Wynnewood. It will be Maya Cinemas’ first Texas location.

NEWS & NOTES SEE YA, CARAWAY

Former Mayor Pro Tem Dwaine Caraway has a way of making headlines. He resigned from his spot representing Oak Cliff’s District 4 after pleading guilty to federal corruption charges last month. The plea, related to his illegally accepting about $400,000 from a City of Dallas vendor, means that he won’t serve more than seven years in federal prison. Here are five Dwaine Caraway moments worth remembering.

5. When he proposed a Dallas River Walk Dwaine Caraway has occasionally mentioned flooding main street to create a river walk Downtown. He wasn’t the first Dallas leader to do so (Ron Natinsky can be thanked for that), but Caraway thought Dallas could use a waterway lined with thematic restaurants and cafes just like San Antonio. “It may sound crazy, but it’s going to go down at some point,” he promised Dallas Observer.

4. When he gave a key to the city to Michael Vick Michael Vick was an amazing football player before and after he served 19 months in prison for his role in a dog-fighting ring. Caraway gave the Philadelphia Eagles’ then-quarterback a key to the city when he was in town for Super Bowl week in 2011. After that, Mayor Tom Leppert tried to restrict the ability of Council members to give out token keys. “We don’t condone it and clearly didn’t approve it,” Leppert told the Dallas Morning News of the Vick award. “It’s unfortunate, and I would rather have not seen the situation.”

3. When he tried to get the youths to pull their pants up In 2007, Caraway got together with some hip-hop artists and businessmen to launch Pull Your Pants Up, a campaign to get Dallas to keep its pants on its hips. He proposed an ordinance against sagging, but it wasn’t constitutionally viable. He didn’t give up, though. Dallas rapper Dooney wrote an anti-sagging song, and Caraway tried to relaunch the campaign in 2012. “You have some folks that don’t even have on underwear, period,” he told NPR.

2. When he tried to fight John Wiley Price at a Christian radio station No arrests were made, but when Caraway was running for Dallas County Commissioner in 2016 between stints on City Council, the two Oak Cliff leaders rumbled during a commercial break of a debate at KHVN, a gospel station. A third candidate began filming when the scuffle broke out, saying that Caraway threatened to kill Price, but Caraway says it was Price who was making death threats and grabbed him by the throat.

1. When he pleaded guilty to federal corruption charges Caraway admitted to accepting $450,000 in bribes and other gifts from two leading figures in the deal between the now-defunct Dallas County Schools and a company that built cameras to capture drivers who didn’t stop for school buses. In a letter addressed to the City Secretary, he wrote, “I have dedicated much of my life to serving others but have never claimed to be without sin. I am truly sorry that I must end my career as an elected official because I betrayed the public’s trust that I worked so very hard to earn.”

Bonus: When Caraway got Dallas to pay for a chicken restaurant. Caraway pushed for an $890,000 grant from the city to pay for a new restaurant for Rudy’s Chicken on Lancaster Avenue. But accepting the grant meant that the restaurant would move locations, something owner Rudolph Edwards didn’t want to happen. “I told [Caraway] I did not want my business on this lot … He did what he wanted to do,” Edwards told the Dallas Morning News.

—WILL MADDOX

Photo courtesy of Oak Cliff Brewing Co.

By BRENT MCDOUGAL

Never lose the wonder

To see the world as a child, be as a child

Walking along the beach this summer I happened along a mother and two children. The boy and girl played in the sand as the mother read. Out of the blue the boy asked, “Do you want to see my castle?” I knelt down to admire his work. He launched into a detailed description of how he created two large towers, a moat, horse stables and a room for the king. He imagined where the army would try to attack and how his castle could withstand any force.

That is the gift of children: The capacity to perceive beyond sight, to envision other worlds, to hear the lyricism underneath life’s drone.

In “Auguries of Innocence,” William Blake wrote, “To see a world in a grain of sand, And a heaven in a wild flower, Hold infinity in the palm of your hand And eternity in an hour.”

I had been contemplative, even brooding, as I walked the shore, but hearing the boy’s vision lifted my spirits. Why was I allowed such a moment, to sit and hear about the child’s alternative reality?

The truth is that sometimes I just miss it. Maybe we all do. My heart gets hard. Life becomes something to endure, not the joy it can be. I lose myself. I lose God. I miss what’s happening under my feet. I focus on the rough edges of life instead of the goodness, the beauty, the what-ifs.

Once the writer Margaret Feinberg asked a friend, “How do I not become a hollow soul?” Without hesitation, the friend responded, “Never lose the wonder.”

