2017 November Oak Cliff

FROM OAK CLIFF TO HOUSTON WITH LOVE

We Get North Oak Cliff.

COOK, REALTORS

1510 Eastus Dr. $1,595,000 David Griffin

N. Willomet Ave. $550,000 Crystal Gonzalez

N. Canterbury Ct. SOLD Robert Kucharski

101 S. Winnetka Ave. $575,000 Crystal Gonzalez

315 S. Windomere Ave. $399,500 Diane Sherman 469.767.1823

Knott Pl. SOLD Crystal Gonzalez

209 S. Brighton Ave. $379,000 Bart Thrasher

Pioneer Dr. SOLD Crystal Gonzalez

Kessler Woods Trl. SOLD David Griffin

Driftwood Dr. SOLD Crystal Gonzalez

ON THE COVER: A car submerged on Mustang Island following Hurricane Harvey. This page: A crumpled RV near Beaumont.

30 PRO BOWLERS

The bygone Bronco Bowl was built on hopes for the National Bowling League.

PHOTO BY DANNY FULGENCIO

Nationally Ranked. Locally Chosen.

Celebrating 25 years of national recognition according to U.S. News & World Report’s 2017-2018 ratings.

Caring for you is our highest honor. Baylor University Medical Center at Dallas is recognized in the latest “Best Hospitals” ratings as high-performing in seven specialties— cancer, diabetes & endocrinology, geriatrics, nephrology, neurology & neurosurgery, orthopedics and pulmonology.

Baylor University Medical Center at Dallas is also recognized as high-performing in eight common procedures or conditions. For you, these recognitions confirm our commitment to providing quality health care each day.

To find out more about our award-winning care, visit BSWHealth.com/BestHospitals.

OPENING REMARKS

By RICK WAMRE

No thanks

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Catherine Pate

It’s nearly Thanksgiving: Do we collectively have anything to be thankful for this year?

That’s kind of a tough one.

Well, we haven’t incinerated anyone with a nuclear bomb, and no one here has been lit up, radiation-wise, either.

For all of the kneeling and yelling and heiling, life just seems worse — as opposed to actually being worse — from what I can tell.

And what about those natural disasters? Wind, water, fire, earthquakes — are there any more ways to kill people and destroy property than we’ve experienced this year?

Of course, that list skips the mass shooting option. We’ve certainly had more than our share of those this year, too.

So what exactly do we have to be thankful for?

We could be thankful for each other — that’s actually part of the whole Thanksgiving Day program, being thankful for all of the things we mean to each other.

But if half of us hate the other half, that doesn’t sound like a winning formula for Thursday afternoon fun, does it?

Not knowing where to turn or who to turn to for sage advice, I ran across some words of wisdom from America’s seemingly nicest guy, actor Tom Hanks, who — for all of his wealth and fame now grew up in a broken family, living in what he says were 10 homes in 10 years during childhood.

Normally, I don’t care what someone in Hollywood has to say about much of anything, but if anyone has the answer to today’s dilemmas, it has to be Tom Hanks. Right?

As a country, Hanks told The New

Yorker, “we have always corrected something that’s horrible. World War II was fought by a segregated United States of America, except for a few military units. And immediately after that, it altered.

“But you have to go through things that will alter the consciousness. And normalcy is always being redefined, and you just have to have faith, and you have to have some degree of patience, and you do have to put up with, every now and again, let’s face it, Nazi torch parades

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surrounding a phantom issue of a statue that was put up in the 1920s.” America, Hanks says, is a complicated place.

“It’s going to be ugly periodically, but it’s also going to be beautiful periodically.”

And keeping a sense of humor — as opposed to a sense of horror, I suppose is what Hanks says we need these days,

“It might be the only ammunition that is left in order to bring down tyrants,” he says. “You know what Mark Twain says: ‘Against the assault of laughter, nothing can stand.’ ”

So smile a bit while you’re digging into your turkey, or tofurkey, this month. This year, in particular, we’ve earned that right.

