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LETTERS

By D Magazine |

SENTIMENT FOR

THE SIXTIES

CHRIS TUCKER’s story, “The Middle Age of Aquarius” [October], offered a warm enlightenment to the movie The Big Chill. Growing up one step behind the Sixties Generation has made me curious-almost envious-of the zeal they had for world politics and their passion for brotherhood. Those people who “got lost along the way” at least had expectations and hope at one time. They’re two up on my apathetic generation.

Sano Riley

Dallas



THE PASSING OF

A PRESIDENT

YOUR JFK STORY [“Assassination in Dallas,” November] is great! Since I was a part of the drama that unfolded that day, I believe you’ll be interested in my story.

When Kennedy and his wife came to town that fateful day, I was regional public information officer of eight Southwestern states for the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. My regional director assigned me the pleasant job of helping to welcome JFK and his wife to Dallas upon their arrival at Love Field.

When Kennedy and his beautiful wife (accompanied by Secret Service men and several area officials) arrived, my wife and I shook hands with the happy couple.

Kennedy was interested in public housing. His first remark after our greeting was: “I understand you have a great amount of public housing here in Dallas. Maybe the next time I visit Dallas, you can show me some of it.” Then, with the official greeters, he and his wife entered the limo that was to take them to the Market Center.

We turned our car radio on and began listening to a Dallas radio station’s account of his trip toward downtown and through the viaduct near the depot on the way to the Market Center, where the president was to make a luncheon address.

Suddenly, the radio announcer, describing the parade’s hasty trek, excitedly announced that “something has happened to the car carrying the president and his wife. It seems that the president may have been shot…” The limo broke away from the parade, and the announcer said, “Looks like they’re on their way to Parkland Hospital.. .” We waited an hour or so on Parkland’s terrace. Hundreds of other people were there, and we all watched a hearse taking the president to the morgue. My wife and I cried all the way home.

Elbert J. Haling

Dallas



IT WAS VERY interesting to read Hugh Aynesworth’s fine account of this tragic bit of history. But it was especially interesting to know that “Dallas citizens worked hard to make the president’s stay pleasant” (page 105), even to the extent of setting up the marquee of the Texas Hotel in Fort Worth with the greeting: “Welcome, Mr. President.”

William H. Harrison

Fort Worth



HOOKED ON

BASS STORY

WOW! THANKS. That’s great. I just finished reading “Ain’t No Mountain High Enough” [October], and it has left me feeling so good. My thanks go to Richard Bass for living it, to Ruth Miller Fitzgibbons for writing it, to Michael McGar for illustrating it and to Lee Cullum for seeing that it was magazine-worthy.

During the week, I teach a group of high school students whose vision never goes farther than the coming week’s ball game and after-game beer bust. So my salvation-yea, my survival-is dependent upon my spending a couple of Saturday hours in the hammock with an assortment of reading materials. I read a lot of different things so that I don’t receive the same viewpoints all the time, and right now your magazine and the Sunday New York Times are running neck and neck with Bon Appetit and my marketing magazines! I particularly like to read about the “movers and shakers” such as Dick Bass. I guess it’s because I see so few of them in my little-town high school (McGregor) that I need to be reassured that there are some still around.

If I have failed to make my point clear, I loved the story!

Rosemary Falls

Waco

WIT FROM A

WORD WAR “VICTIM”

THANK YOU FOR an amusing and informative article in the October issue (“The Great Newspaper War”). As a native of Dallas who has never quite been able to make the choice between the likes of Jim Schutze (Dallas Times Herald) and Randy Galloway (The Dallas Morning News), I find myself reading both papers almost daily.

I must say, though, that I was very much relieved that [Eric] Miller did not take it upon himself to declare a winner for fear the other might concede and decide to look for greener pastures. Heaven forbid that we Dallasites, with our reputation as the epitome of prosperity and originality, should have only one major newspaper! I only wish they would display a little more honesty with their readers by renaming themselves the Liberal Times and the New Right News. Oh well, so much for originality.

Mark Holmes

Dallas



YOUR OCTOBER issue was sent to me by a friend in Dallas whom I have known for more than half a century because he spotted me in the photo (pages 92 and 93) accompanying the story “How the Word War Began.” I found this story and the article “The Great Newspaper War” both amusing and perplexing. Since it has been 23 years since I left Dallas, I can’t comment on the present-day situation, but I am reasonably familiar with the history of newspapers in Dallas up to 1960. So I was puzzled by the omission of any mention of the years or the personalities involved with Dallas papers between the 1890s and the 1970s.

Even more puzzling was the absence of any mention of two Dallas papers that existed for about a quarter of a century-from about 1914 to 1938. These two were the Dallas Evening Journal (published by the A.H. Belo Corp.) and the Dallas Dispatch. After these two were sold in 1938 and merged as the Dispatch-Journal by Karl Hoblitzelle, publication continued into early 1942 under successive ownerships.

I do regret that there was no mention in your story of what once were two very lively Dallas newspapers.

Mason Wfalsh

Scottsdale, Arizona

FAIR PARK FORECAST

LEE CULLUM’S October editorial [“Editor’s Page”] justifiably places Fair Park in the forefront of our city’s sesquicentennial planning-but it misses the mark on the 1981 LWFW study.

The LWFW study was the catalyst and the basis for the $18 million bond election. Additionally, [Betty] Marcus has stated that the LWFW report brought the Park Board and State Fair Association Board closer together to manage and chart the course of Dallas’ largest single asset.

LWFW took the political heat by articulating the problems and long-term solutions knowing that they would not be popular with those most affected. Also, LWFW may have been politically naive, not “artless” as Ms. Cullum suggested. She may be naive to think that “one sheet containing a single idea that will tell us what to do with our architectural treasures at Fair Park” can adequately deal with an untapped resource that requires a major infusion of funding over the next 20 years. The real opportunity missed is that no single entity has the responsibility for the development of Fair Park, a situation that LWFW believes must be corrected if Fair Park is to realize its potential.

Donald G. Reynolds

LWFW, Inc. Group

Dallas



THE LAST paragraph in your splendid and thought-provoking editorial on Fair Park invites “a single creative idea that will tell us what to do.” I have that idea. I conceive of an Alpine village, a tropical village, a German village, etc., each village replete with appropriate architecture, using the Fair Park structures as the foundation. All of this would be connected by a narrow-gauge railroad that would weave around Fair Park.

Joseph A. Shirley

Dallas

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