LOST in the Tandy Hills Dharma Initiative

I was at the Tandy Hills Natural Area today. I saw 3 separate, very large areas covered with what I now know to be Texas Wild Irises, thanks to the horticulture input of Twister and Shirley.

I was surprised to find no Texas Bluebonnets doing their blue thing on the Tandy Hills today, because I saw a patch of them blooming along the freeway, I assumed they'd be up and running on the Tandy Hills.

I did see another Wildflower that has now made its Spring appearance. I've no idea what it is, but it is a reddish colored thing sort of shaped like a horn.

I suspect that by my next scheduled Tandy Hills visit, on Monday, the hills will be alive with the sound of color. And birds.

I've mentioned before that sometimes when I'm wandering around the Tandy Hills the TV show LOST comes to mind. I got around to watching 2 episodes of LOST last night, so it was fresh in my memory.

Today I came upon 3 underground stations like the one in the picture, indicating that before the current Earth Loving Tribe took over the Island of Hills, "Others" had punched some holes in the ground here. I did not try to open the hatch to see if it was inhabited. I suspect whatever "Dharma-like Initiative" put this hatch in this location, has long abandoned the area, unable to abide by it being taken over by Natural People wanting a Natural Area.

I wonder if the patches of Texas Wild Irises date from when "The Others" controlled the Tandy Hills? One more thing they left behind. Like their hatches.

First Texas Bluebonnet of the Year

This morning's Dallas Morning News had a picture of the first Bluebonnets blooming on the first day of Spring.

At noon, on my way to Tandy Hills Park, to hunt for wildflowers. I saw my first Bluebonnets of the year. They were blooming along side Interstate 30. Currently they are looking a bit puny, compared to this same location last year. I suspect it will grow way bluer in this spot in the coming weeks.

In the foreground of the picture (you'll have to click the pic to see the bluebonnets) is another Texas Wildflower staple, the name of which escapes me right now, maybe something with primrose as it's last name. You see a lot of this particular wildflower. In fact they were my introduction to Texas Wildflowers, way back in the Spring of 1998, when I drove into Texas via Amarillo and began seeing these fragile looking flowers lining the side of the road.

Now that Spring has officially arrived with the first Texas Bluebonnets I can relax and eagerly anticipate the first 100 degree day of the year. And the first Tornado Warning Sirens of the year.

Sam Rayburn Turnpike & Other Texas Freeway Honorariums

Lately I've noticed an awful lot of ink being devoted to the naming of a toll road here in the D/FW Metroplex. The toll road being named is a 21 mile section of State Highway 121. It is proposed that this section of highway be named after Sam Rayburn. Mr. Sam was a legendary Speaker of the House from Bonham, Texas. He and Lyndon Johnson, working together, were a formidable pair of legislators.

I don't know why it has come to be, but, as Wikipedia put it...

"For those new to the Metroplex, the area's elaborate highway system can be a bit confusing. The D/FW area has long had a tradition of naming numbered highways."

Some of the freeway and highway naming seems really goofy to me. I know other areas of America also name their freeways, like in the Los Angeles zone I-5 is the Golden State Freeway. They also have the Hollywood Freeway, Ventura Freeway and a lot more. The only freeway named after a person in the LA zone, that I know of, is I believe there may be a section of freeway named after Richard Nixon.

The Seattle zone does no freeway renaming. Up there they just stick with I-5, I-405, I-90, I-520, you get the drift.

Here in the Metroplex the same road can go by various names. Like right where I live on one side of I-820 the road is called John T. White Road, cross over the freeway and it becomes Bridge Street. A couple miles to the east of me Green Oaks Boulevard turns into Dottie Lynn Parkway for no discernible reason.

Here in the D/FW Metroplex we have the LBJ Freeway (I-635), the George Bush Turnpike and the Ronald Reagan Memorial Highway (I-20 in Arlington).

Those are our Presidential Freeways. We also have a section of U.S. Highway 287 in Fort Worth renamed as Martin Luther King, Jr. Freeway.

