Archive for April, 2009

Local news: Austin at Fort Worth Real Estate blog sounds the alarm: new home starts have slowed. He cites an article in the Fort Worth Business Press stating that new home starts are down 50%. And he writes about the new gay-themed housing at TCU, asking “is this self-segregation?”

Meanwhile Steve at West and Clear comes out with a major dis directed at the Star-Telegram’s recent introduction of the DWF.com “Ink,” which seems to be planning to compete with Fort Worth’s profitable Fort Worth Weekly. “Who gives an eff,” he asks, “about DFW.com?” he asks.

In other journalism news, a new glossy luxury magazine, 360 West, will be covering affluent Fort Worth.  First issue will feature an interview with Darryl Woods, the Fort Worth Opera’s director. 

Finally, in the area of arts and architecture, Julie at SilverSmyth writes about how to represent your brand on Twitter, and Kevin at Fortworthology has photographed the new park near the Depot Lofts in east downtown.

Thinking to broaden my teaching experiences, I decided yesterday to try substitute teaching music — after all, I reasoned, it would be fun, I like music, I am regarded a decent singer and it looked like there was a comprehensive lesson plan with the assignment

Little did I know that, my vision of myself as Maria in The Sound of Music notwithstanding, music teaching is not for the faint at heart or the amateur.

First, I discovered that the lesson plans were actually not as simple as they looked. The kids arrived for the first class, which was supposed to be on playing recorders, with no instruments. “Where are your recorders?” I asked.

“We never play recorders. Are we going to watch a movie?” I assumed they were trying to “put me on” as an ignorant substitute teacher. I couldn’t allow this to happen, so I whipped out my guitar and began to play for them. This worked well, up to a point, but then there was the number of hours of music instruction I had signed up for, about six in all, rotating through a number of different classes. By the time the day was done, my fingers on my left hand hurt from the guitar strings, my voice was starting to break, and I had learned the following:

1) In kindergarden, kids like to sing “Old McDonald,” but by fourth grade, they listen to rap, hip-hop and Hannah Montana.

2) Though you can get someone’s attention by saying you’re going to play an instrument in person, live, once you are “on stage” you’ve got to keep performing or lose control of the “crowd.”

3) The “real” music curriculum does not just involve singing and playing maracas, they’re actually supposed to learn to i.d. the instruments in the orchestra and how to read music, among other things.

4) Do not let a group of thirty kindergarteners play percussion instruments simultaneously.

I began, at some point, to feel like Jack Black in School of Rock, in the depth of a desperate improvisation, only with less equipment and musical ability then he had at his disposal. Meanwhile, the kids told me I should write my own songs. I promised I would do so before coming back. Now what should my song be about? I don’t know, because I haven’t written a song in about 25 years. Well, they do say that kids keep you young.

While researching on the web for my story on K.M. Van Zandt’s cottage, I came across a remarkable resource on the city’s historic markers. I suppose this type of online resource is going to be available more and more often. The page offers a website with a map of the city, and clickable historic markers laid out on the map. This means you can quickly find out what’s in your area.

This website, called Stopping points,  is actually national in scope. It’s interesting to me to note that Fort Worth has a huge numberof historic markers. This is not due to the fact that Fort Worth is so old, I think, because it’s not, or even its size. It’s the great interest we have here in history and tradition. In case you want to explore, street addresses are provided by the site, and also, if you use a GPS, latitude and longitude.

If you want to see a marker touching on Cattle Brands or Amon Carter or Hells Half Acre or find out who John Peter Smith actually was, you can start at this website. Or, perhaps just as potentially interesting, check out the historic markers in your neighborhood. The impression that one gets from viewing the map is simple — Fort Worth is, and was, a happenin’ place. So take a moment and check out Fort Worth’s page at Stopping Points.

The rockwork chimneys on either side of the cottage speak of the building's pioneer origins.

