STREET TALK

You may be tired of hearing about anything related to the presidential candidates, but this item was too good to pass up. According to a manager at the Loews Anatole Hotel, when Democratic presidential nominee Walter Mondale came to Dallas August 27 to attend a fund-raiser, he’stayed in the same room that Vice President George Bush had stayed in while he was in town for the Republican National. Convention. That wasn’t so bad for Mondale, since security in that room had already been tightened for Bush’s stay. But ironically, the room had been officially named the Gerald Ford Suite during the convention, because Ford had presented the Trammell Crow family with a portrait of himself and the Crows had hung it in Bush’s room. Before Mondale could see the picture of Ford’s smiling Republican face hanging on the wall of his suite, an aide put it in the closet.



Patriotic Pride is a new organization begun by Dallasite Ken Fisher that markets license-plate frames identifying the driver of the vehicle as a Vietnam veteran or a veteran’s family member. Fisher, a veteran, says the frames are designed as a “tangible way of allowing the Vietnam veteran to get the personal pride and integrity he deserves.” He says it also gives the community an opportunity to recognize veterans for their service. There are five different messages: “Vietnam Veteran,” “Proud to be a Vietnam Veteran,” “Wife of a Vietnam Veteran,” “My Son is a Vietnam Veteran” and “America Salutes Vietnam Veterans.” Two other frames, “Proud to be a WW II Veteran” and “Proud to be a Korean War Veteran,” are also available.

Fisher says that proceeds from the sale of the frames will be donated to non-profit veterans’ organizations. To order, write to Patriotic Pride, 13534 Preston, Suite 201, Dept. LZ1, Dallas, TX 75240, and send a $7.95 check or money order for one frame. Two frames cost $11.95, and additional frames are $5. The price does not include tax.



If you haven’t heard how Dallas fared in the Texas Society of Architects competition that named the 20 most architecturally significant buildings in Texas, it did quite well. Buildings of note, according to the 4,500 members polled, were the Elbert Williams house, Fair Park’s art deco buildings, Highland Park Village and the Texas Instruments semiconductor building. The top vote-getter in the state, though, was Fort Worth’s Kimbell Art Museum.



In August, we printed a story on Washington, D.C., resident Peyton Davis, the former KERA-TV producer and writer for the Dallas Times Herald. Now it seems that her play, FEDS, which is about the pitfalls of working for a government bureaucracy, was so well-received by dinner-theater audiences around the nation’s capital that it moved to the Washington National Theater for a September run.