I-30 from the Tarrant County line on east to the Dallas Mixmaster is called Tom Landry Freeway. Landry coached the Dallas Cowboys at some point in time and is apparently highly regarded. The Tom Landry Freeway signs have a strange hat as its symbol.

I have no idea who the other people are who have freeways named after them. We have the East R. L. Thornton Freeway and the South R. L. Thornton Freeway.

And then there is the Marvin D. Love Freeway, which is U. S. Highway 67.

U.S. Highway 175 is known as C.F. Hawn Freeway.

Spur 366 is known as the Woodall Rogers Freeway.

Texas State Highway 360 is Angus Wynne Freeway. I think he may be the guy who started Six Flags.

Texas State Highway 114 is known as the John Carpenter Freeway. The movie maker? I have no idea.

Interstate 45 in known as the Julius Schepps Freeway. I don't believe it is called that all the way to Houston.

Texas State Highway Loop 12 has a lot of names. Depending on where you are on the loop it is known as Walton Walker Boulevard, Northwest Highway, Ledbetter Drive, Military Parkway and Kiest Boulevard.

We also have parts of freeways named after other sports figures besides Tom Landry. Golfer Byron Nelson, car racer Dale Earnhardt and baseballer Nolan Ryan all have freeway signs with their names on them.

Anyway, like I said, I don't know what caused the bizarre practice to be so, well, frequently practiced. What I do know is I would like someone to explain Randoll Mill Road to me. No matter where I drive in this huge Dallas/Fort Worth Metroplex I seem to run into Randoll Mill Road meandering about.

Naked Texas Miscellaneous Wildflowers

I'm in the mood to do some salubrious stream of consciousness typing. but I am an absolute blank as to a subject I want to salubriously stream about.

I really like that salubrious word.

I had to be in Arlington today, so I pedaled 2 times around the mountain bike trail at River Legacy Park. I saw no wildlife and no wildflowers.

Those are wildflowers at River Legacy in the picture, but that picture was taken last year. Or the year before. The view you see in that picture is currently totally altered due to the huge Huffines construction project.

When I got done biking I had to change out of my biking shorts into non-biking shorts. Usually I do this inside my vehicle, but that is not easy and involves some serious yoga-like moves to get the job done.

Last week, when I was at River Legacy, I saw a guy changing his clothes outside his vehicle, with his open door blocking anyone from seeing him. So, I figured I could do the same thing by being on the west side of my vehicle, where I could clearly see the only two paths by which a person could catch me with my drawers down.

So, I go to my "changing room," scan the trails for any humans, see none, pull off my biking shorts and quickly pull on my non-biking shorts. When the non-biking shorts were about halfway into position I looked up to see a guy with a dog. Where in the world did they come from? The guy with the dog did not look my way and I acted like I hadn't noticed them.

After the being caught with my pants down incident I went to my next stop, that being right by the new Dallas Cowboy Stadium. Every time I see that thing I'm amazed by it. It is so HUGE. And looks so weirdly out of place, like a futuristic flying saucer has plopped down on some random American location.

When I saw the stadium today I thought of its price tag. Currently $1.1 billion and rising. I'm really bad at math, but I think a trillion is a thousand billion. I think I've read that all the various stimulus and bailout bucks add up to 3 or 4 trillion dollars. $4 trillion would amount to 4,000 new Dallas Cowboy Stadiums. If my math is right.

4,000 Dallas Cowboy Stadiums could likely be enough space to turn into enough condos to house everyone who has lost their home due to foreclosure and have enough space left over to give condos to those who's homes were stolen to get the land to build the new Dallas Cowboy Stadium.

I've got a story to tell about Tootsie Tonasket, but telling that story will require concentration. Concentration requires me to be in the right mood. Right now all I can concentrate on is it sounds fun to go swimming again and lay on a lounge chair for awhile.

Fort Worth Star-Telegram Defends Itself

This morning one of my one or two longtime readers, LC, sent me an email pointing me to a column from what I believe was last Sunday's Fort Worth Star-Telegram.

Those same one or two longtime readers may remember I've complained about this newspaper before. Usually my complaints were regarding the paper's tendency towards groundless Chamber of Commerce boosterism that often seemed embarrassingly ridiculous to me.

