LOST & The Tandy Hills

I guess today is going to be an all about Tandy Hills day on my blog. It started of with news of a new Brush Bash next Saturday, followed by wondering what the story was behind the long gone Fort Worth Cattle Drive Restaurant that was located at the western edge of the Tandy Hills. And then to be informed that the Fort Worth Cattle Drive Restaurant started out as Luminaria, a Mexican Restaurant.

So, continuing on with today being all about the Tandy Hills.

LOST is a TV show on ABC, a lot of which is set on a tropical island with a lot of mysterious confounding stuff. Like underground stations, pipelines, abandoned vehicles and strange industrial looking installations. And there are also some normal looking houses straight out of suburbia on the island in LOST.

So, what does the Tandy Hills have in common with LOST? Besides also having some normal looking houses in the area. Well, the Tandy Hills is also sort of lost in time. It's a wild, natural area. Where unnatural things have gone on in its past. Like you'll be walking along and you'll come to a large metal grate in the ground. There are a lot of those.

On LOST there are monsters that you hear, but don't ever see. When walking in the Tandy Hills, at certain locations, you are greeted by very loud barking noises, but you never see where they are coming from.

On LOST there are rusted out vehicles that used to run on roads the jungle long ago reclaimed. While walking the Tandy Hills you come upon long abandoned vehicles that drove on primitive roads being reclaimed by Mother Nature. Today I came upon a long abandoned pickup. I've no idea how it came to be in that location. It's like the monster on LOST had thrown it there.

As the people lost on LOST slowly explored the island they learned they were not its first visitors. They'd discover things, like power lines going to an underwater station and other things that indicated men had been there before. Or were still there. When you walk around the Tandy Hills you see a lot of signs that it has not always been a natural area, like the aforementioned roads and big pipes.

On LOST the island has a lot of beautiful vegetation. So does the Tandy Hills. In a month or so it will get downright colorful. It's already being a bit colorful. While I've not been able to locate a Trout Lily, today I saw a very exotic yellow flower that was extremely delicate and put off an interesting scent. That's the yellow flower found at the Tandy Hills today, at the top.

On LOST there are abandoned industrial looking buildings, making humming noises. You come upon the same type thing when walking around the Tandy Hills. On LOST it was the Dharma Initiative that built all the humming industrial looking buildings. I don't know what initiative built the humming industrial looking buildings that you see when you walk around on the Tandy Hills.

The Fort Worth Cattle Drive Restaurant

On my first visit to Fort Worth, a hot August back in the 1980s, I stayed at what was then a Ramada Inn west of the Beach Street exit from I-30.

Just east of that location, in what I now know as the Tandy Hills, there was a restaurant on top of a hill, facing west towards downtown Fort Worth.

When I moved to Fort Worth that restaurant was closed and with its rundown appearance it appeared to have been closed for a long time.

I figured that that restaurant pre-dated the building of the Interstate, with the new road blocking easy access to the restaurant. I also speculated that the restaurant might have dated back to the Prohibition era, with its high location giving a view in all directions, so that a Speakeasy could hide the booze when the cops came raiding.

A few weeks ago I was hiking the Tandy Hills and came upon an Old Man with a Cane. I asked him about the restaurant. He said he'd been to it a couple times, back in the 1970s. He thought the name was Calamity Jane's.

So, I Googled for a Calamity Jane's restaurant in Fort Worth. No info. Then I tried "old restaurant hill I-3o fort worth" or something like that. This brought up a restaurant on Ben Avenue called Fort Worth Cattle Drive Restaurant. Clicking on the first of the dozens of results I knew I had the right one, due to the map.

That's the Google Earth satellite view of the restaurant's location in the picture above. The restaurant was to the left of the parking lot at the end of the road.

Now, here's where it gets weird. There are dozens of restaurant listing type websites which list Fort Worth Cattle Drive Restaurant as if it where still in existence, with most of them wanting me to write the first review of this long dead restaurant. And to post a photo of the restaurant.

