Windfalls

Fisher’s Food Store



It has been a Dallas institution since 1932 when Mr. Cecil Fisher opened on McKinney Avenue. He still presides over the operation from his raised desk in the corner of the store at 4260 Oak Lawn. About 90% of the business is charge and delivery and the trucks go our four times per day sometimes as far as Richardson and Piano. Another large portion of their work is mail order, and food is shipped all over the country, even to Mexico.



Many of the customers who have dealt with Fisher’s for years have never set foot inside the store but call in their orders for cut to order meat, high quality fruits and vegetables and the many specialty and imported food items the store carries.



This is one place where you can find out of season fruits and vegetables or hard to find items in season, like raspberries. They also have an excellent line of their own products -mayonnaise, cucumber mayonnaise, remoulade, and horseradish sauce, pickled zucchini-fifteen in all. A specialty this month is baby lamb for Easter which must be ordered ahead. Call 526-7251.

Art Glass



Art glass is crafted by a special group of artisans and there are few around today who are skilled in this art form. At the Irvin Art Glass Company which is actually the Irvin family, the craft has been passed along for three generations. They do excellent restoration work on antique pieces that have been recovered from old buildings and churches. They also design and create new works ranging from a small project like a Tiffany style lamp shade or small window panel to a recent large project – the windows of the new Lover’s Lane Methodist Church. Their studio is located at 3143 Mountain Springs Road. Phone 331-5882.

Books Wanted

If you are spring cleaning or moving to a smaller house and have books you no longer need, donate them to the Smith College Club of Dallas. They hold a terrific book sale each spring to raise scholarship money for a Dallas area student. The sale this year is May 9-11, time and place to be announced later. The group will take cookbooks, children’s books, encyclopedias, textbooks, paperbacks – what ever you have to offer – and better yet will come to your house to pick them up if you call 428-2663.

Bargain Bag

At Shamburger Building Centers, Inc. 4463 Greenville Avenue, 363-4378, the nails that fall on the floor as they are weighed out at the nail bin are swept up each day, packed up (about two pounds per bag) and sold for $.50 per bag. Not bad if you need assorted sizes of nails for odd jobs around the house.

Re-doing It



For hard core types who woulo rather refinish their floors them selves, there is an excellent two part article on the subject in “The Old House Journal,” December 1974. It covers all the problems involved including a few you might not have thought of, such as renting a sanding machine that won’t blow the fuses in your house, a chart of the different kinds of sand paper the fact that the dust you raise from sanding is highly combustible and what to do about that. And lots more.

The Journal deals with renovation and maintenance ideas for the antique house and covers practical matters like the floor refinishing and some historical material that is interesting. Write to “The Old House Journal,” Dept. 7, 199 Berkeley Place, Brooklyn, New York 11217. They will send a listing of all the articles published since October, 1973, and a free sample copy of the Journal if you ask for it. Subscriptions are 12.00 per year for 12 issues.

Model-T’s

Without a doubt, French t-shirts are the best. The marvelous cotton t-shirts from Cartouche, Tea Shirts, and Emesse and many others have more style and a better cut than any of the domestic versions.

This year the versatility of the t-shirt is the big draw plus the variety of styles available that look great with pants and skirts – long or short.

Several shops in the city have a large selection right now. Theodore, a new shop in the upper level of the new addition of NorthPark keeps approximately two thousand shirts in stock at all times. They have fifty different colors or shades of a color in halter or tank; short, cap and long sleeve; and cardigan styles with a variety of different necklines in a price range from 7.00 to 20.00.

Gazebo, 4924 Cole, also has a large stock on hand of basic styles plus a great looking cuffed, bell sleeve cardigan and a long sleeve hooded style. Their prices range from 10.00 to 26.00.



At Colette Brezin in Old Town there is a particularly pretty wrap t-shirt with short sleeves in several solid colors at $14, some halters embroidered with parrots and palm trees at $14 and a marvelous feminine version of the t-shirt in black or ecru with cotton lace inserts in the body of the shirt and short lace edges sleeves at $24 or in a long sleeve version at $30.

Love Nests

For the past month, the Purple Martins have been sending out scouts to find suitable quarters for their families. This bird is said to eat its weight in mosquitos, their larvae and eggs as well as other insects. So if you enjoy being outdoors in the summer it would be worth the investment to put up a Purple Martin house to attract a family to your yard (and your mosquitos).



There’s a little catch. Purple Martins are very particular about where they nest. The houses must have compartments of a certain size and must be a minimum of 14 feet off the ground. They must be clean when the scouts are looking for locations (they won’t live in a dirty house) and must be in a clear, open space at least 10 to 15 feet away from any trees.



At Nicholson-Hardie Seed Stores, one place where the houses are sold, talk to Mr. William Dasch who is well acquainted with the habits of these birds. He tells about a customer who has three large Purple Martin houses in her yard and one of them is in a tree. He thinks that probably the first two got overcrowded and the overflow just went to the house in the tree and then returned year after year. Another customer solved the problem of getting rid of the sparrows and starlings who tried to move in before the Purple Martins arrived by putting surgical gauze over the openings. The Martins could force their way through the gauze but the other birds weren’t able to. Houses run from 19.95 to 39.95 for a deluxe 16 compartment model. The telescoping poles (for the cleaning project) are $25.95 each at Nicholson-Hardie, 5717 W. Lovers Lane, 357-4348.

If you are too late this month or the birds don’t find your house, take heart. The scouts go out again in mid-summer and there are always plenty of mosquitos to go around.