Well Worth It!

I just discovered Fort Worth, Texas. I was always vaguely aware that it was somewhere near Dallas (note: DFW – Dallas/Fort Worth Airport – nothing gets by me), but didn’t realize that it has such a history and that is can rightfully claim status as a true gateway to the West.

A recent Texas trip to visit a truly wonderful and generous family (with ties to the College) combined with some reconnoitering in advance of Michigan’s football showdown against Alabama this coming fall at Cowboys Stadium (affectionately known as “Jerry World” to the locals), included a day in Fort Worth.

From their website (http://www.fortworth.com/about-fort-worth/history/):

In its youth, Fort Worth was a rough-and-tumble frontier town, dusty and lawless, home to the brave and the brawling, the soldier, the frontiersman, the outlaw. Today, Fort Worth, one of the largest cities in Texas and the 16th-largest city in the United States, is a destination shaped by its revitalized downtown, a world-renowned cultural arts district, beautifully preserved Western-heritage sites and major-league attractions.

Originally settled in 1849 as an army outpost at the Trinity River, Fort Worth was one of eight forts assigned to protect settlers from Indian attacks on the advancing frontier. Progress helped the growing settlement survive long after other such towns had blown away with the dust of departing pioneers.

The cattle industry was king for a generation of people working the Fort Worth leg of the historic Chisholm Trail, which ran from the 1860s to the 1870s. Cowboys worked and played in Hell's Half Acre, located where downtown Fort Worth stands today, before driving the cattle on the Chisholm Trail to its ending point in Kansas.

Fort Worth became the heart of the Trail and the heart of the state's ranching industry when the Texas & Pacific Railway arrived in 1876. In the years that followed, oil and aviation brought new wealth throughout the region, and a city grew where a camp once stood.

The post-war years found Fort Worth capitalizing on its strengths as a transportation, business and military center. Cultural pursuits included the development of the city's internationally known museum district, built alongside the Will Rogers Memorial Center, which opened in 1936, and Casa Mañana Theatre. . .  .

Still, many of Fort Worth's earliest buildings endure to this day - art deco skyscrapers stand beside older redbrick stalwarts in downtown's Sundance Square, flanking wide brick sidewalks lined with elm and live oak. And though the dust of the old west is gone, Fort Worth's proud Western heritage lives on, blending with thriving commerce and culture to create a destination unlike anywhere else in the world.

Among the jewels I encountered are two “must-stops” for the genuine or wannabe cowboy or cowgirl: Peters Brothers and M.L. Leddy’s.

Peters Brothers was started by Jim and Tom Peters just over 100 years ago. These Greek immigrants began a shoe shining business Waco, TX and soon took their $600 savings and moved to Fort Worth where they opened a premier shoe shine parlor.

Around the beginning of World War I, demand in downtown Fort Worth was so great that the business had 36 men employed to shine shoes on two shifts and soon began cleaning hats for customers.

In 1921 Tom left Fort Worth to work for John B. Stetson in Philadelphia where he learned to make hats from the master hatters at Stetson. Tom returned to Fort Worth and started making hats at the downtown location.

Soon, Peters Brothers' hats were commonly seen on celebrities and dignitaries (early product placement – they gave the stars the hats!) and the hats earned the moniker: The Shady Oaks.

Jim died in 1933 and Tom moved the business to its current location, gave up the shine business in 1973, and oversaw hat production until his death in 1991 at 98 years of age.

Offerings include a variety of hats made from a variety of materials in varied styles – from the 6 inch brim Tom Mix style to an Indiana Jones style fedora.

Although ten years younger, M.L. Leddy's is no “little brother” in western wear.

M.L. Leddy left his family cotton farm in 1918 and, four years later, purchased the saddle and boot shop where he had been working in the small west Texas town of Brady.

In 1922, saddle making and boot making were common trades but the “Leddy Standard” soon became the quality and service others sought to match. By 1936, their reputation exceeded their borders and they moved their business to San Angelo, Texas. Demand for their products continued to expand and a second location was opened in the historic Fort Worth Stockyards in 1941.

My host for the day, Lee M., took me to Leddy’s and introduced me to Mr. Gene Lee Reynolds who had fitted Lee for several pairs of custom boots. Mr. Gene and Lee showed me several different styles ranging from the plain to the unfathomably ornate – and, for the right price, pretty much any design, logo, or other image can be embossed or embroidered into any boot.

I ended up passing on the custom fitting but can imagine how absolutely fun these boots would be to own.