Wonder is the prerequisite to joy. Wonder opens our eyes. G.K. Chesterton said, “We are perishing for lack of wonder, not for lack of wonders.” Wonder is essential to worship. Why else worship unless that

which one beholds exists beyond the realm of understanding?

Through Isaiah, God declared to a hard-hearted people: “Therefore once more I will astound these people with wonder upon wonder; the wisdom of the wise will perish, the intelligence of the intelligent will vanish.” (Isaiah 29:4) What if God wanted to do something like that in your life? What if you’re over thinking life a bit too much? “Unless you change and become like little children,”

WORSHIP

BAPTIST

CLIFF TEMPLE BAPTIST CHURCH / 125 Sunset Ave. / 214.942.8601

Serving Oak Cliff since 1898 / CliffTemple.org / English and Spanish

9 am Contemporary Worship / 10 am Sunday School / 11 am Traditional

ROYAL LANE BAPTIST CHURCH / 6707 Royal Lane / 214.361.2809

Christian Education 9:45 a.m. / Worship Service 10:55 a.m.

Pastor - Rev. Dr. Michael L. Gregg / www.royallane.org

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 / Rev. Deborah Morgan-Stokes / edcc.org

METHODIST

GRACE UMC / Diverse, Inclusive, Missional Sunday School for all ages, 9:30 am / Worship, 10:50 am 4105 Junius St. / 214.824.2533 / graceumcdallas.org

Jesus said, “you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.” (Matthew 18:4) Children can’t do much for themselves. They can only receive and trust. The heart of a child is needed to experience wonder.

Earlier this summer, I felt weary as I concluded a communion service at a senior living home. One precious woman whom I have known for years has lost much of her memory, but when I saw her, the light of recognition dawned. She looked me in the eye and said, “I love you! I love you! I love you!” How I needed to hear those words that day.

If you need to recapture a sense of wonder, just ask for it. God knows. Kneel down. Become like a child.

Brent McDougal is pastor of Cliff Temple Baptist Church. The Worship section is a regular feature underwritten by Advocate Publishing and by the neighborhood business people and churches listed on these pages. For information about helping support the Worship section, call 214.560.4202.

NON-DENOMINATIONAL

KESSLER COMMUNITY CHURCH / 2100 Leander Dr. at Hampton Rd. “Your Hometown Church Near the Heart of the City.”

10:30 am Contemporary Service / kesslercommunitychurch.com

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PUBLISHING does not pre-screen, recommend or investigate the advertisements and/or Advertisers published in our magazines. As a result, Advocate Publishing is not responsible for your dealings with any Advertiser. Please ask each Advertiser that you contact to show you the necessary licenses and/or permits required to perform the work you are requesting. Advocate Publishing takes comments and/or complaints about Advertisers seriously, and we do not publish advertisements that we know are inaccurate, misleading and/or do not live up to the standards set by our publications. If you have a legitimate complaint or positive comment about an Advertiser, please contact us at 214-560-4203. Advocate Publishing recommends that you ask for and check references from each Advertiser that you contact, and we recommend that you obtain a written statement of work to be completed, and the price to be charged, prior to approving any work or providing an Advertiser with any deposit for work to be completed.

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BACK STORY

By RACHEL STONE

Oak Cliff Saturday night

Kicking it old school in the ’hood.

Saturday nights in Oak Cliff nowadays could include live music at the Kessler, art-house films at the Texas Theatre, art-gallery openings, local craft brew and fine dining.

Forty years ago, things were a little less high class. On a Saturday night, Oak Cliffers enjoyed the simple life while still getting their kicks.

Our neighborhood was dry from 19562011 — you had to “go across” to buy alcohol on the other side of the Trinity River or in the Tarrant County part of Grand Prairie. By the 1970s, the swanky nightclubs and dancehalls of El Tivoli were long gone.

But locals found ways to hang out in Oak Cliff without “going across.”

Here are three ways to let loose in 1970s Oak Cliff.

Rocket Skating Palace

Jack R. Barbre and Walter D. Young opened this roller rink on Cockrell Hill Road in the 1950s.

Early on, it was a place to glide across the floor to Jo Stafford singing “You Belong to Me.” In those days, the roller rink was about couples skate-dancing.

But it wasn’t long before the British Invasion hit, along with Oak Cliff’s garage-rock scene. The skating palace hosted sock hops and live performances from popular Oak Cliff bands including Kempy and the Guardians through the 1960s.

By the ’70s, it was a hangout for local kids who liked KISS and Aerosmith.

Neighborhood resident Jo Simpson told the newspaper in 1974 that she’d recently visited Rocket Skating Palace

on a Saturday night, “and found to her horror that people were actually skating to rock music.”