One of my other issues with the Star-Telegram was over mistakes I'd spot in articles, most frequently by one of their reporters named Anne Tinsley. I read the now dead Seattle P-I for a long long time. It covered an area I'd lived in all my life. I do not recollect ever reading something in the P-I that I knew to be wrong. Yet here in Fort Worth, an area I've not lived in all that long, I spotted numerous errors in articles in the Star-Telegram.

One that springs to mind was regarding a new section of paved trail that had opened in Arlington's River Legacy Park. First off there was the part of the article that bragged that somehow Fort Worth's paved trails had inspired Arlington's infinitely superior trails. But the galling part was the writer had key facts wrong. The most important error being that the article said the new section of trail ran all the way to 360.

Two days after reading that I was on that very trail, at its end. There was a guy standing there, looking perplexed. He asked me how do you get to 360? I asked him if he got the idea it did from the Star-Telegram. He had. He had told friends, heading south on 360, to pick him up at Trinity Boulevard, because he wanted to jog a new trail. That didn't exist.

And now this column about the Star-Telegram not going away. The columnist, J.R. Labbe was inspired to come to the defense of the Star-Telegram due to the paper being on a list of doomed newspapers.

Here's a choice bit...

Now hear this, you East Coast magazine writers, TV news readers and North Texas radio listeners: The Star-Telegram is not fixin’ to disappear.

On the contrary, the news of our demise, as outlined in last week’s Time magazine and echoed in local TV and radio reports, was greatly exaggerated.

If you’ve lived in the Metroplex more than 20 minutes, then you know that the only time Fort Worth shares billing with Dallas is when people use the official name of the airport. Only outsiders, Nielsen ratings and lazy magazine writers think "Dallas-Fort Worth" is one big town.

Now, I've lived here for awhile now. It is like one big town. The locals call it the Metroplex. With 2 really big towns. One being Dallas, with its Dallas Morning News, to which I am now a subscriber, and which is like the Big City newspapers I've always known, and the other big town being Fort Worth, with its Star-Telegram, to which I no longer subscribe and which is more like a little town's paper than a Big City paper.

Another choice bit....

No, a newcomer can’t replace the century of institutional knowledge that resides within the walls of the Star-Telegram.

It can’t develop overnight a stable of some of the most knowledgeable members of the community on a broad range of issues, people who have excellent writing and presentation skills, who directly connect their newspaper daily with the community they serve. Skilled and trained journalists who have regular access to the elected, the elite, the educated and the electorate.

Century of institutional knowledge? Within its walls? As I understand it the Star-Telegram is trying to sell those walls. Skilled journalists connecting their newspaper with the community they serve? I know a lot of people who feel ill-served by this service.

And then this other choice bit...

The Star-Telegram remains committed to providing Tarrant County residents the most comprehensive local news and commentary they can find — and we’ve got the largest news-gathering team of any media outlet in Fort Worth working on it every day.

Shoot, folks can get national and international news from lots of places. But no other media company knows — or cares — about Fort Worth and Tarrant County like we do.

I know of people in Haltom City who would love it if the Star-Telegram would focus some of their vast news-gathering team and show some of that caring for people trying to get something done about the deadly flooding on Fossil Creek. How about an editorial opining that maybe we should divert some money to fixing a problem that has actually killed people before possibly wasting money on a possible boondoggle known as the Trinity River Vision?

Or how about focusing some light on Mayor Moncrief's conflicts of interest in the way Fort Worth's actual responsible newspaper of record, FW Weekly, does?

The Star-Telegram's Publisher, Gary Wortel, told Labbe that the paper is a very profitable company. I'm sure Labbe, crack journalist that she is, must have asked Wortel why, if the paper is so profitable, have so many people been laid off, why has the paper shrunk so much, why have so many columnists been cut from the editorial pages? Or is it temporarily in the black due to all those cutbacks?