In Trinity Park northeast of the Botanic Garden is a small rectantangular house which packs more historic punch than you would expect from driving by.  A large City Parks sign identifies the site as the Van Zandt Cottage, but two stone markers, erected in 1964, do not give much background on the site proper, instead containing information that focuses mostly on the Civil War record of General H. P. Mabry, who apparently owned the site before the man for who it’s now named, and of Major K.M. Van Zandt, whom the stone notes went on to various commercial enterprises in the city and became known, before he died at age 95, as “Mr Fort Worth.”

The visitor might wonder. If he came to be one of the most respected and known men in the city, was this Van Zandt’s childhood home? The cottage, almost certainly less than 1000 square feet, looks far too modest for someone who became so prominent, and who had an entire county named after the family (Van Zandt, east of here.) The homestead, with an oak and pecan tree stretching their branches over, is silent, as historic places tend to be.  It is left for the researcher to go home and surf the web for more information.

K.M. (Khleber Miller) Van Zandt was the great great grandfather of singer-songwriter Townes Van Zandt, profiled in this blog a couple of weeks ago. The elderVan Zandt (1836-1930) was born in Tennessee and came to Texas three years later.  He served with Company D of the 7th Texas Infantry, was captured in the second year of the war, was exchanged at Vicksburg, and served through the war’s end before coming to Fort Worth around 1865 at age 29. He bought the cottage and the land around it  for himself and his young family (wife and three children.) Van Zandt was accustomed to go to work in the “city,” which when he arrived numbered less than 250 people, located where downtown is now, riding his horse, fording the river as there was no bridge.  He served in the Texas Legislature in 1873, founded Fort Worth National Bank and the First Christian Church, and arranged for private railroad construction to bring the railroad into town to spur growth. He is also credited with starting a newspaper that became the Star-Telegram.

Eventually widowed twice, married a total of three times with 14 children, Van Zandt was nothing if not a busy man. A photo taken as a young man shows a handsome face, longist hair, as was the style, a cravat tie, and, overall, the combative features of those raised on the frontier.  In his autobiography, excerpted elsewhere on the web, he claimed to be more interested in the future of his city and fellow citizens than in enriching himself, which I assume was true, although he and his family certainly did well. There is more about Van Zandt, including a photo, and about the house on the website of MBR Guarenteed Foundation, which did a restructuring of the property just last year. Additional information and mapping details can be had from Waymark.

It is the image of Van Zandt riding his horse to go downtown, I suppose, that strikes me the most. The cottage is close by the 7th Street Bridge over the Trinity, and I wonder where the ford was. I imagine the horse picking its was through the rocks in the water, the man in a 19th century suitcoat, looking down. He is the frontier, yet he, in bringing civilization, is also its end. He is foreign born (well, Tennessee) but he is a true Texan, a soldier and a businessman. It’s a conundrum. I can hear the water splash, and then the splash dies away and the image with it.

Photo credit: mbdezines on fickr.

Hot chocolate and cinnamon toast are my favorite snack. My grandmother used to fix this for me when I was very small, and I sat on the step ladder in her small kitchen, eating off of her light blue melmac dishes and feeling a lovely sentiment of safety and well being.  If you’ve had a difficult day, or you just feel the weight of the world, ten minutes of a snack of hot chocolate and cinnamon toast could give you a new perspective. 

To make the hot chocolate: put about 1/2 inch of warm water in the bottom of a mug. Now add a heaping teaspoon full of cocoa powder and about twice as much sugar. Stir until it becomes like a syrup. Now fill the cup with milk and stir. Put in the microwave for about 1 minute — it depends on the microwave and the size of the mug. Once it’s warm, put in a couple of mini marshmallows. My current “rule” is I can have enough to cover the top of the milk, but may not heap the marshmallows in a pile. If you have nothing but big marshmallows, cut them into eights or you can’t drink them easily. Some also put whipping cream on top the cocoa, especially in restaurants, but I prefer marshmallows.