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

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contributing photographers: Rasy Ran, Kathy Tran

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.

Tom Hanks is the voice we need in these dark times

“You know what Mark Twain says: ‘Against the assault of laughter, nothing can stand.’ ”

L A UNC H

Out & About

NOV. 3

ROUND WORSHIP

Cliff Temple Baptist Church hosts worship in the round, celebrating a Nashville tradition of artists sharing the stage together. Building 429, Chris August and Josh Wilson perform. Cliff Temple Baptist Church, 125 Sunset Ave., 214.942.8601, clifftemple.org, $16-$40

NOV. 3

ART CON

During Art Conspiracy 13, artists create works on identical pieces of board, which are auctioned off starting at $20 during a big party and concert. The benefits go to Seek the Peace, a nonprofit that develops leaders in the refugee community.

The Cedars Union, 1311 S. Ervay, artconspiracy.org, $10

NOV. 9

BIG NIGHT

Watch a foodie’s favorite flick, “Big Night,” and enjoy two Italian pop-up restaurants in the lobby, including Justin Holt from Lucia. Each pop-up is $10 (cash only) and will take place before and after the film.

The Texas Theatre, 231 W. Jefferson, 214.948.1546, thetexastheatre.com, $10

NOV. 11

EVENING OF JAZZ

This intimate concert with Nick Colionne and Eric Darius includes free cocktails and world-class jazz musicians. Shows are at 7 and 9:45 p.m.

Bishop Arts Theatre Center, 215 S. Tyler, 214.948.0716, tecotheater.org, $70

NOV. 17-18

BLUES, BANDITS & BBQ

Watch 30 teams compete to see which makes the best barbecue during this two-day festival benefitting KNON Community Radio and the Movember Foundation. Tickets to sample the barbecue cost $20, and local musicians will show their skills throughout the festival.

Kidd Springs Park, 711 W. Canty St., bluesbanditsandbbq.org, free

NOV. 30

RECOVERY LIVE

Floramay Holliday and Over the River, and The Rosemont Kings play a benefit concert for The Well Community, a mental health recovery nonprofit.

The Kessler, 1230 W. Davis St., 214.272.8436, thekessler.org, $50

Sixteen 3BR/3Bath Townhomes with Large Rooftop Terraces in the Heart of Bishop Arts District. Priced from $435,000.

A HOUSE’S HEROES

Once threatened with demolition, the Struck house survives

By RACHEL STONE

Photo by DANNY FULGENCIO

Adeveloper wanted to tear it down. Preservationists wanted to move it. In the end, a young family will make their home in the 127-year-old West Dallas farmhouse known as the “Struck house.”

The house found its savior in A.J. and Michaella Ramler of Oak Cliff.

The couple recently purchased the property, which includes two other houses on a little less than an acre, for what A.J. Ramler describes as the “land value.”

The Ramlers, who have one child and one on the way, currently live in the four-plex that they own in Sunset Hill. They

Michaella and A.J. Ramler, here with their daughter, Lucia, bought the 127-year-old Struck house in West Dallas. The Ramlers plan to renovate and live in the house, which a developer had planned to tear down earlier this year.

plan to renovate the Struck house over the next year and move in.

Less than a year ago, it looked like the house, in the Western Heights neighborhood, could be doomed. David Weekly Homes had the property under contract with plans to rezone it and build townhouses there.

Neighborhood resident Deborah Carpenter stood up against that plan.

Preservationists from a budding nonprofit called Dallas Endowment for Endangered Properties Inc. negotiated with the builder, who agreed to donate the house if it could be moved elsewhere.

The Dallas Landmark Commission quickly stepped in and initiated landmark status for the house, preventing it from being demolished or moved while

its status is under review, which takes about three years.

That ended the Houston-based developer’s interest in the land.

The Ramlers bought the house from the Wheeler family, who had purchased it in the 1970s.

“I went and saw the house, and I was like, ‘We can do that,’ ” A.J. Ramler says. “It doesn’t need a remarkable amount of work.”