If you are tired of the ever shrinking Star-Telegram go to the Dallas Morning News and subscribe. You'll get a Big City newspaper that covers all of the Metroplex and seems to do a good accurate job of it. They even cover Fort Worth with absolutely none of that weird snooty inferiority complex tone that permeates way too often when an article in the Star-Telegram references Dallas.

Go here if you want to read the entire column by Ms. Labbe.

Oakland Lake Park's Mutant Texas Lulu Bird & Wildflowers

We're having another warm pre-spring day in Texas. Even though spring hasn't sprung yet Spring Break has, with Alma, the Songbird of the Texas Gulf Coast reporting her home port of Port Aransas is currently flooded with inebriated college kids.

Meanwhile, I went on a sober walk at Oakland Lake Park around noon. Previously I've mentioned seeing an odd mutant bird in this location that appears to be the result of an unnatural mating between a turkey and a duck, resulting in one very homely, chubby bird that seems to be shunned by the other birds. I've decided it is a Texas Lulu Bird.

I'd not seen the Lulu Bird for a long time. I figured it'd either died of loneliness or had been run off by the other ducks. But, today I saw the Lulu Bird again. It is still alone. While the ducks frolicked on the water, the Lulu Bird sat on the ground in the hollowed out part of the tree you see in the picture above.

The Lulu Bird did not move as I got closer and closer taking its picture. Maybe it was sitting on eggs. But what bird would have mated with the Lulu Bird?

I've yet to see an appearance this year of the Sacred State Flower of Texas, that being the bluebonnet. I must be remembering wrong, I thought they popped out by now, previous years.

Today at Oakland Lake Park I did see a couple new wildflowers had popped out. One was round, fuzzy and white. The other was a 5 petaled purple thing.

I don't recollect ever seeing so many people at Oakland Lake Park as I did today. It wasn't just kids out of school due to that Spring Break thing, it was a large number of walking grown-ups, others playing tennis, others soccer. And a lot of picnickers. I tell you, when the conditions are absolutely perfect Texans will enjoy their outdoors. There seems to be about a 15 degree window when this occurs.

I've learned that if you persist you can enjoy Texas outdoors all year long. You can even swim all year, which I did this morning for a half hour.

The World Naked Bike Ride Putting an End to Cars

A few days ago I read the Swiss are being bedeviled by way too many people going hiking in the Alps, au naturel. That means naked. Except for sunscreen and hiking boots. The Europeans have always been a bit more liberal about this type thing than some of us Americans.

Last week Yvonne sent me an email pointing me towards an article about The World Naked Bike Ride. It began March 7 in Nimbin, Australia. The purpose of The World Naked Bike Ride is for thousands of bike riders to toss off their clothes and hop on a bike in the hope that this will get us all to stop and think about all the negative effects cars, and the pollution they create, have on the planet.

Oh, yeah, I am sure that is what I would be thinking if I saw thousands of people riding naked on their bikes. I'd turn to the person next to me and say something like, "You know all these naked people on bikes is making me think we should get rid of all the cars and the pollution they cause."

The World Naked Bike Ride pedals through Australia and then on to South America. And then heads north. Towards us.

Most of the northern hemisphere naked bike rides will take place on June 13, although some locations may vary that date. I don't know when Fort Worth's Naked Bike Ride Day is. I'm sure Fort Worth's Mayor Moncrief will be participating. He's a big advocate of alternative energy sources.

I do know it is getting HOT enough that it is almost the time of the year to emulate Switzerland and start in with those Naked Tandy Hills Hikes again.

I'm sure Seattle will be part of The World Naked Bike Ride because Seattle is mentioned in the article about The Naked Bike Ride in the FAQ section explaining why this is perfectly legal to do. Seattle has been having Naked Bike Rides for years, with the most famous one being the Fremont Solstice Naked Bike Ride.

Gar the Texan was planning on doing the Fremont ride til he somehow got images stuck in his head of the Fremont Behemoth, known as Lord Voldemort, riding naked and forever scarring his fragile psyche or maybe giving him a case of the non-stop vapors.