To make the toast, make sure the butter you plan to use is soft enough. Making toast with cold butter is only for the advanced. Put the bread (preferably thin sliced white, though you can make cinnamon toast with other types) in the toaster and when it pops, put on about 1 tsp butter or slightly more if you feel you can get away with it. Have a mix of cinnamon sugar — I use about 1 tsp. cinnamon and 1/4 cup of sugar, but that’s pretty strong — in a small bowl and pour some of it on the just-buttered toast, just enough so the toast is covered. Shake the extra cinnamon sugar off the toast, back into the bowl. Just the right amount should remain, turning a golden brown because it’s soaked with butter. Now it’s ready to eat. Find a comfortable spot and crunch into the toast, then take a sip of cocoa. Hopefully, if you’re like me, your cares will lift for a few moments, the weight of the world will be lighter, and you’ll think, “surely the world is still an okay place, because I can still eat cinnamon toast and chocolate milk.”

In the Fort Worth of my dreams, the people have a greater voice, and are able to speak out on matters which truly concern them and which citywide government is not interested in — issues such as where our children can play, how they get to school, and how we can have safe bikeways. The way they will get this voice is through giving our Fort Worth neighborhood associations increased responsibilities. In myFort Worth Utopia, in 50 years the city is divided into 100 different Regions, each of which has a governing board.  They make decisions about transportation, about schools, about building permits.

Local parents and taxpayers can have a voice on subjects touching our local school and only our local school. They can discuss how our children get to school and work on getting better school bus service and safer walking routes to alleviate the feeling that everyone has to drive their children to school every day.

They can work in a team with other regions in their area, with which they share a middle and high school, to determine directions of these schools.

They can allocate tax money (collected by the city at large) for some local improvement projects such as bike trails, parks, and local clubs and organizations. Tax money for these projects would be allocated on a per-resident basis. Each neighborhood should have a website to give information about local news to the residents.

What could this type of management mean here in my own neighborhood of South Hills, for example?

1. The bike trail that comes off the Trinity Trail would get a tunnel under the Granbury/Trail Lake overpass, and would continue all the way up Westcreek to the 30 freeway.

2. We could agitate for repairs on Kellis Pool, which is far too small and run down for the current need.

3. We would have the opportunity to determine whether we want new building projects. There would be no unwelcome construction of McMansions or apartments without the approval of the local board.

4. We could ask why there seems to be no provision to clean up our local creekbed. 

5. When the city wants to raise the property tax rate, we could send our region’s leadership to protest, if necessary. At the same time, we could look at funding of our roads and schools here locally and decide if the tax rates are reasonable.  As it stands, when the government asks to raise taxes, we have no real frame of reference as to whether the raise is needed. Having a more local wing of government would give us an idea of where our tax money goes, even as the lions share may still go downtown, to Austin, or to Washington. 

6. We’d be able to get to know our neighbors. Maybe we could even have a neighborhood event such as a barbecue, a music festival, or a 4th of July parade.

It’s true we have neighborhood associations now, but their function is mostly neighborhood-watch-type stuff and I’ve never been invited to attend an election or told when our group meets.  The good thing is this can all improve. What do you think?  Are you satisfied with the status quo? Does the idea of an additional, hyper-local, board of government bother you?

A major blog post has appeared on West and Clear, reflecting on the March 31 TCU forum entitled “Obama and The Press: Is the media doing its job?” Apparently, the talk didn’t stay on topic — instead, it veered off to the sorry state of the print journalism business, and again the scapegoat became the “pajama-wearing bloggers.”

What I want to know is, how did they figure out that I was writing in my pajamas? And anyway, I used to write in my pajamas all the time when I was a print journalist. In fact, I often called sources in my pajamas and edited copy in my pajamas too.

But I digress. The post at West and Clear is great, and the comments thread is excellent too. And comments are one advantage blogs have over traditional media.  On to elsewhere in the city:

If you haven’t visited yet, try out the discussion forums at www.eightoneseven.com. It’s a new site by Panther City Media for discussion on the city of Fort Worth, the Fort Worth blogs, and more generalized rants and realizations, for example the spot where a fight between Pete Wann and a guy who goes by the handle of Chinese Boomerang were directed after they began to spar over Global Warming in the comments thread of West and Clear.