“They ought not to put rock music in skating rinks,” she told the paper. “If that’s what it’s all come to, they should just shut them down.”

The scandal!

The same story reported that some people showed up in skating costumes, and others were in blue jeans.

The Rocket held contests — limbo, racing and couples skate.

Gary Edwards, who was 34 at the time, frequented the skating palace with his girlfriend Mary Dalton. On this one night in 1974, she was wearing a velvet skating costume, and they had worked out a routine for the couples-skate competition.

“We dress up and come here the way some people dress up and go to a club somewhere,” she told the newspaper.

The Rocket Skating Palace is still there, although it hasn’t been used as a roller rink in a long time. Wrestlers started putting on shows there in the 1990s, and matches were held there as recently as a couple of years ago. The iconic rocket sign was mentioned in an AIA Dallas article about “witty” signage that’s worth preserving in Dallas.

Bronco Bowl

The 78-lane Bronco Bowl was built in 1961 for $3 million on the prospect that a televised professional bowling league, the NBL, would take off.

That league folded the following year,

A vintage post card depicting Rocket Skating Palace on Cockrell Hill Road. The Rocket was an Oak Cliff hangout for decades. Image courtesy of the Boston Public Library.

but the Bronco Bowl remained as an Oak Cliff hotspot for decades.

It’s most often remembered as a legendary live-music venue. David Bowie, The Clash, Public Enemy, Pantera, U2, Metallica and Bruce Springsteen all headlined there in the 1990s.

But in the ’70s, it was a divey hangout for straight-laced dads to roll off some steam.

Since Oak Cliff was dry, the Bronco Bowl was BYOB.

Dan Bullard of Oak Cliff carried his beer in a Styrofoam ice chest. He said he liked seeing the jumbo American flag above the lanes, and he wasn’t fond of the longhair types.

“My wife and I have gone bowling in Oak Cliff every Saturday night since we were married, and we’re about to celebrate our 15th wedding anniversary,” he told the newspaper in 1974. “And I can tell you one thing. You won’t find anyone here tonight with hair any longer than they wore it the night of our wedding reception. It’s nice to know that some things never change.”

The Bronco Bowl was torn down in

2003 to make way for Home Depot. Bingo halls

Rose Green, a widow in her 50s, played bingo four nights a week in Oak Cliff in the mid-1970s, all at different halls and veterans clubs. The Bronco Bowl had bingo too.

On Saturday nights, Green put her hair in big rollers to have it nice for church on Sunday, tied a red scarf around her head for luck and posted up at the bingo hall with her friends.

She told the newspaper in 1974 that cards cost about $3 apiece, and you could win up to $1,000 cash. People came from all over the city to play bingo in Oak Cliff, and the bingo halls usually were BYOB.

For-profit bingo was illegal, and a 1975 court ruling found that charity fundraising via bingo was just as illegal (the Texas Legislature made bingo-for-charity legal in 1981).

Thus the Dallas Police Department started raiding Oak Cliff bingo halls in the mid-1970s. They told the newspaper in 1975 that they typically only shut down games when there was a

complaint.

“We just don’t have the manpower to go out and check lodges to see if they’re playing bingo,” Lt. Richard P. Horn of the DPD vice unit told the newspaper.

Green had been witness to a bingo raid and was slightly disappointed that it wasn’t more exciting.

“I thought we’d get arrested like in the movies,” she told the newspaper. “I wondered what my son was going to say. But nothing happened to us, just the people who run the bingo.”

Police raided the Amvets Post on Dawes Drive (it’s no longer there), where there were several bingo games a week. Police cracked down on them because their games were “big, flagrant and had been advertised,” the police said.

After that, the Amvets canceled their annual Christmas party for veterans in Waco. And the police began receiving calls from “little old ladies in Oak Cliff” who were livid about losing their bingo game.

Rachel Stone is editor of the Oak Cliff Advocate. Send comments to rstone@advocatemag.com.

The Bronco Bowl’s pro bowling arena in 1961. Professional bowling at the Bronco Bowl was short-lived, but the enormous complex was a mainstay of Oak Cliff entertainment until 2003. Photo courtesy of the International Bowling Museum & Hall of Fame

An epicenter for robotic surgery.

Robotic surgery is a game changer in the hands of skilled surgeons. This minimally invasive technique can often o er patients less pain and scarring, shorter hospital stays, and faster recoveries.

Methodist Dallas Medical Center is a Surgery Epicenter, designated by Intuitive Surgical, the makers of the robotic da Vinci® Surgical System. A Surgery Epicenter is a surgical training program with a highly experienced surgeon who demonstrates best practices and excellent surgical results.

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To find a physician, call 214-947-0000.