The house was built around 1890 by early West Dallas settlers Heinrich Struck and his wife, Anna. Struck was a German pub owner and a member of the Sons of Hermann. Their house on the hill, at what is now 1923 N. Edgefield, became a gathering place for the community, the site of meetings, picnics and weddings.

Ramler, who works for CBG Building Co., thinks too many owners of historical properties fail to see an old building’s value for anything except demolition. Consider the renovated historic building that housed Bolsa Mercado until recently; it rents for around $10,000 a month.

The site of the former Corazon de Tejas restaurant, on West Davis at Beckley, sold to a CVS developer for just land value when, as a renovated historic building, it had the potential to rake in rents of tens of thousands a month.

“People miss that with these historic properties,” Ramler says.

The Ramlers bought their four-plex on West Tenth Street about five years ago, right after college. More recently, they renovated a two-story former farmhouse in the Sunset Hill neighborhood and sold it.

“I love old houses and I love saving old houses,” Ramler says. “It would’ve been a shame for it to be torn down.”

communities & services

“I went and saw the house, and I was like, ‘We can do that.’ It doesn’t need a remarkable amount of work.”

ROSEMONT IS OAK CLIFF’S NO-BRAINER ELEMENTARY CHOICE — OR IS IT?

Our new podcast, ‘The Uninformed Parent,’ looks at how and why families select a school

By KERI MITCHELL I Photo By DANNY FULGENCIO

Eleven months.

That’s the span of time between next August, when Weston Smith will start kindergarten, and this past September, when his father, Brian, added the momentous event to the family’s shared calendar.

The Smiths know the when; they just don’t know the where.

In north Oak Cliff, where the Smiths live, Rosemont Elementary is the popular kid on the block. Roughly 1,000 children attend its detached primary and elementary campuses, and more than a third of them transfer in from other Dallas ISD schools.

That doesn’t mean, however, that Rosemont is the choice of every parent who lives in Kessler Park, Kings Highway, Winnetka Heights and parts of Kidd Springs. Private school yard signs abound in these neighborhoods, most commonly touting The Kessler School, located about a mile away from Rosemont.

In all, the families of nearly 300 children zoned to Rosemont choose private education or homeschooling, according to U.S. Census data.

The Smiths, who moved into an adorable Tudor near the Stevens Park Golf Course a year and a half ago, are in the midst of considering their options. Fouryear-old Weston starts kindergarten next fall, and 2-year-old Windsor won’t be far behind.

Weston Smith will start kindergarten next fall. His parents, Brian and Emily, moved the family to Kessler Park in 2016 and live within walking distance of Rosemont Elementary. They hope to send their son to Rosemont, but the school’s test scores give them pause, along with the numerous yard signs in their neighborhood touting The Kessler School, a private elementary and middle school also within walking distance.

They knew they would live within walking distance of Rosemont when they moved in, and they hear great things about the school from neighborhood parents. But like most parents of young children, they have a lot of questions.

“I think there are so many questions we have that we don’t even know we have because we don’t know what’s there,” Brian says. “I think at this point we’re just uninformed on what it looks like from the ground.”

Theirs is a common dilemma for prospective parents, who can’t quite find what they’re looking for on the school website and don’t exactly know where to

What are parents looking for? What are — and aren’t — they finding in their neighborhood schools? How do parents choose a school for their children? This is the focus of our new school-yearlong series that attempts to help Oak Cliff parents take a better and deeper look at their neighborhood schools. Each month, our magazine will highlight a different family who is considering or attending a Dallas ISD school. We’ll probe all of the questions, hesitations and soul-searching that revolve around school decisions. We’ll help our partner families figure out answers to their questions and concerns, and we’ll publish their stories in our magazine, on our website and in a new podcast, all available at oakcliff. advocatemag.com/podcast.

We hope other families will be able to identify with and learn from these journeys. And we’re still looking for other partner families. If you’re considering your neighborhood school but have questions and doubts you want to explore, reach out to editor Keri Mitchell at 214.292.0487 or kmitchell@ advocatemag.com.

