MAYFEST: MAYBE YES, MAYBE NO

MAY 10 To Mayfest or not? At least Hamlet had a better grip on what he needed to do than do most of the participants in this year’s Mayfest bash, rumoured to be May 10 along Lower Greenville, although May 16 and 17 have also been given as possible party dates.

Confusion is nothing new to the five-year-old Mayfest, which has earned a city-wide reputation as a free-spirited, raucous revelry that last year attracted more than 10,000 dancing, strolling, and knee-walking merrymakers. After the noise died down, however, members of the Dallas City Council took off their party hats when a hot check was presented for payment of street signs, barricades, and (rash cans. A few days after the dust cleared, the council enforced a measure allowing the chief of police to grant or deny permission for any event involving more than seventy-five people if it requires closing or blocking streets, placing tents, stages, or portable toilets on public property, or if it involves the sale of merchandise.

In light of such measures and the bounced check, council members and the media speculated that a repeat bash would not be attempted. And the former president of the Lower Greenville Merchants Association, Fun-O-Grams owner Chris Thornton, says he thinks it’s unlikely that any single merchant along the street will accept the full scope of responsibility for attempting another street-long event like last year’s, which included food and drink concessions and an outdoor carnival.

But that doesn’t necessarily mean that the good times are off this spring. Rather than banding together under the auspices of the Merchants Association (which, we’re told, no longer exists), many Lower Greenville nerchants are giving the go-ahead for individual weekend festivities. Without revealing too much of their plans, diehard clubs such as the Greenville Avenue Country Club and the Greenville Bar & Grill say that they’re ready to show Mayfest revelers a good time. And Lower Greenville’s newest legend, the Fast and Cool club, is tentatively gearing up for festivities-including a pet parade. The F&C’s entry, they say, will be two Fast and Cool dancers riding in a platform saddle with a jam box on top of a full-grown Indian elephant.

But as D went to press, Dallas police had yet to hear from anybody wanting to take out a special events or a parade permit. No organization or individual effort has yet made that move, and according to a police spokesman, time has almost run out. To get a permit for a full-scale, organized event-streets blocked off, portable restrooms, outdoor buildings, sound systems, etc.-organizers must apply to the Dallas Police special operations division forty-five days in advance. The forty-five-day rule can be waived, however, if police can accommodate the request to the satisfaction of homeowners and various city departments. That might pose a big problem to optimistic Mayfest organizers, since homeowners have mixed reactions to the festivities that invade their streets. Party organizers need to apply for a parade permit only five days in advance, providing that no streets need to be blocked off. In that case-as with the last-minute St. Patrick’s Day parade-the police will help keep the traffic flowing. Stay tuned.



MAY 17 Ever had lunch with a ghost? Ever want to? If you have a desire to do so, you can break bread among members of the afterlife May 17 when the Historic Preservation League hosts its first annual cemetery picnic downtown. Yes, there is a cemetery downtown- at Young and Akard streets.

Included in the spirited goings-on will be a dedication of a Texas historical marker for the cemetery; informal tours of the graves conducted by authors and historians A.C. Greene and Judge Newton Fitzhugh; informal gravestone rubbing classes and discussions of gravestone symbolism by archaeologists from the SMU Department of Anthropology; and an an- nouncement of Texas historical gravemarkers for individuals buried at the cemetery.

Among the notable Texas spirits residing at Pioneer Cem-etery are John Stemmons, Juliette Fowler, J.K..P. Records, and Alexander Harwood. Admission to the picnic, from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m., is free and parking is free under Dallas City Hall. And for those souls not bringing their own sack lunches, the Dallas Convention Center concession stand will be open.



MAY 23 The third annual Dallas Folk Festival hits downtown Dallas in the third week of the month. Unlike fests in previous years that were contained to the City Hall Plaza, this year’s do will spread out into a two-block radius around City Hall, and Young Street will be blocked off between Ervay and Griffin to accommodate the estimated 200,000 folkies. The festival will feature the traditions of Cajuns, Germans, Poles, Czechs, Jews, and Mexicans as well as the American Indian and native cowboy.

Dallas’ festival, modeled after the National Folk Festival (usually hosted in Washington, D.C.) will feature the Kiowa Gourd Dance and Indian Pow Wow, log cabin building and saddle making, Yiddish song and dance, black jazz, Cajun and Creole food and dance, Czechoslova-kian music, and three types of Mexican-American music.

Sponsored by the Central Dallas Association, the City of Dallas, and the Greater Dallas Sesquicentennial Committee, the Dallas Folk Festival will kick off Friday, May 23 at noon and will pick up again at 11 a.m. on Saturday and Sunday. To get in the swing, call 720-2232.

-Alan Peppard



MAY 25 Question: what what has twelve million arms, twelve million legs, and a net worth of $60 million?

Answer: six million people, each donating $10, to link hands from sea to shining sea on May 25 in one of the most monumental-or at least, one of the biggest- human efforts ever undertaken.

Hands Across America, brainchild of USA for Africa President Ken Kragen. has been designed to raise millions of dollars for the hungry and homeless in the United States.

The human chain will link with Texas west of Amarillo, wind through Wichita Falls and Fort Worth, then continue through Dallas and exit through Texarkana. Says Patricia Dill-ingham, local HAA public relations director, “We are particularly pleased to have groups sign up. We’ve had an RV group and even a biker group call in and ask, ’Where in West Texas do you want us?’”

The Texas office for Hands Across America is located in downtown Dallas at 1906 Main. Anyone wanting to lend a hand to the May 25 history-making event needs to drop by or call 748-HAND. Volunteer participants are accepted right up until May 25. but May 15 is the last day you can call in and have your route instructions mailed to you. According to Dillingham, “We are delighted with anyone who volunteers to go someplace else; otherwise we will try to assignthem a place within their zip code or as close as possible.” Groups interested in participating should call Group Coordinator Tom Vizzini at 748-HAND. -A. P.