You don't have to ride a bike to participate in The Naked World Bike Ride. Any alternative-powered transportation is allowed. You can skateboard, rollerblade, get on your unicycle, even your rickshaw. Rickshaws have been used in previous Naked Bike Rides. There is no mention of riding your horse, but I can't imagine why that would be wrong. Maybe I'll ride my pet longhorn, Larry.

Now, I've got to go to River Legacy Park to practice Naked Bike Riding with Yvonne. June 13 will be here before we know it and we'll want to have an even tan by that day.

Fort Worth Stockyards Ironhorse Trail

Last week I got an email from Alan Small of the Fort Worth Museum of Science & History looking for possible info about anyone who might be able to share some aspect of Fort Worth's history in a different way than the museum.

I replied to Mr. Small and he then got back to me, inviting me to be a guest of the museum and further elaborating on his goals for his Fort Worth history program.

That got me remembering a very unpublicized trail at the south end of the Fort Worth Stockards called the Iron Horse Trail. It was built a few years ago with absolutely no attention paid. Or so it seemed to me. It's a pretty good walk through the history of Fort Worth.

You can go to my Eyes on Texas website for more detail and more photos of the Iron Horse Trail. Or just read the text from the website below. Or not.

The Iron Horse Trail leads from the south parking lots of Fort Worth's Stockyards to trails along the Trinity River. The Iron Horse Trail begins as a walking tour through the History of Forth Worth, told via large plaques attached to huge boulders, landscaped with cactus and other natural plants.

A Spanish Explorer named Moscoso was the first European presence in the area of a three-branched river named Trinity.

General Edwin H. Tarrant, the namesake of Tarrant County, fought in the Battle of New Orleans in the War of 1812 and in the 1841 Battle of Village Creek in current day Arlington. General Tarrant is buried in Pioneer Rest Cemetery on a bluff overlooking the location of these memorials.

General Williams Jenkins Worth had a fort named after him. He helped rebuild the Alamo and died in San Antonio without ever making it to Fort Worth. General Worth is buried near Times Square in New York City under a 51 foot tall monument. The tallest tombstone in the country. Very fitting for a Texan. But in New York?

Fort Worth defended the new settlers from the sometimes hostile Indians, mainly Comanche's, a very powerful tribe with very good leaders.

Indian campfires could be seen by the early settlers dotting the horizon at night.

In the 1870's the Indians were still quite feisty, defending what they thought was their territory against those who they thought were invaders.

Texas has along history of tough justice. Before lethal injections hanging was the method of choice.

A battle in which whiskey played a role helped determine who won the competition between Fort Worth and Birdville as to which would be the dominant city in Tarrant County. You probably have not heard of Birdville so you can probably guess which city won.

After the Civil War demand for beef exploded, altering the history of Fort Worth forever.

In the 1870s a Fort Worth visionary named B.B. Paddock imagined a system of rail lines to serve the growing beef market. When he drew this on a map someone remarked that it looked like a Tarantula, a name which has stuck to this day. The Tarantula Train still goes from the Stockyards to Grapevine twice a day.

By the 1870s Fort Worth was a major starting point for travelers heading into the western frontier. You could board the world's longest stage line. A 1500 mile journey to Yuma.

Hell's Half Acre was Fort Worth's 'Entertainment District', long before the arrival of a Cultural District. Butch and Sundance spent time here, enough time that the heart of downtown Fort Worth is called Sundance Square.

By the turn of the century the Stockyards zone began its first steps towards becoming the entertaining tourist attraction it is today. The first Stock Show took place in 1896. In 1902 the Livestock Exchange Building opened. And the world's first indoor rodeo took place in the new Cowtown Coliseum.

Fort Worth has come a long ways from its frontier past. But unlike many places, you can still see the past in Fort Worth, much is preserved, much is as it was.

Yellow Pseudo Roses of Texas and Safe Fishing at Oakland Lake Park

My sad case of SAD (Seasonally Affected Disorder) caused by last week's non-stop gray, cold, wet weather has totally gone away, cured by several days of blue sky and today's return to borderline, open the windows or turn on the A/C, HOT.

Sadly, but not the SAD type of sad, we've not had enough of the HOT stuff for my pool water to turn pleasant. In other words I was in it for a very short time this morning before I sought refuge and warmth in the hot tub.

