Windfalls

The Rootabaga Bookery

There’s a new book spot devoted entirely to children. The selection is well planned and the shop itself is especially appealing … walls with animal murals, a pillow-filled bathtub for kids to sit in, and the staff even includes a big shaggy sheepdog named Jenny. (She’s no highbrow, but she’s very friendly.)

Books are chosen for the pre-school and primary grade child with special emphasis on paperbacks at the fourth to sixth grade level. There’s also a fine group of children’s records.

A special plus: most of the books are displayed on library-type magazine shelves so you can see the full cover and that’s helpful if you are encouraging your child to choose his or her own books. And it beats trying to read titles on book spines with your neck at a 90 degree angle.

Nancy O’Connor and Cheryl Hol-ley, who manage the shop, will happily help you with last minute Christmas ideas.



Rootabaga Bookery/6715 Snider Plaza/361-8581.

Soaps in Review

So what do you do when the holiday hassle keeps you otherwise occupied while John skips on his pregnant wife to run away with his mother-in-law’s sister? Wish you had a subscription to Let’s Gossip, that’s what.

The monthly publication is a snappy review which keeps you breathlessly up to date on fourteen TV soap operas.

Gossip also contains a special features section which informed the world recently (for instance) that “All My Children” is required viewing at Princeton University in a contemporary history course.

It’s available for $8 a year by subscription or on the newsstands.



Let’s Gossip/Jan King Publications/9712 Robin Hill Lane/Dallas 75238.

Go Play in the Sculpture, Kids

The town of University Park and the Highland Park Presbyterian Church have a joint venture that will change the landscape of Williams Park, University Boulevard and Park St.

What looks like a sculpture garden actually is a multi-level children’s play area with fun climbing structures, balance beams, tunnels and bridges. Designers Nan Simpson and Al David of Naud Burnett Associated Landscape Architects have put aside conventional playground ideas in favor of a continuous, linked area that allows the children to stretch their imagination while exercising their motor skills.



Unlike the usual swing and slide concept, this park is safe for toddlers, yet interesting and challenging enough for the older child. The installation should be ready for fun and games before spring.



Williams Park/Park St. and University Blvd./Dallas.

Green Thumb and Empty Greenhouse

Every winter it’s the same old problem for plant lovers. Where do you put the collection of plants and hanging baskets that have been growing outside all summer and fall? Just when they are looking lush and getting big -zap! -the first frost and all the preened green has to be hustled into the house.

How about sending them to Mrs. Dorothy Stanco instead? She has a green thumb and an empty greenhouse and will board your plants until spring for a monthly fee. The cost of boarding is usually much less than replacing your leafy losses.

Pick up and delivery is available for a small extra charge. Monthly rates depend on the size of the plant and how much room they require. For example, a hanging basket up to 12″ in diameter is $1.25 per month. Make reservations early, since the plant hotel is busier than the Adolphus on UT-OU Weekend.



Dorothy Stanco/Plant Boarding /381-4805.

Harbinger

It’s a treat. A new store devoted to well designed, well priced furniture and accessories – largely European imports.

The store interior was designed by Ben Loyd who describes it as “… a simplicity that is clean, intimate, honest and efficient as is the collection of goods assembled to go forth under the Harbinger banner.” The sleek OMK chair, for instance, typifies this viewpoint. It is an English design in chrome and canvas at $109.

By now you realize it’s not the place to find a Louis XV recliner chair in decorator gold plush. What you will find is a remarkable selection of good design in one place -furniture, lighting, kitchen goods, dinner and glass ware, sheets, towels and marvelous toys.

Harbinger/13020 Preston Road/387-1300.

Table Topping

A shop within a shop at Lou Latti-more brought to Dallas by New York Designer Frank McIntosh. It’s dynamite! For starters there are probably 15 kinds of straw mats in a wide range of natural tones and textures and 25 different kinds of cotton print napkins. And an endless number of ways to combine them. It’s an easy going, casual kind of look, but with style – and lots of it! There are other temptations -napkin rings, baskets, trays, pillows and even fancy edibles from Fauchon and Postillion that you might want to pick up for last minute Christmas thoughts.

Table Topping at Lou Lattimore/4320 Lover’s Lane/369-8585.

Back at the Home Office

It’s not your usual steel and glass special but it’s home sweet home for the Texas and Pacific Motion Picture Company that specializes in producing television commercials.

When Bob Johnson, founder and president, was looking for office space for his fledgling company, a friend who is a railroad buff suggested naming the company after a railroad. Johnson thought that sounded great and did it.

Then the inspiration hit to office in a railroad car on a siding next to that same friend’s downtown warehouse.

Six cabooses were located in Se-dalia, Missouri, and all were up for grabs (by secret bid, of course). Three even had their original potbelly stoves aboard. Johnson got his caboose.

Thirty-two cents a mile and six weeks later, the caboose still had not arrived in Dallas and its whereabouts was unknown. All Johnson knew for sure was that it had left Sedalia.

All just as well since Johnson still hadn’t completed negotiations with the railroad company for the necessary lease on rail siding as a resting place for the caboose. So even if it did arrive he wasn’t sure what he would do with it. After all, you don’t take a caboose home and park it in the driveway.

Success! The lease was signed, the caboose was found in Fort Worth and reunited with its rightful owner and you know the rest.. . they’ve been blissfully happy ever since.



Texas and Pacific Motion Picture Company/2008 Laws/741 -3437.

A Loaf and Thou

If you want to learn to bake good bread, sign up with Judy Glazer who has been baking fabulous bread for fifteen years. She’ll teach you to bake five or six kinds of bread, then several varieties of rolls and sweet breads. The course consists of five weekly sessions at her house from 9:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. Classes are small -maximum six people -and you learn by baking yourself, not just watching. She’ll supply all ingredients and know-how, you supply an apron and $100. There’s also a four-hour crash course that’s $25.



Judy Glazer/Learn to Bake/361-7902.