“A lot of parents of toddlers are not able to plan because they’re just living in the moment, trying to keep kids alive.”

PROCEEDS BENEFIT

Lakewood Elementary, J.L. Long Middle School, Woodrow Wilson High School

$15 in advance, $20 at the door, Children 12 and under free

start. Is it possible to take a tour of the school? Attend a PTA meeting? Observe a classroom? Meet the principal?

The answer to all of these questions is yes, at both Rosemont and several other Oak Cliff schools. But being fairly new to the neighborhood, and brand new to the school scene (Weston and Windsor stay at home with Emily in lieu of preschool) none of it is intuitive.

“A lot of parents of toddlers are not able to plan because they’re just living in the moment, trying to keep kids alive,” Brian quips.

Visit Rosemont Elementary with Brian, Emily, Weston and Windsor Smith, and hear more from the Smiths about what’s weighing on their decision in our new podcast, The Uninformed Parent, available at oakcliff.advocatemag.com/podcast.

ROSEMONT ELEMENTARY by the numbers

1,022

Current enrollment at Rosemont Elementary

376

Number of students who transferred to Rosemont last year

296

Number of students zoned to Rosemont last year whose families opted for private or home school

73.7

Percentage of Rosemont’s 2016-17 enrolled students who live in poverty

35.4

Percentage of Rosemont’s 2016-17 enrolled students who are English language learners (ELL)

19:1

Average ratio of students to teachers in Rosemont classrooms

Sources: DISD 2016-17 Campus Demographic Data Book*, Texas Education Agency (TEA) school profile*, DISD My Data Portal, Rosemont principal Rachel Moon.

*We used 2016-17 data rather than 2017-18 because DISD data is not updated until after TEA’s required enrollment snapshot, which took place at the end of October, before press time.

DELICIOUS Lounge around

One of the chicest cocktail bars in Dallas is a stone’s throw away

Story by RACHEL STONE

Photo by KATHY TRAN

Houndstooth Coffee is adding two stores, one in Austin and one on Walnut Hill Lane, this year, bringing the total to six locations. But there’s only one Jettison.

“This is our one-off,” says owner Sean Henry, who started Houndstooth in Austin in 2010 but lives with his wife and two kids near Kidd Springs Park.

Jettison is a Texas glam cocktail bar connected to the Houndstooth at Sylvan Thirty. It’s tiny, consisting of about a dozen bar seats, four tables and a loveseat lounge area. Dallas-based architecture, interiors and furniture studio Official designed the space so

A lineup of artfully crafted cocktails: One of these nights, twolane blacktop, pink lady and Manhattan Texas.

that guests are naturally drawn from coffee to cocktails and back. Bartender George Kaiho won the regional round of a statewide cocktail competition with “one of these nights,” made with Amaro Lucano, Houndstooth coffee, cognac and almond syrup. Other favorites include the Texas Manhattan, made with Balcones Brimstone whiskey, and the “good morning, Jerez” sherry cocktail.

JETTISON

Ambiance: Cocktail lounge

Price range: $9-$15

Hours: 4 p.m.-midnight Tuesday-Saturday, closes Sunday and Monday 1878 Sylvan Ave.

Instagram.com/jettisonaway

The bar doesn’t have a huge selection of spirits, but they’re carefully curated, Henry says.

There are also snacks: cheese and meat boards, a selection of Spanish canned seafood and, on Wednesdays, tamales homemade by one of the bartenders to go with mezcal specials.

BY RACHEL STONE PHOTOS BY DANNY FULGENCIO

You’ve heard of the Cajun navy. Meet the ‘lesbian mafia.’

She knew she would be fine but also knew others were suffering.

Friend Karen McCrocklin of Oak Cliff heard about Wagner’s plight and offered to drive down and help.

“I said, ‘No, crazy! Stay where you are,’ ” Wagner recalls.