The only actual info I found about the Fort Worth Cattle Drive Restaurant is that it was built in the 1970s and though it was highly visible to drivers on I-30, people had trouble figuring out how to get to it. That doesn't make a lot of sense to me.

This restaurant died well before the Internet became the monster it is today. Why would so many websites list this dead restaurant as still being and alive?

And what's the real story about it. Was the Fort Worth Cattle Drive Restaurant really born in the 1970s? Or did it pre-date the Interstate and the Internet? The Old Man with the Cane thought it'd been there a long time due to its old wild west style. But then he also thought it was named Calamity Jane's, so who knows how reliable his memory is.

Ironically, years before I discovered how great the Tandy Hills was for hiking, I found my way to Ben Avenue to check out the site of the then demolished restaurant. The foundation was still in place, so you could figure out the layout. It had a water feature that you walked across via a bridge to enter the place. The Old Man with the Cane told me the restaurant had a large outdoor patio.

If the restaurant were still alive today that large outdoor patio would be looking at a nice view in the distance and a not so great view close-up, because it would be looking down on Chesapeake Energy's notorious Samuels Avenue Barnett Shale Natural Gas Drilling Site.

So, do any of my one or two readers know anything about the Fort Worth Cattle Drive Restaurant?

Tandy Hills Brush Bash: Phase 2

Those of you who Bashed Brush a couple Saturdays ago and those of you who are Brush Basher Wannabes, you have another chance to help restore the Tandy Hills Natural Area to its natural state this coming Saturday. This will be your last opportunity to Bash Brush this season.

As in Saturday, March 7. From 9am til 3pm. The Brush Bashers will congregate at the un-natural playground area at 3400 View Street.

The Friends of Tandy Hills Natural Area, which is now officially a 501 (c)(3) non-profit corporation, will be providing morning tea/coffee/pastries and water.

To comfortably Bash Brush you'll want to bring gloves, work clothes, sensible shoes, hat, sunscreen (assuming it's not cloudy) and a picnic lunch.

So, join the army of volunteers and have a fun Saturday celebrating another historic day on Fort Worth's best prairie.

Need more info or want to confirm you'll be Bashing Brush? Call Don Young at 817.731.2787.

The Depressing First Day of March In Texas

It's the first day of March. I only a bit ago realized this. February only had 28 days this year. I wrote 71 posts on this blog in February. The novelty of blog spewing wears a tad thin. Perhaps I'm experiencing Seasonally Affected Disorder (SAD) due to this frigid weather.

That is the bright, chilly view from my computer room window this Sunday afternoon coming up on 5. It froze last night. It is only 53 right now. I didn't feel like doing anything aerobic in Arctic temperatures today, and so I didn't. Except, I did do the pool this morning, but I don't think it was aerobic.

I've been getting some very bizarro communications from the Tacoma zone that I don't quite know what to do with. On the one hand, if I think what I'm dealing with is mental illness, which I pretty much do, then I should tread lightly. If on the other hand, if what I'm dealing with is more of a pathological malignancy, then maybe I should go the route I enjoy most, that being using words as a tool. Or just ignore it, for the most part, which has been the path I've taken so far.

It saddens me how twisted people can get themselves, so much self-inflicted. I think I'm being more saddened than usual due to that weather affected SAD problem I mentioned previously.

Speaking of sad. Yesterday, on the way back here from hiking in the Tandy Hills, I saw this guy, looked to be in his late 20s, early 30s, on a bike, pulling a trailer like thing on which was packed big bundles of stuff covered with plastic. I figured it was all that he owned, homeless, trying desperately to get somewhere.

The day before that I was waiting in a parking lot in Arlington, by the new Dallas Cowboys Stadium, when I saw this youngish kid, late teenager, early 20s, walking with an odd gait across an open field. He saw me, came towards me, I thought oh oh.

When the kid got within earshot he said something like "pardon me sir, me and my little brother are starving, do you....". I cut him off, told him I only had a credit card, no cash. That was a lie. I'd just seen a couple bucks in the cubby hole. The kid's face had the look of a meth-head, a look I'd seen only once before, up in that notorious town I've mentioned before, that being Tacoma.