On April 15, a group of locals will be holding a Tea Party to protest high taxes and bailouts of mismanaged companies. Austin at Fort Worth Real Estate Blog has the details. He’s also written a post about a new development based on a Croatian village, designed to be self-sufficient and walkable. Wow. This could be worth a visit.

Local special-interest bloggers have been active too. Julie at Silversmyth reflects on the benefits of having a physical vs. online store, and blogging for business and meanwhile Rob at Howtomakecoffee reviews Organic Mexican coffee, now available at Starbuck’s. In other local blogging, Matthew Stevens is firing Charter Cable.

That’s about all I found for today. Happy reading.

I’ve been thinking for some time that there is space in this blog for a series of essays about where this city might want to be in 50 years. The essays will be talking about where the city should try to be in terms of education, transportation, local government structure, environment, lifestyle, and the arts.

The more I thought about it, the more I considered creating a “Dream Fort Worth” would be valuable. Putting ideas out there about what could be done, in a Utopian context, might produce some unworkable and even ridiculous ideas, but then again, some things that come up might be useful, or lead to other ideas that would be more practical.

I’m convinced that short-sighted local government decisions are a problem for everyday Americans. We really need to look at things like transportation, local government structure, planning for better schools, building and zoning decisions, and how we allocate tax money.By dreaming of 50 years from now, a more-rational type of decision is really being made, if what we care about is the city and our children, and not just ourselves.

Most of us don’t often think about local planning and government, and so we just allow things to continue as they have, trusting those in charge with making the decisions for us. Unfortunately, often the only people who care to discuss and plan such matters are often those who have huge amounts of money at stake — for example, say, real estate developers — who then create infrastructure, such as car-dependent suburbs, that will be a drag on the community in the future.

In the next few weeks I’ll be creating my Fort Worth Utopia essays and publishing them here. I hope they serve as a fulcrum for discussion, and even raise a few eyebrows.

Inspired by Kevin at 5ksandcabernets, I decided to do the unthinkable — jog instead of walk when I took the dog out in the evening. Whereas others are clocking up marathons, my goal was to jog the distance down to the creek, around a short circuit of lawn, and back up the hill — a distance of about 1 k, I would guess.  Last night was my third time to do this mini-journey.

My motivations for the plan were the idea, posted here earlier, that you don’t have to join a gym to get in shape,  as well as needing to exercise under severe time constraints. Since I started substitute teaching, I haven’t been able to go to the gym even once.

I got my faithful running partner — my dog — and sat on the bed with my running shoes on my feet. It had been a long day. I had been up since 4:30 a.m. and now it was 9:30 p.m. My head hung low. This running was insanity! The dog looked up at me. “Um, are we going?” he seemed to be nervously wondering. If I decided against the circuit I had to explain it to him. I felt mostly dead but how much harm could jogging a half mile do? I was already exhausted. Running couldn’t make it worse.

“What if there’s something wrong with my health?” I then worried, hypochondriacal as ever. Should I still go? Of course, this is a futile line of reasoning — there is almost no type of health problem for which running does not slightly improve your chances, except things like a broken leg. Heart trouble? Better off running. Cancer? Try running. Depression? Exercise is better than Paxil or Xanax.

Okay, I told myself, this was a one foot in front of the other sort of deal. I picked up the leash and marched out the door. After all, the one thing I could be sure of, which I was sure of back when I used to run cross country at age 14, was that it would be over in a short time.  It seemed to me I ran a little faster than I had the two previous days. My lungs didn’t hurt quite so much, and the fake heart attack I often experience when I exercise was not quite as acute.

I saw my daughter when I returned, coming out to walk her dog, and I did a circuit of the neighborhood with her, a cooldown walk. Then I went back into the house, stretched out on the bed. I felt so good. The world was actually a wonderful place! The universe supported me; I felt tired, maybe tired enough to die, but I didn’t care, I was at peace in a way I couldn’t remember being in a long time. I recognized the feeling as runner’s euphoria. People who don’t run can never experience this. I felt it. I was a lucky person to experience the moment. I was a lucky person to be able to run at all, even a 1k.

Running: yes, just what I can do, and just for today, I go on the record and say, it’s worth it.