A Request From a Reader . . .

Flickr photo by Joshbousel


When my wife and I moved to Fort Worth in the early '80s, better days had seen downtown. That's being polite. Many of the shops, department stores and restaurants of the 50's were there but not there. Downtown Fort Worth, like just about every big city in the country, lost residents to the suburbs and retail had followed. Malls became Main Streets. Fortunately, that is no longer the case and Fort Worth is a model city for a vibrant downtown.

That's a long preface to a short request.

Every once in a while someone will tell me a childhood story of something they liked and miss about the downtown of the 50'- 70's. It usually involves a donut, pastry, ice cream or other sweet confection. Over the weekend, I got a request for an old downtown Fort Worth department store recipe. Here's the request sent to my email:

I found a reference to you and your email address when I was Googling Monnig's, where I worked the summer between high school and college in 1956. Yes, a long time ago. I am writing you because I would like to find a recipe for the very excellent breakfast muffins the Monnig's coffee shop baked and served daily. If it has been saved and is available somewhere, I surely appreciate that information.

If you can assist, the email was from Frank Miles, email address: frankmiles3@sbcglobal.net. I'd like to hear about it, too.

Post a comment. I like the stories of the old stores downtown.

Miscellania . . .

1. You guys are slipping. No one corrected me on the use of the word timber as it related to Merle Haggard's voice. It sounds right. But it is wrong. The word is timbre. And, it is pronounced more like tamber. I looked it up.

2. I heard from Stephen that the Beethoven concert at Bass Hall was fantastic. Thanks to Rambler for the reminder, otherwise he wouldn't have known about it.
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Fourth Sunday of Easter

Peter and Paul / El Greco / 1590

From the First Epistle of St. Peter

Beloved:
If you are patient when you suffer for doing what is good,
this is a grace before God.
For to this you have been called,
because Christ also suffered for you,
leaving you an example that you should follow in his footsteps.
He committed no sin, and no deceit was found in his mouth.

When he was insulted, he returned no insult;
when he suffered, he did not threaten;
instead, he handed himself over to the one who judges justly.
He himself bore our sins in his body upon the cross,
so that, free from sin, we might live for righteousness.
By his wounds you have been healed.

For you had gone astray like sheep,
but you have now returned to the shepherd and guardian of your souls.

----------------------------------------------------------------------

From the website, Art and the Bible
On the left: St. Peter. On the right: St. Paul, holding his traditional attribute, a sword. Hardly visible is the set of keys that Peter is holding in his left hand. El Greco made two more, almost identical, paintings of the two apostles. One was made in 1587-92 and is currently in the Hermitage museum; the other is from 1605-08 and may be found in the Stockholm Nationalmuseum.

Olympia 6 - 1162. Funny How Things Change.

It was a black telephone secured to a wall near the kitchen and in a passageway leading to the den. It was the old-style phone, made and issued universally by ATT long before the days of touch-tone. Back then it was ATT or no phone service at all. The phone's location discouraged long, gossipy conversations, it being in this short hallway, but folks didn't talk on the phone much in those days. Non-local telephone calls, or "long distance" was expensive, and used mostly for emergency or for a special holiday "hello." The phrase, "I'm on long distance," was a commonly heard phrase, meaning, "don't bother me, this is important." Up into the late 70's meetings could be put on hold while someone was called for a "long-distance" call.

Olympia 6-1162 was the black phone's number, I remember it, now 40 years after I last used it.

Yesterday, in contrast, I was on my cell phone so long the battery went dead. I did not remember one phone number of my frequently called numbers. Not one. I needed to reach my wife or son and started to call from my office phone, but could not remember a number. I had to email other family members so that they could forward me a phone number. I finally reached someone who gave me a number.

The very fact that anyone can be reached at anytime kind of changes our relations to one another and the way we do things. We start worrying about someone if they don't answer after several tries. I felt cut-off the two hours my cell phone was without charge. What if something goes wrong? How will I know? The obligation and burden to be available at all times is the unintended consequence of "cell phones" and is implicit to the modern sensibility -- especially those under 30. As Marshall McLuhan said, "the telephone is an irresistible intruder in time and space."* (emphasis mine)

Are we better off? Probably not -- especially when our brains, like our batteries, go dead.

(*The Medium is the Message, Marshall McLuhan)