When I cut the kid off he said something like, "Thank you sir, God bless you." Now that sort of made me feel guilty. Maybe the kid was one of the unfortunate thousands left homeless when Jerry Jones took their homes in the worst case of eminent domain abuse in American history so that he could build a $billion plus stadium to play football in a few times a year.

It does seem a bit sad and maybe ironic, that in Arlington, in the shadow of that humongous new stadium, there is a young kid, begging for money, because he and his little brother are possibly hungry.

At what point in the Great Depression 1.0 did "Brother, can you spare a dime?" and apples being sold for a nickel become symbols of the misery? We're not getting near that point in the Great Depression 2.0, are we? I hope not. But I'm not all that hopeful.

A Phone Call From Baltimore

Every once in awhile something will happen which will cause me to think something like if you had told me in 1989 that in 2009 this that or the other thing would happen, with my 1989 imagination being unable to conjure a scenario where this that or the other thing would make sense.

Like if in 1989 you would have told me I would be living within walking distance of the gravesite of Lee Harvey Oswald I would not have been able to imagine how that scenario could come to pass.

Like about an hour ago. My cell phone rang. I saw it was Chris. Chris is one of my all time favorite people. We've known each other since grade school. We've lived together, we've traveled together, we've done all sorts of things together. Chris and her family moved to Ada, Oklahoma about a month before I moved to Texas. Last July Chris moved back to Washington, leaving me stranded, almost alone, in Texas.

Chris was calling me from the airport in Baltimore. She was flying alone. To go to an army base in North Carolina where her son's wife is getting ready to have their 4th baby.

Now, in 1989 if you had told me that in 2009 I would be in Texas getting a call from Chris in Baltimore en route to help with her 4th grandkid, well, I would not have been able to make sense of that scenario. Just Chris flying solo is not the Chris I have always known.

That picture at the top is of Chris and Nancy (Chris on left, making that Nancy on the right), up in Oklahoma, sitting under Chris's big oak, I think it was an oak, tree. That was in October of 2001, a bit over a month after 9/11. Nancy had flown in the day before and I drove her up to Oklahoma so she could spend a week. Then they all came down here for a couple days, where we did the tourist things. Except Six Flags. Six Flags had been done on a previous visit. No need to repeat.

2001 does not seem all that long ago. But it has been long enough that the little girl you see in the picture, Megan, under the Fort Worth Stockyards sign, has now graduated at the top of her Oklahoma High School class and is now a freshman at the University of Washington. While her big brother, during that same time frame, has graduated from, I think, Oklahoma State University, got married, joined the Army, served a tour in Iraq and is now back home about to have his 4th kid, with his mom flying across the country to help, and calling me from Baltimore.

I remember my first visit up to Ada to see Chris. She was being totally overly worried about tornadoes. There had been one of the worst ever touch down near Oklahoma City, a huge one. I think Chris and family went up to see the damage. I remember driving around Ada and asking Chris if she saw any tornado damage. So, not all that much time later, Chris had totally adjusted to living with tornadoes, to the extent that when she experienced her first one, up close and personal, she stayed outside and took pictures. But yelled at Megan to get into a closet.

Anyway, it was nice hearing from Chris today. I miss talking to her. One of the nicest people I've ever known. Smart with a sense of humor. And a good cook.

Getting Tweeted, Facebooked & Super Poked In Texas

I got Super Poked, again, from Facebook this morning. I don't get the point of Poking, let alone Super Poking. And to make it seem even more pointless, when you get Poked or Super Poked Faceback seems to insist that you return the Poke or comment on the Poke.

So, a minute or two after the Super Poking idiocy I went to Gar the Texan's Random Ramblings Blog for some of Gar the Texan's own highly evolved type of idiocy and there I saw the image you see here, that I stole from Gar the Texan's Blog, which he stole from his friend Ed's Blog.

