LIBRARIAN BY DAY ...

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Rock ’n’ roller Nello Moa lives the librarian life by day ›

Story by RACHEL STONE | Photography by KATHY TRAN

THE STORY READS LIKE A COMIC BOOK.

Two musicians, “El Mero RockStar” and “El Roy” met while they were both paying tickets at the Lew Sterrett Justice Center

They found a guitar player, a drummer and a vocalist in “el barrio” and became the Mad Mexicans, a rock ’n’ roll band that’s been a fixture in Deep Ellum for almost 20 years.

The Mad Mexicans have played with many big acts over the years, including Ozomatli, Ice T and Body Count, Vanilla Ice, House of Pain and Molotov.

“El Mero RockStar” is the alter ego of Nello Moa, a librarian who became branch manager of the North Oak Cliff Library in March.

Moa was born and raised in Oak Cliff, around Clarendon and Edgefield, and he still lives here, now in the Bishop Arts area. He started playing bass guitar as a kid and had his first Deep Ellum gigs back in high school.

He was playing in bands and attending El Centro College when he landed a job as a page and clerk at the Dallas Public Library in 1995. Eventually, he earned an associate’s degree, then a bachelor’s from the University of Texas at Arlington. All the while, he continued moving up the ranks at the library.

“With the band, my goal was to get signed and go on tour and be the next Nirvana,” Moa says. “But that didn’t happen, so through all those years, I’ve held on to this little library job.”

By the time he turned 30, he realized that the rockstar thing wasn’t going to happen beyond the local scene. So he enrolled in the University of North Texas and received a master’s degree in library science in 2011.

His most recent assignment was manager of the Dallas West Library.

For the North Oak Cliff Library, he has big plans, although the pandemic has put a damper on them.

It’s no surprise that he’d like to incorporate music into the library’s program, along with other performing arts, such as dance and poetry. The library and the Oak Cliff Cultural Center are considering some collaborations, he says.

He also wants to start putting on community fairs in the library’s parking lot.

The City of Dallas has plans to renovate or replace the North Oak Cliff Library, but Moa says he doesn’t know much about that, and he says there haven’t been any meetings about it recently.

The city’s libraries were closed, offering curbside service only, for more than a year before reopening for limited service in May.

Moa says he wants more people to be aware of the full range of services that the library offers online. For example, he often touts Hoopla, the app where you can stream movies with your library card.

The North Oak Cliff Library is open to check out books and materials like DVDs, use the WiFi or log on to a computer. The branch will offer in-person GED classes beginning Sept. 15.

The North Oak Cliff Book Club meets online at 6:30 p.m. Sept. 14, and the Friends of the North Oak Cliff Library meet at 6:30 p.m. Sept. 21.

The Mad Mexicans have a gig at the Will Call Bar in Deep Ellum at 8 p.m. Sept. 24.

Besides his library and rock ’n’ roll careers, Noa is also a runner who likes to compete in Tough Mudder events.

He says the best part of the Dallas Public Library has always been his coworkers.

“They’re very creative. They’re very artistic,” he says. “They love the community, and the community loves them. That’s what makes it rewarding.”

Waving to the yellow bus

No second chances for these special moments

Every year, during these early weeks of fall, I love to see the “first day of school pictures.” As I write this today, my social media feed fills with children and their backpacks. Some are in uniforms, and almost all are in new clothes. Some are smiling and eager. Others look like the whole picture ritual was obligatory and grudging.

Alongside these younger kids, I’m seeing pictures of parents moving older students into their college dorm rooms for the very first time. Generally, in those pictures, everybody has a bit of a “deer in the headlights” look.

Our daughter is in graduate school, so we are past this ritual in our own family. But all these pictures cause memories to flood back, and it gives me joy.

The ritual of the first-day picture is a little yearly signpost in life. This year I saw a picture of an Oak Cliff kindergartner stepping into her school for the first time, and it brought back our daughter making that same move.

One moment, she was toddling into that school with her very first backpack, and then about five minutes later, we were moving her into the freshman dorm and making the long, teary parental drive home.

Every time your child walks through a school door for a new year, you’re practicing a ritual. You’re practicing the “leaving” they will eventually do to start their own lives, as they must.

They go out the door. They come back. They go out farther. They come back for shorter times. They go out … they come back … they …

The circles of their leaving grow larger and larger, the time and distance longer, and every year we practice this ritual.

This is how we grow to be able to stand it. We practice it, year on year, until we watch them take their bigger steps into adulthood.

The time flies, friends. I know you don’t need me to tell you this, but I’m going to.

Soak it all in. It goes by so fast, and there are no second chances for these precious moments.

When St. Paul was in prison, he wrote the people in Philippi and told them, “I keep you in my heart.” He was separated from them, and yet he kept them in his constant prayer.

This is what we do for all our school-aged families during early fall.

Join me in praying for them.

ERIC FOLKERTH is Senior Pastor at Kessler Park United Methodist Church. The Worship section is underwritten by Advocate Publishing and neighborhood businesses and churches listed. Call 214.560.4212 or email sales@advocatemag.com for advertising information.

WORSHIP

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GRACE TEMPLE BAPTIST Come to a Place of Grace! Sunday Worship: English Service 9:30am / Spanish Service 11:00am 831 W. Tenth St. / 214.948.7587 / gracetempledallas.org

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ST. CECILIA CATHOLIC PARISH / StCeciliaDallas.org / 1809 W Davis St. / Saturday - Bilingual Mass 5PM; Sunday – English Masses 7:30AM & 11AM; Spanish Masses 9AM & 1PM

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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

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KESSLER PARK UMC / 1215 Turner Ave./ 214.942.0098 I kpumc.org 10:30am Sunday School/11:00 Worship /All are welcome regardless or race, creed, culture, gender or sexual identity.

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By RACHEL STONE

Fall in Oak Cliff

An impression of the past

Photo courtesy of the Dallas Public Library.

This painting, “Fall in Oak Cliff” by Edward G. Eisenlohr, was painted en plein air near Cedar Creek before 1922.

Eisenlohr was born in Ohio in 1872, and his family moved to Dallas two years later, settling in Oak Cliff. His German parents owned a drug store and sent him to study in Europe as a young man. When he returned to Dallas, he took a job as a bookkeeper in a bank, which funded his art career.

Texas impressionist Frank Reaugh, who lived and worked in Oak Cliff, was one of Eisenlohr’s teachers and biggest influences.

Eisenlohr produced more than 1,000 drawings, watercolors, pastels, oil paintings and lithographs of the Dallas landscape.

Later in life, he split time between Dallas and Santa Fe, New Mexico, and his work has been exhibited at the Corcoran Gallery in Washington, D.C., the Museum of Modern Art in New York and the Museum of New Mexico, to name a few.

He died in 1961 and is buried in the Oak Cliff Cemetery.

This painting was given to the North Oak Cliff Library in 1922.

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