From The Crystal Ball: Our Annual Predictions

Only four things are certain: death, taxes, traffic, and dumb commercials. Five, if you wanna count magazines making New Year predictions. Yes, D has gazed into its costume-jewelry crystal ball to get a sense of the year ahead, and everything now is as clear as the Trinity. Herewith, our educated guesses about the year 1987. Some will happen. Some won’t. Some ought to. Some better not. But-Silence! For D predicts that….

Lee Jackson, 1986″s ’Step-ford Candidate” for Dallas county judge, will not unleash quite as much charisma as His Engagingness promised us on the eve of his unsweeping vic-torv. but will keep us on the edges of our seats for another year, explaining that while it’s very difficult to suppress his vast personableness. too much charm isn’t good for county government and he would prefer to continue in the same personality-bypass condition established by his predecessors, 01’ What’s Their Names.

Max Goldblatt. the independent candidate in a county judge’s race dominated by straight-ticket voting, will tell people who ask him tor favors to call the Republicans, nyah. nyah, nyah.

Viewing with pleasure H. Ross Perot’s success with the MIAs. Iranian hostages. Texas education, and getting General Motors to fork over an additional S750 million for EDS. God in Heaven will appoint the Dallas billionaire to start a nonprofit think tank dedicated to getting to | the bottom of what’s wrong with the Known Universe. The new firm, to be called Vision Inc.. will be headed by former National Security Council staffer Lt. Col, Oliver North.

Several new downtown sky-scrapers will be summarily demolished to make way for historical markers.

Trammell Crow will announce plans to buy all of Danny Faulkner’s Lake Ray Hubbard property, put it all under one leaky roof, fill it with bankruptcy lawyers, and call it | InsolvoMart.

Purchases of right of way to begin “improvements” on Central Expressway will only exacerbate out-migration, with folks in McKinney and Piano figuring pretty soon it’ll be easier to go on back up to New York than it is to drive all the way down to the unemployment office.

Under the Great Economizer. Chuck Anderson. DART will consider raising fares to include first-born children; trading in older buses for flatbed trucks; and curtailing all service outside the Central Business District.

Southwest Airlines will announce nonstop hourly round-the-clock service from Love Field to D/FW, and Lori Palmer will purchase an antiaircraft gun.

The Texas Rangers will stand the best chance of any Texas team to go to the Super Bowl. Phil “Putz” Pozderac of the Cowboys will take a swing at a sportswriter, and miss.

Dallas socialites, disgraced by their failure to attract the Miss USA Pageant to Dallas, will try to bolster their damaged esteem by stealing the Howdy Roo celebration from Marble Falls or abducting the National Cow-Calling Contest, the pride of Roberts County.

A prominent Dallas oilman will move to Austin to implement his secret plan for his economy during his golden years: a new job, a company car. and four years’ free rent with all bills paid in spacious, recently redecorated quarters that rather remarkably suit his wife’s own tastes..

Meanwhile, an ousted Demo- |cratic governor will reveal what he means by doing “something in between” his law practice and his interest in barbecue restaurants, opening either a Po-Boy’s Sandwich Shop in the Deaf Smith county courthouse or a law practice that specializes in filing Chapter 11 for places with names like Jasper’s. Luke’s, Sonny’s, and Roscoe’s.