Or maybe it was Gar the Texan's friend Ed's Facebook from which Gar got the above. Wherever it came from it was pertinent to what I was thinking about getting Super Poked from Facebook.

Apparently Gar the Texan's friend Ed is out of the country and mentioned, or Tweeted, that he'd had a small banana for breakfast. To which someone Tweeted that they'd like Ed to Tweet a picture of his banana breakfast, which is what prompted the above and Gar the Texan's Blogging about the subject.

If I remember right, Gar the Texan's friend Ed is from the same small West Texas town as Gar, but he now lives up in Seattle and works for Microsoft as a psychologist. I don't know why Microsoft needs a psychologist. Maybe it is to help make sure that Microsoft's products keep driving us all nuts.

In addition to Super Poking me this morning, Facebook also got its Scrabble game back working. Washington's Reigning Queen of Scrabble, Karen, has gained what seems to me to be an insurmountable lead, again, having something like 146 points to my 22. It is sort of embarrassing. I used to think of myself as being good with words. Well, the delusion is now shattered!

It was 33 and very windy when I went down to the pool at 8 this morning. I managed to stay in it for about 10 minutes before I retreated to the hot tub. The next 2 nights it is supposed to freeze here. I thought we were done with this type nonsense for the year.

I think I'll go Super Poke someone now.

Wild Boars, Copperheads, River Legacy Biking, Zorro's Buffet & Whataburger

I think I mentioned I was in Arlington this morning, having something that needed to be tended to at 11:30, so, before that, I went mountain biking at River Legacy Park again.

The bike riding was uneventful except for running into a guy named Robert who was working on the trails. Robert told me disturbing new River Legacy news, that being that there are Wild Boars in the park. I did not know this. Robert also mentioned numerous Copperhead sightings. I have had Copperheads mentioned to me before at River Legacy, as in someone shouting something like "watch out, there's a pair of Copperheads on the trail ahead." But I've never seen one. Not at River Legacy. I did get chased by a Copperhead once at Village Creek Natural Historical Area.

Eventually I ended up at Fry's and got a new keyboard and a music playing device. It was time for a feeding. My favorite restaurant, that being Sweet Tomatoes, was virtually walking distance away, but I was out-voted on going to Sweet Tomatoes.

Then I suggested the new Wolfgang Puck restaurant that recently opened in Reunion Tower in Dallas. It is called Five Sixty, due to that being how high off the ground Reunion Tower's rotating restaurant is. The Seattle Space Needle, built in 1962, is a bit higher and also has a restaurant that rotates once an hour. I've never been to the Space Needle's rotating restaurant. Rotating above Dallas sounded fun.

But again I was out-voted. I hate living in a democracy.

So, where did I end up going? Zorro's Buffet in Fort Worth. Friday is Seafood Day. When I left Zorro's I saw a stack of FW Weekly's. I'd not seen FW Weekly's at Zorro's before. When I got back here I saw that this week's FW Weekly restaurant review was all about Zorro's Buffet.

Apparently a high energy Israeli immigrant named Ricki Epstein, who arrived in America sometime in the last decade of the previous century, built a very successful catering business in the Fort Worth zone. But, she wanted to do a high quality buffet. And so Zorro's Buffet was born.

Today Zorro's was packed with a very eclectic blend of buffet aficionados, many of whom I thought maybe they should steer clear of anything or place where they can eat all they want. But, like I said before, I may not like it, but we live in a democracy where people can eat and say anything they want.

Like what I'm going to say right now. In Arlington I saw an un-tacky looking Whataburger. I opined, to my captive throng of ardent, buffet slut, listeners, that I did not understand how there can be a non-tacky looking Whataburger, like this one in Arlington, while the majority of Whataburgers are very dated looking eyesores, one of which my eyes were greeted with upon leaving Zorro's, sitting right across the street from Fort Worth's best buffet.

I think it's Whataburger's A-Frame with the orange and white striped metal roof that bugs me. I have never been in a Whataburger, but I've had more than one person tell me that Whataburger makes good burgers.