But then another friend, Capt. Iris Rodriguez of Houston Fire Department Station No. 8, said she needed flat-bottomed boats, medicine, food and other supplies.

So McCrocklin put out a call on Facebook.

That’s when Sara Offringa came into the picture: “I saw that a Facebook friend had offered, ‘I’ve got a jon (flat-bottom) boat if somebody needs it.’ Twenty minutes later, I see a post from Karen that said, ‘I need a boat.’ ”

McCrocklin picked up that boat, plus another she’d borrowed. She bought a trawling motor, and they set out on Interstate 45 hauling boats and trailers full of supplies.

“Sure enough, those boats were delivered the next morning,” Rodriguez says. “I was like, ‘Who was this crazy lady?’ ”

Rodriguez and McCrocklin wouldn’t meet in person for another week; McCrocklin had dropped off the boats, picked up a friend in Houston and turned around to drive the friend to a family member’s Austin home. Then she returned to volunteer in Houston.

Those two boats were involved in at least 14 water rescues. McCrocklin’s online fundraising efforts resulted in more than $25,000 in cash donations, about $40,000 in donated supplies and a fledgling nonprofit.

“This thing has exploded. We raised a lot of money in a

Sara Offringa, top, and Karen McCrocklin, above, helped raise about $25,000 in cash and $40,000 in supplies following Hurricane Harvey. Oppostie page: A boy plays in a driveway before a hill of refuse in northeast Houston. Previous page: A Texas flag wrapped around a palm tree at an RV park in Port Aransas.

hurry,” McCrocklin says. “It allowed us to put relief directly into the hands of people who needed it with no overhead.”

Friends and family from all over the world sent supplies to McCrocklin and Offringa.

“Let’s just say Amazon knows my address,” Offringa says.

The crew wound up helping many people in a low-income neighborhood of northeast Houston.

“We started focusing on that area because they had nothing,” she says. “Those people were isolated they were cut off. All their cars were flooded, so they were stuck in the neighborhood, and that neighborhood doesn’t have big grocery stores or Walmart or anything like that. I’m super-happy that we were able to help people who had less access.”

McCrocklin, an LGBTQ activist, author and radio host who lives in Kessler Park, has trekked south with supplies several times since then.

“Now the need set has evolved,” she says. “Now they need flooring and paint and Sheetrock. They need money and volunteers.”

As the water rose outside her Houston home during Hurricane Harvey, Bobbie Wagner used an air mattress as a makeshift raft to float her dog and supplies through chest-high water to her neighbor’s two-story house across the street.

Friends are still delivering supplies to McCrocklin’s house and staging operations in her driveway.

Meanwhile, Rodriguez started a nonprofit, Texas Local Disaster Recovery Squad, with some of the cash they raised. She calls it “the lesbian mafia.”

That group has been busy rebuilding in the poorest parts of Southeast Texas.

Their goal is to get people back into their homes by fixing up three rooms: A bedroom, a bathroom and a kitchen.

“It doesn’t take much, either,” Rodriguez says. “Just so they can start putting their lives back together.”

The group is continuing to raise money online — they’ve formed a board and already have legal nonprofit status — with a goal of being able to react to any natural or manmade disaster in Texas.

Wagner, who initially connected Rodriguez and McCrocklin, participated in water rescues for several days. They rescued people, pets, children, the elderly and sick. She refers to those two and herself as a “three-legged stool.” She communicated with and connected people; McCrocklin raised money and activated volunteers; Rodriguez and her crew set up distribution and strategy.

“It was all reaction,” she says. “You just kind of did it.”

While friends and acquaintances often refer to her as “amazing” and “phenomenal,” McCrocklin is reluctant to take much credit.

She says she received donations from friends near and far, and many have volunteered in Houston.

“It was really everyone else who made this work. It was a 100 percent group effort,” she says. “I just happened to be the conduit to connect the right people in a hurry.”

It’s going to take years for the area to fully recover from Harvey, Rodriguez says. Besides building supplies and furniture, residents still need major appliances — refrigerators, stoves, washers and dryers.