We left Leddy’s in time for the daily drive of the longhorns through the Stockyards district and then delighted at the Woodshed restaurant for some unmatched Texas ribs and fixins including elk sausage and a bourbon & Coke pork taco with “Banh Mi” pickled chiles – all washed down with a locally produced St. Arnolds Lawnmower lager.

I’m going to visit again!

With appreciation to the kind folks at all the stops. See also:
http://www.pbhats.com/private/HISTORY/Default.htm
http://leddys.com/
http://www.woodshedsmokehouse.com/

Almost an Irish story

With good weather, comes spring cleaning. With spring cleaning, comes looking for reasons to stop cleaning. . . I’m in luck.

I found the yellowing pages of a short story I started in 1991. Just back from a trip to Ireland with a buddy, I started a mock travelogue of the trip, à la Hunter S. Thompson. Admittedly, my 1991 verbiage wouldn’t win any awards from today's PC police, but I found it a fun read. I’ll share this as either a one-time retrospect or as the first chapter of a serial. Let’s see where this leads.

The Doctor screams through Ireland, a travel story (1991)

Since you’ve asked, the real beginning was somewhere during a horrible zydeco arrangement of BB’s Gambler’s Blues. The Doctor was describing the problems with 15th century nuclear fission or some other thing. I was drinking dangerous bourbon, thinking about her.

“Let’s go to Ireland!” somehow screamed above the zydeco.

This was an important moment in our relationship. The Doctor was a politically correct Eastern European often mistaken for French; I had the only Irish blood between us. We met 29 days prior at a co-fundraiser for Pat Buchanan and Jerry Brown when the Doctor and I shared an ambulance shortly into the evening.

The Doctor recovered much more quickly than me, but he had more scars. I was surprised that he would even suggest Ireland after my remarks about the wart, his mistress, and the sandals. In retrospect, I suppose he was used to the wart, tired of his mistress, and unaware of his sandals.

It was agreed, we’d go to Ireland.

He was always one for themes and immediately stopped ordering rum and demanded Jameson’s. He then instructed me to feed the jukebox and play anything by Sinead O’Conner.

We knew it was important that the Doctor make the travel arrangements since I had bartered my American Express card for two passports in Caracas and was in-between credit ratings. “I have a friend at the Pentagon who will fix that,” the Doctor assured.

Maybe it was the bourbon, the music, or the prospect of foreign travel again, but I remember it was exactly then that he stopped looking so French.

That moment could have lasted forever had Oakley, the bouncer, not recognized me. When I ducked the bottle, it crashed on the Doctor’s forehead. The explosion of glass was of the best I’d seen; the Doctor simply interrupted his travel plans to praise, once again, the East German medical system’s tradition of implanting steel plates. We left.

“You drive,” instructed the Doctor. “Head to O’Hare.” He tossed me the keys to his minibus and soon we were miles out of Ann Arbor screaming toward Chicago. “Don’t drive over 90,” growled the Doctor. “The computer screen gets fuzzy.”

The minibus was equipped with over $90,000 worth of computer and recording equipment (“Aren’t government grants the best!” he always cheered) and was armor plated. It was the Doctor’s theory that when the skinheads came looking for him, he wasn’t going to be a sitting target.

After about an hour, the Doctor triumphantly emerged from the back of the minibus and handed me a first class ticket to London, a BritRail pass, roundtrip steamer tickets out of Wales, and a rental car confirmation. “God, I love technology!” he began. “Did you know that the medievals had the same awe and wonderment over astrology that we feel for critical mass reactions. . . .”

He started again. Whenever the Doctor came close to sobriety, he began to lecture on meaningfulness and technology. It really was quite odd. When he started drinking, his entire focus was on younger women. By the third drink, he was convinced that older women were the keys to personal salvation. When completely smashed, the Doctor’s lecture turned to inner feelings of esteem and its effect on feelings of inner helplessness -  or wrestling. Meaningfulness crept into the conversation only with sobriety.

I was as guilty, except that I never thought much about wrestling. I had, however, read plenty of John Irving.
. . .

I started into the O’Hare parking ramp just after 3 am. The sudden change of speed (or was it the squeal of the failing brake linings?  “I refuse to get new brakes until I hit something,” he explained earlier in the trip) woke the Doctor.

“STOP! WHERE ARE YOU GOING?” demanded the Doctor. “THIS IS WHERE THE SKINHEADS HIDE AT NIGHT! DON’T YOU WATCH GERALDO?”