Anyway, that's been my exciting day. It started off in the 70s with a half hour swim. Those balmy temperatures with the windows open all night have not lasted. It has gotten colder all day long. We are heading towards possibly freezing again. I doubt I will last a half hour in the pool tomorrow morning.

Scrabbling in Texas

I continue to be vexed by Facebook's Scrabble. It won't let me take my turn due to, I guess, technical difficulties. When I try to take my turn Facebook says they are working on fixing what's vexing me.

It is particularly vexing due to the fact that ever since Wednesday I've been trying to play my biggest word ever for a whopping 15 points. That word is "faunae." I have no idea what it means.

So, currently Washington's Queen of Scrabble has 65 points to my pathetic 10.

Windows remained open all night (Alma, that refers to both types of windows). This morning, due to being way too warm all night long, getting into the pool felt refreshing, not bracing.

I have to go to Arlington again this morning. I think I'll add a bike ride to the schedule, again. Then it's to Fry's Electronics, again, to get a new keyboard. I don't know if I'm in the mood for Sweet Tomatoes again. Though their Friday Clam Chowder is pretty good. Not as good as my Mom's Clam Chowder, none is, but Sweet Tomatoe's is better than most.

Reading back the above paragraph I see I used the word "again" 4 times. That seems excessive.

Army Invasion Of River Legacy Park & The New Dallas Cowboy Stadium

Okay, I have overdone it today. I swam for a half hour, early this morning. I hiked for an hour at the Tandy Hills at 11am. Then I had to be in Arlington at 4. Since River Legacy Park is in Arlington, why not bike the mountain bike trail on the way to my 4 o'clock destination, I foolishly thought.

I think the motivation to be outside excessively today is due to it being the first HOT day of the year. As in 87. I now have a slight sunburn.

I biked for well over an hour. On my second time around I came upon the sort of scene I don't expect to see when I'm riding my bike. As in army troops crouching about. As you can see they were well camouflaged. Upon realizing I'd entered some sort of firefight, my instinct was to quickly shout "Don't shoot. I'm a friendly."

Then I stopped and asked if I could take a picture. After a brief interrogation I was given permission. I took my pictures and asked no more questions.

As I biked on I came to another group. I told them they were being sitting ducks, sitting on the trail, not hiding like the other group. The commander of that group told me her group was going to capture the other group. I offered to give up their position. She said there was no need, they'd already acquired their position.

After that I saw a lot more soldiers as I biked on. It was odd seeing all those soldiers all decked out in combat gear. I am currently reading The Complete Idiots Guide to World War I. Just this morning I'd read a chapter about how ridiculous some of the combatant nation's uniforms were, particularly the French. Bright blue coats, bright red pants and instead of a helmet a brightly colored cap. When the French figured out that those bright red pants helped the Germans by presenting a bright target, the French finally lost the red pants. Well into the war, though. Which they did not lose.

After I was done engaging American Troops it was on to my other Arlington destination, which happened to be very close to the new Dallas Cowboy Stadium. The property is at the landscaping stage now. In a couple months the giant stadium will open with a George Strait/Reba McEntire concert. I'm sure Jerry Jones will make sure that all the people who lost their homes so he could have a new stadium will get free tickets to the first event to take place on the land they used to call home.

The view you see of the stadium, in the picture, is looking east on Randoll Mill Road at the intersection with Collins Street.

Stimulus Watch Looking At The Trinity River Vision

This just in from my one longtime reader, the President of my (imaginary) Fan Club....

Please go to this website and tell them the Trinity Uptown (Boondoggle) is not critical...please forward to anyone you know and ask them to do same. If you could leave a comment that would help as well because the ones with the most comments are actually getting reported on. (Be sure and read the other comments listed!)

