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PARTING SHOT

The Big V: An Exclusive Interview with the Vision of Dallas
By Chris Tucker |

I had always figured it would be there somewhere, around some corner or down some street I had always meant to take but was in too much of a hurry. Still, if you had told me I would find it on White Rock Lake, at the corner of Lawther Drive and Garland Road, I would have written you off as some kind of nut case. That is, until that morning in early May.

It started as just another Dallas morning. Punching from station to station, I heard the cacophony of warring voices: “The civilian review board will be good for the politicians, bad for the cops. ” “We need a strong mayor who knows how to run this city. ” “The DART plan is not fiscally viable. ” Everybody’s bottom line was the same: we need a vision of Dallas, but nobody has a vision, or if they do, it’s a narrow, crabbed, constricted, flat-earth vision; or it’s an opulent, wasteful, boondoggling, Picasso-in-the-bathrooms, budget-busting vision. And then, as someone was saying that without vision, Dallas would choke in traffic or be Balkanized into little fragments drained of communal spirit, I saw it.

No, not the little fragments. I saw it. Out there over the lake, shimmering in some gelatinous cloud like a gigantic but friendly jellyfish, was the Vision of Dallas.

Maybe there is such a thing as harmonic- or disharmonic-convergence. After all, I was at a spot where much of the city’s kar-mic power meets-the solar plexus of the Metroplex, perhaps. There was White Rock Lake, our real “town lake” even when some people were sure that a real Vision of Dallas had to include some wholly superfluous lake out in the river bottoms. There was the Arboretum, where, to judge from the fear and loathing between the flower powers and the neighborhood groups, they must be growing plutonium rather than pansies. And visible to the south was the skyline of downtown, which was the pulsating heart of Dallas until (take your pick) the economy sagged, high tech bloomed north of LBJ, or downtown housing failed to take off. And I was listening to this babble of angry voices, each accusing the other of having ignored or betrayed the true Vision of Dallas.

I blinked a couple of times but the Vision was still there. Depending on your perspective, it was as high as our soaring dreams can take us, or just about the size of a mountain of future debt. As broad as the gulf between Bent Tree and Lincoln High School in South Dallas. As for color, it’s hard to describe. From certain angles the Vision shone with all the colors of the rainbow, but if I squinted at it from one side, suddenly it blanched lily white.

And then the Big V spoke, in a voice reminiscent of the voice of God on the old Bill Cosby albums. What do you say to a Vision?



Q. Uh, do you have any proof that you’re real? I mean, papers or whatever? How do we know you’re not some upstart vision from Wichita Falls that broke loose in a high wind and drifted over?

A. Read this little tag-’If found, please return to Erik Jonsson. ” Next question.

Q. A lot of people are going to wonder why you didn’t appear in North Dallas, at the Prestonwood skating rink or somewhere. Is this symbolic?

A. The Vision of Dallas cannot be limited to one geographical sector or income group, however influential. The Vision of Dallas is a vision of a Dallas that belongs to everyone. Besides, I like the water.

Q. Look, I don’t want to pry, but where have you been? People have looked everywhere. Other cities have been laughing, saying you were gone forever.

A. I don’t hang around like I used to. Frankly, a lot of people treat me like their personal property. They trot me out to settle arguments. Look, they say, this or that idea is not part of the Vision of Dallas, blah blah. It gets tiresome.

Q. Okay, brass tacks. Will we keep the civilian review board? Will DART survive? Will Clint Eastwood move to Dallas and run for mayor? Will the Cowboys ever bounce back? The answers, please.

A. The answers, he says. This is the kind of thing that bugs me. Twenty-some years ago we had the Kennedy assassination. So we needed a new vision of Dallas as a city of love and possibility, not some clammy right-wing nuthouse. All right. I get the Cowboys to winning. I get “Dallas” on the air, and believe me, Hollywood agents do not give a flip about vision. We do major vision reshuffling, and once it’s done, does anyone say thanks? Does anyone just wanna rest and watch the fish jump? I’m telling you I’m tired. It’s always, “Say Vis, what have you done for us lately?” Ever since John Neely Bryan and that bunch. There they were, squalling down by the Trinity with those asinine covered wagons, no idea what to do, and here I come with a vision of a can-do city that thrives despite being landlocked with no oil or any natural resources besides its people. But they always want more.

Q. You’re dodging, but let’s go with that. Legend has it that for years you appeared regularly to a select group of wealthy white male leaders, and…

A. Mondays and Thursdays, around noon. Always some downtown hotel or a country club. I tell you if I never see another steak, it’ll be too soon. Seriously, those guys knew what they wanted. They’d have a quick look at my current line, maybe ask a couple of questions, and we’d tee off.

Q. Current line? You mean there’s more than one vision of Dallas?

A. Don’t be silly. We got dozens. Short-term visions start at six months and run up to five years. Your longer-term visions pick up after that. Up to twenty years you get a limited warranty on your consensus, but after twenty, we don’t guarantee the vision will work. Too many variables.

Q, In the past you were tight with people like Jonsson, John Stemmons, Ben Carpenter. A lot of folks say you’re not as chummy with the younger generation of Dallas leaders. I mean, you are pushing 150.

A. Look, I don’t jog. I don’t groove to some of the new threads. But that doesn’t mean I’m out of it. These folks know where to find me.

Q. How about names? Some people say that Lee Simpson sees a lot of you. How about Jerry Rucker? John Wiley Price?

A. Sorry. I don’t talk specifics about clients-trade secrets, you know. But let me say that all those folks have their eyes open.



I wanted to press him (her? it?) about DISD, the PACE amphitheater, redistricting the council, and more, but suddenly the Vision rose trembling from the placid lake and began dividing like a sped-up amoeba in a science film. Small bubbles, perhaps containing worthwhile visionettes, wafted toward all parts of the city, coming to rest from Hillcrest Road to Jefferson Boulevard, from Casa View to the Galleria. I wonder who found them.

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