The group continues to organize volunteer activities on Facebook. They post what they need, and anyone can sign up to help.

Rodriguez, who also is a sergeant major in the U.S. Army Reserves, has been a firefighter since 1993 and says being a public servant “is the best gift you can give yourself.”

“The team that we have is just phenomenal. We all have talent. It’s not just one person,” she says. “That’s what’s so great about it.”

Bobbie Wagner, above, participated in at least 14 water rescues with the two boats that Karen McCrocklin delivered (photo courtesy of Bobbie Wagner). Top: A disaster relief crane services a northeast Houston neighborhood. Right: Members of the Rodriguez family, in their gutted home in northeast Houston, await the return of their mother after she stepped on a nail. McCrocklin had whisked her away to seek medical attention.

Donate to the Texas Local Disaster Recovery Squad by searching youcaring.com for Texas LDRS Inc. Volunteer with the group via their Facebook page, Texas Local Disaster Recovery Squad.

“It was really everyone else who made this work. It was a 100 percent group effort. I just happened to be the conduit to connect the right people in a hurry.”

MEMORIES in COLOR

By RACHEL STONE

Mitchell Cope moved his dad’s 8-mm film projector and a box of home movies from Dallas to Florida to Kansas City, where they sat in a closet for 20 years.

When Cope and his wife retired to Florida a couple of years ago, it was time to downsize.

The projector’s cord had rotted, so that’s in a landfill now. But the home movies made the cut.

The color footage that Cope rediscovered was shot between 1955-65, much of it in Oak Cliff.

He had no way of watching the films, and he discovered that converting them to digital would cost about $1,200. But then he found a $300 machine online that could transfer the film.

In all, he converted nine 30-minute films, and they’re all on Youtube now. Not all of them are as fascinating as the one containing 1 minute of color footage showing the old streetcar Downtown and on Jefferson Boulevard in December 1955.

“I tried to do some judicious editing,” Cope says of the home movies.

There also are films of classroom Christmas parties at Cope’s Elmwood elementary school, Margaret B. Henderson, from the ’50s. There’s about 6 minutes of kids splashing in the bygone neighborhood pool at Henderson.

Cope and his dad shot a bunch of footage of Elmwood Methodist Church, parishioners filing out in their Sunday best as well as a girls’ softball practice, which was part of a later-abandoned film project about the church.

Cope says his dad, also named Mitchell, filmed the streetcar for posterity because he knew it was going away.

The elder Cope also took color footage of Dealey Plaza and the grassy knoll on the day after the Kennedy assassination.

Cope says he’d completely forgotten about it.

“I didn’t even realize he had taken video,” Cope says. “I took photographs that day, but of course, those faded. The home movies held up, and I didn’t even know I had them.”

Cope’s dad was a University Park firefighter, and his mother was the school nurse at Henderson. As a freshman at Southern Methodist University, the younger Cope says he thought he’d

become either a filmmaker or an engineer. He’s now a retired engineer.

“My father got that camera around the time I was going into first grade,” Cope says.

Now he’s using the footage as a way to connect with his classmates from half a century ago. He was unable to attend his 50th high school reunion last year, but through Youtube and Facebook, he had some tangible memories to offer.

Find some of Mitchell Cope’s home movies at oakcliff.advocatemag.com

Mitchell Cope, right, with his dad, also named Mitchell, in the 1950s. Cope recently converted hours of color home movies to digital. (Photo courtesy of Mitchell Cope)

Cement City and the Eagle Ford community. Moser has plans to restore the building’s facades, expose bricked-in windows, replace windows and doors and add a paved parking lot.

PEOPLE

The readers of planning news publication

“Planetizen” named Oak Cliff’s own Jason Roberts among the 100 “most influential urbanists of all time.” Roberts is the founder of Oak Cliff-based Better Block, a nonprofit that stages temporary public improvements in cities around the globe. He also is a partner in Oddfellows restaurant. Diane Sherman is Dallas’ resident expert on our city’s historic homes. And now her son Vinnie, a former U.S. Army Ranger, has joined the family business.