For those of you who aren't aware the Trinity River Vision is a plan for economic development in Fort Worth that got cut due to funding, so the powers that be went back, joined this project with some others and then called it Flood Control. With the help of some important wealthy powerful political people and their family members it got pushed through. Now the levees that have protected Fort Worth for 60 years will be removed, the river will be rerouted and a city will be built right in the center of it and only a small portion will be protected from erosion. The land around this project is being taken by eminent domain. The taxpayers of Fort Worth are paying for part of this $600 million dollar project (while their water bills increase because they have a billion dollars of flooding issues currently) though they did not get a vote. The Tarrant Water board is footing the bill for some of it too, isn't their job to ensure we have water?

All of this is moving forward rapidly while the tributaries of the Trinity continue to flood and damage people's property and lives. There is no money for that, even though all of those important wealthy powerful political people are fully aware of the issues and have been doing something(?) about it for a minimum of nine years. When TRV is complete, those that have flooding issues now, will still have flooding issues...And in the middle of a recession, do we really need high end office space and another hotel in downtown Fort Worth? The city just paid to build the Omni Hotel, citizens did not get to vote on that either. The waterways in Tarrant county do not stop at the city limit lines, Fort Worth and the surrounding city residents should all get a vote on what happens to our waterways and we should get truthful, competent information from those capable of doing the jobs before making that decision. Please help as local media will not speak against our current leadership or projects even while knowing it puts thousands of lives at risk.

Thank you!!!!!

Some interesting comments----(go to the Stimulus Spending Watch Website to read all the comments)

Concerned Citizen says....

No, No, No... this is pork. The flooding problem is with the arterial waterways that feed the Trinity. This is "Decorative" flood control and has been an under the radar earmark for years! This is "Elective River Surgery" and insurance or Fed Money should not cover it. The foundation of this project is land acquisition and eminent domain abuse enabled by a local, state and federal group of politicians who have manipulated the legal process in order to expand the Central City area by taking land at at bargain in the name of Flood Control. This is a land and development scheme that is full of cronyism, nepotism, and half truths. The project claims that the river is at risk to flooding and shows pictures of te 1949 flood as a fear tactic. The River levee system was put in place following that flood event and has works like a charm even in the heaviest rain to fall here in 100 years. The Corp of Engineers estimated within the last decade or so, that all the river levee system needed was 9 million dollars to repair in areas that needed from 2 to 4 feet of levee surface to protect from the Standard Project Flood, as required. From 9 million to 383.5 million is a lot of added cash and it is centered around Special Interest! This is exactly what needs to be eliminated from this bill. The Tarrant County area is tragically behind to the tune of 1 billion dollars in street drainage repairs. It is precisely this arterial drainage that presents a threat to life, property and downstream flooding into Arlington... not the Trinity River and it's effective levee system that needs the 9 million dollar repair!!!!

Deep Throat Who Knows says...

The Trinity Vision Project is as good of an example of local systemic corruption involving wealthy favored city , county ,state and federal officials as has ever come to full flower. Investigative staffs of the Congress know this, watchdog national journalist who follow ethical transgressions know this, the authority of the Tarrant regional water district to engage in this activity with the help of local legislators was done in unethical ways with the only witness for the State House proceeding being the Director of the Tarrant Regional Water District. It is a land grab to enrich everyone from the Mayors son to the Congressman's son who is the Director of the Trinity Vision project. The only people who don't understand the scam are those who choose not too. This is a project that would make Rod Blagoveich proud, every one cashes in who isn't part of the "click"

And Sick of Wasteful Spending says...

TRV is better know as Trinity Up Yours in some Fort Worth circles. People aren't going to be driving in from the suburbs to sit at "riverside" cafe that has stinky and polluted water that's so bad that you cannot even eat the fish out of the Trinity. Granger is on the outs with the Congresswoman in Dallas who has a legitimate flooding issue. If anyone gets flood control money, it should be Dallas. The only people making money off TRV in Fort Worth are local politicians, developers, Grangers' deadbeat son and the Gideon Toal group. Where are Chuck Silcox and Clyde Picht when you need them?

Haven't you heard? Clyde Picht is running for mayor. His campaign slogan is something like "Impicht Moncrief." I think it is very clever.