I went walking at Oakland Lake Park today to enjoy the pre-Spring, Spring-like weather. I came across a beautiful field of yellow Texas wildflowers. Previously, kind observers of my confusions have informed me, (after seeing and photographing this same wildflower at the Tandy Hills and previously blogging about that wildflower sighting), that this particular Texas Wildflower is called a Dandelion.

Apparently the Dandelion is not exclusively a Texas Wildflower.

In modern French the Dandelion is named pissenlit, which means "urinate in bed", apparently referring to its diuretic properties. Likewise, "pissabeds" is an English folk-name for this plant, as is piscialletto in Italian and the Spanish meacamas. In various north-eastern Italian dialects the flower is known as pisacan ("dog pisses"), referring to how common they are found at the side of pavements, while in many other northern Italian dialects it is known as soffione ("blowing") referring to the blowing the seeds from the stalk. The same is true for German, where Pusteblume ("blowing flower") is a popular designation. Likewise, in Polish it is called "dmuchawiec", deriving from dmuchać ("to blow"). Whilst in its flowering form the Poles know it as Mlecz, a word derived from "milk", due to the plant's milky sap.

The other thing I saw interesting at Oakland Lake Park today was an older gentleman fly fishing. I don't know if he was having any luck, but he was doing a lot of casting.

The Texas Department of State Health Services warning sign about fish caught in the lake has been changed to sound less dire. Previously it said, "WARNING: The Possession of Fish from this Lake is Prohibited Due to Contamination. Punishable by up to $2,000. Fine."

Now the fine warning has been dropped, as well as the prohibition of fish, with the warning signs now saying, "A Fish Consumption Advisory Exists for the Water Body or Adjacent Areas."

The no swimming or boating signs were no longer there too, I just realized. Not that I would want to go swimming in Oakland Lake. Too many turtles. The turtles and all the ducks and geese, seeming to live without dying on the lake, has long seemed a bit odd, what with that previous warning about the dire nature of the fish in the lake.

Dead in the Pacific Northwest

After suffering for quite some time in a moribund coma state, the Hearst Corporation has decided to pull the plug on the Seattle Post - Intelligencer, with the time of death to be this coming Thursday.

The P-I will continue with a version of its current online newspaper. There are a lot of newspapers in trouble across America. The P-I is likely the first of the majors to go down in this current newspaper crisis.

I've been addicted to reading a morning newspaper for as long as I can remember. When I lived in Washington it was the P-I. When I return for a visit, I read the P-I. Though this past summer that option was not available. I was stuck with the Tacoma Tribune and the Sunday New York Times. It takes about a week to read the Sunday New York Times.

The Fort Worth Star-Telegram continues to decline and cut back. How much longer can it last?

I think I've mentioned before that I think newspaper reading should be part of the school curriculum. An hour a day in a class devoted to reading and discussing that day's paper. Kids growing up in a house that does not get a daily newspaper, do not develop the habit of reading one and keeping up on what's going on in their world.

I've met way too many people who are way too ignorant due to the lack of a habit of keeping informed. People like this are then easy prey to very stupid stuff.

Like I know this person who got all upset over the Israelis finally having enough of incoming rockets from Gaza. This person thought this was terrible what Israel was doing to protect itself. I looked at her with wonderment, then mentioned The Six Day War and the Yom Kippur War.

Huh? Totally perplexed was she. So, I brought up the Yom Kippur War article in Wikipedia. This person was alive during the time of the Yom Kippur War. But had no memory of it, due to not reading about. And now she gets her news off TV and the Internet. With no background understanding of any of the things she reads about or the history that preceded it.

She glanced at a bit of the article about the Yom Kippur War, then she got mad. She thought I was trying to make her feel stupid. Due to pointing her towards information that might lighten her of some of her ignorance. But, it's been my experience, sadly, that way too many people would rather wallow in their ignorance and get mad, than try and learn something.

And now Seattle and the Pacific Northwest is slightly less blessed, due to the loss of the P-I. I won't be going to the funeral. I'll grieve in private.