Groceries galore

In an average year, Oak Cliff households’ total expenditures: BREAD $1,595,000 CAKES AND CUPCAKES $501,000 STEAK $1,284,00 BACON $648,000 LETTUCE $511,000

BUTTER $310,000

Diane Sherman Realtor Advanced Historic House Specialist 469.767.1823 dsherman@davidgriffin.com

Vinnie Sherman Realtor Advanced Historic House Specialist 214.562.6388 vsherman@davidgriffin.com

Fire Station 15, built in the early 20th century, had architecture similar to several other two-story brick fire stations built around the same time in Dallas.

At least one other, on McKinney Avenue at Leonard Street, still stands.

Oak Cliff native Robert Camplen went to work at the old station at 600 N. Bishop in 1972. It was his first assignment as lieutenant.

Gloria’s Latin Cuisine

“I loved it because I was home,” he says. “I was born just down the street at Methodist, went to school in the neighborhood, played in the creeks there, and now I was working in my backyard.”

He thinks this picture of him in front of the station was taken in 1973.

The station moved to 111 E. Eighth in the summer of 1975, and that one is still in operation today.

The old fire station later was converted to an office building. Gloria’s Latin Cuisine renovated the old firehouse, and after closing its original location on West Davis Street at Llewellyn Avenue, moved in 2011. Gloria’s won an award for its preservation efforts from the Old Oak Cliff Conservation League, now Heritage Oak Cliff, in 2012.

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

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

EPISCOPAL

ST. AUGUSTINE’S /1302 W. Kiest Blvd / staugustinesoakcliff.org

A diverse, liturgical church with deep roots in Oak Cliff and in the ancient faith / Holy Eucharist with Hymns Sunday 10:15 am

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

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

UNITARIAN UNIVERSALIST

UNITARIAN UNIVERSALIST CHURCH OF OAK CLIFF / oakcliffuu.org

Sun. Worship 10am / Wed. Meditation 7pm / 3839 W. Kiest Blvd.

Inclusive – Justice Seeking – Spirited – Eclectic – Liberal – Fun!

Hope floats

Transcendent glimpses can come from any place

The lowest place on earth is the Dead Sea, which borders Israel and the West Bank and Jordan. My wife, Jen, and I traveled there recently. At 1,407 feet below sea level, it’s the deepest hypersaline (very, very salty) lake in the world. The water is much more dense than the human body, so as we waded in, we experienced the strange sensation of being pushed to the water’s surface. We couldn’t help but float. We also couldn’t stop laughing.

That picture typifies how I felt throughout our journey to Israel. We dined in 500-year-old cisterns-turned-restaurants, walked on pilgrim roads and touched the traditional rock of Golgotha, the place where Jesus was crucified.

The Irish call these “thin places.”

They’re thin not because the land is limited or the atmosphere is rarified, but because the space between heaven and earth narrows. Time and eternity kiss as the gauzy curtain between this world and the next is lifted for an instant. Life seems different. Perhaps one glimpses what life itself is about.

I experienced another such place in Iona, Scotland, some years ago. From quiet worship in the 1,000-year-old monastery to walking the rocky, 7-mile perimeter, a deep tranquility breathes through Iona.

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But one doesn’t have to travel to Israel or Iona to find a thin place. In the mystery, misery and joy of human experience, one can encounter a thin place here in Oak Cliff.

You might find this example strange, but some years ago there was a precious woman named Louise Trubey in our congregation. She was one of the first senior adults I met when we moved to Dallas. Louise, then 87, held a steady gaze and walked with a stately poise.

WORSHIP

By BRENT MCDOUGAL

She especially loved children, teaching Bible stories to 4-year-olds for 50 years.

The first Sunday that I preached, as I nervously began my message, I happened to glance at Louise and I fell into a thin place.

She winked at me.