I confessed to missing the last few shows, but, regardless, I was open to suggestions. “Head downtown. The Mystic Blue Pumpkins should be finishing their last set at Kingston Mines – I used to back them up – they’ll let us use the safe house.”

If you overlook the whole thing with the St. Bernard, it was an uneventful drive overall. It is really good to be with someone more paranoid than you.

Image from public-domain-zorger.com

Cajuns, Pizza, Hard Work, and Friends

I’m a big fan of New Orleans and have had the pleasure of three trips to the Crescent City since November. The city is very walkable, features eclectic dining adventures, and portions have an old world feel with tight streets immediately lined with storefronts and home facades. The cemeteries are rows of above ground crypts with gothic images fashioned in stone or otherwise molded.

If you overhear some natives in a heated exchange, odds are that you won’t understand a thing. Shopkeepers, restaurateurs, hotel staffers, and strip club hucksters all appreciate tourists (or at least their dollars) and will hurl happy welcomes your way.

My first trip to New Orleans still remains a fresh and happy memory. In 1986, a colleague from my Domino’s Pizza days, Jeff Smith, and I went to some sort of transportation trade show in the Big Easy. Jeff was a veteran visitor to the city and easily guided us through the French Quarter, the Garden District, and the Warehouse District. Among my firsts from that trip:

- My first meal at K Paul’s (sharing a table with Paul Prudhomme)

- My first soft shell crab sandwich

- My first craw-fish meal, and

- My first encounter with a naked woman holding a twelve-foot boa constrictor (well, in truth, my ONLY such encounter)

Jeff had hired me at Domino’s after the most unique job interview I’ve ever experienced. The odyssey began with the accidental reunion between a childhood friend, Kevin M., and me at the free taco happy hour one evening at the Ann Arbor Sheraton.

Kevin had been with Domino’s in a variety of roles for a few years when we ran into each other – as I remember; he was in town solidifying his new role in national purchasing for the distribution division. I was there because I was broke and was plying a well-practiced skill of nursing a single beer while gorging on free food.

Survival through graduate school and early employment days (earning about $8 an hour) required a thorough knowledge of the town’s happy hour schedule: Wednesday, free tacos at the Sheraton; Thursday, shrimp night at the Hilton; Monday was happy hour pasta at another venue. But I digress.

Kevin ended up moving to Ann Arbor, spending his first few months living on my couch, and eventually buying a house just north of Ypsilanti. During his time on my sofa, he apparently had a conversation with Jeff who was responsible for the fleets of semi-trucks that serviced the pizza stores. He called.

“Hello.”

“Kevin says you do trucks – is that right?”

“I guess, I work for Jones. . .”

“Good enough, come to my apartment 10 am Saturday morning for an interview. My address is. . .”

I managed to capture most of his address before he hung up.

Jeff lived in an apartment complex in northeastern Ann Arbor – about 30 buildings, all identical and laid out in a pattern that would challenge a Minotaur. Despite getting to the complex a full twenty minutes early, I was 20 minutes late knocking on Jeff’s door.

I’m dressed in a natty gray tweed jacket, wool slacks, shined Weejuns, and, I’m embarrassed to say, a knit tie. The door opens and Jeff snorts, “You’re late – if you want any coffee, you'll have to make it.”

Jeff, easily six and a half feet tall with a barrel chest of at least sixty inches, was clad in a Hawaiian shirt and jean cut offs, he was barefoot, and spent most of the interview splayed across a couch. Interview is, perhaps, a generous term for our hour together: after I made coffee, he and I argued over Camus’ Myth of Sisyphus. At the end of the hour, Jeff asked if I could start Monday.

Although I didn’t start the ensuing week, I found myself part of Domino’s Pizza Distribution Corp. working with a variety of excellent people whose energy and good faith more than made up for our youth and inexperience. We grew some 300% annually; we burned out, recharged, played hard, worked harder. Many of us, today, would fire us for decisions we made in those early days but we learned, innovated, executed, and somehow did a lot of things right. Today, most of us from those early days are spread throughout the nation in other pursuits. We do share battle scars that will forever keep us friends.

My last contact with Jeff was just about 13 years ago – by then, he had an Iliad of other experiences and more than his fair share of road dust on his soul. I hope he’s well; he came to mind as I lunched at K Paul’s this past weekend. I hope he and I can share a Cajun martini and the shrimp etouffee together someday.