No one had ever winked at me before when I preached. But that day, and every Sunday until she died, just as I would begin to preach, I’d look over and Louise would wink just once in my direction. She made sure I saw her, and I caught her meaning: I am listening. I am in your corner. Don’t be afraid.

Life’s sacredness isn’t restricted to church buildings or desolate wildernesses. For those with expectation and eyes

to see, there’s always the possibility of being jolted from everyday life, where feet give way and one begins to float. Hope, healing and strength — these are the gifts of thin places.

I believe that one day we will understand all of the pain and sadness and struggle of this life. But in the meantime, God sometimes pulls back the veil and gives us eternal, transcendent glimpses. We need to pay attention. There is a deeper reality, and it’s not as far as we might think.

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.

Life’s sacredness isn’t restricted to church buildings or desolate wildernesses.

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On a roll

The mid-century bowling craze birthed the Bronco Bowl

By RACHEL STONE

Dallas oilman J. Curtis Sanford started the Cotton Bowl Classic football game in 1937, and it would become one of the most popular college bowl games of all time.

Sanford was 34 when the first Cotton Bowl game, between Texas Christian University and Marquette University, was played.

Toward the end of his life, Sanford took up another sport, bowling.

During the mid-20th century, bowling mania hit the United States middle class hard.

Bowling became one of the most popular pastimes in the nation, especially after the invention of automatic pinsetters.

Most Dallas companies had recreational bowling leagues for their employees. There were competitive high

school and college leagues as well as minor league professionals. The daily newspapers ran scores, stats and news on local bowling leagues.

Sanford picked up on this trend in the early 1960s as a way to make money with recreational bowling alleys as well as through televised professional bowling via the National Bowling League.

The league formed in 1961, and the first match pitted the New York Gladiators against Sanford’s team, the Dallas Broncos. Among the pros on the Broncos team was Eddie Brickell, father of Oak Cliff native singer/songwriter Edie Brickell.

The match was televised at the Bronco Bowl in Oak Cliff.

Sanford poured millions of dollars into building the 78-lane Bronco Bowl

on Fort Worth Avenue on the prospect that the National Bowling League could be a moneymaker.

He built it for $3 million on the site of the former Mustang Village federal housing project. It had 72 lanes for public bowling and a six-lane arena for televised professional bowling.

The 136,000-square-foot complex also included pool tables, indoor archery, a pinball arcade, slot-car racing, a miniature golf course, a concert hall, food concessions and a barbershop. Actress Jayne Mansfield, a Dallas native who once lived in Oak Cliff, appeared at the ribbon cutting.

When it opened, the Bronco Bowl set a record for having the largest “housewives league” in the nation with 72 teams. They rolled at 10 a.m. on Fridays — there was a free “nursery” for the littles.

The Bronco Bowl could seat 3,000 spectators, but on the Dallas Broncos’ opening night, in October 1961, just 2,000 bought tickets. It went downhill from there.

NBL teams began folding that December, and the league was down to a handful of teams the following spring. The league was dead by July 1962.

Sanford also had opened two other bowling alleys in 1961, Valwood Lanes in Farmers Branch and the Cotton Bowling Palace on Inwood Road at Lemmon Avenue.

All are gone now.

The Bronco Bowl lingered as a cavernous but underused bowling alley through the 1970s.

It was reconfigured in the 1980s as a concert venue. It also had 22 bowling lanes, a sports bar and three small clubs.

David Bowie, The Clash, Public Enemy, Bruce Springsteen, U2, Metallica, Pantera and Beck are among the many big names who performed there during its musical era.

The Bronco Bowl closed in 1991, but it reopened in 1996. The venue continued for several more years until Home Depot bought it in 2003 and tore the gathering spot down.

Opposite page: The Bronco Bowl’s six-lane arena, which was built on hopes for the televised National Bowling League. Below: The Dallas Broncos lineup included Eddie Brickell, whose daughter, Edie, is the famous singer/songwriter.

The ‘housewives’ rolled at 10 a.m. on Fridays

— there was a free ‘nursery’ for the littles.