April 2, 2005 – Dallas on the Eve of the 1970s

April 2, 2005 – Dallas on the Eve of the 1970s

Dallas, Texas at the end of 1968 was a deep-south city struggling with the social change. We lived in Plano at the time and this struggle was abundantly clear. The black part of town was on the southeast side of the city. To better understand Plano of that time, it was a city that was one exit off of Highway 75. The old city sat on the east side of the freeway and there was a Buddies Supermarket within a strip mall on the west side of the freeway. The only other development to speak of was the Springbrook Apartments where my wife IM and daughter ME and I took up residence. Plano was a either black or white, nothing in between which is what my wife IM and I were. She’s Scottish and I’m mixed Filipino-American—my father being as white as they come and my mother being a beautiful Filipina. My sisters and I have the distinct features and coloring of our mother, but we all think of ourselves as white folk.

IM noticed it more than I did, people staring at us in shopping malls and grocery stores. They would look at her, then me, and then lovely ME who had darkish blond hair, her mother’s complexion and beautiful hazel eyes. IM and I were both perplexed as to the origin of her eyes. IM has striking blue eyes mine are brown. ME was the sort of kid that smiled at everyone who looked at her, and to this day, she is a natural attraction to people. People like being around her, engaging her in conversation—and she does loves to talk. She’s the sort of kid who takes charge of situations, instinctively seeing something awry in a situation and doing something about it—someone in a gathering that looks uncomfortable, she befriends and introduces around.

I was oblivious of the stares because during the six years we spent in Dallas I was so preoccupied with enjoying life with my girls, work and finishing college that I paid the people around me little notice. At my Collins Radio job, I was among a complete department of ex-military retirees. They had left the service after twenty years and gone to work for the military suppliers who were producing equipment for the services. Collins was a major military supplier. Its radios were aboard every NASA spacecraft, every military aircraft, and many commercial aircraft as well. Collins also supplied equipment to every major telecommunications company in the country. The department where I worked was a sea of grey metal desks in an open room ringed by offices for the managers. We were all producing technical manuals and other documentation for the equipment Collins shipped. The military is one customer that demands a great deal of paper accompany everything shipped to them. Furthermore they have detailed instructions on how each of these documents are to be prepared. The building where I worked was right off North Central Expressway on the east side of the Expressway between Royal Lane and Forest Lane.

The end of 1968 and start of 1969 represented a new beginning for our little family. I had stopped smoking shortly after ME was born and IM eventually stopped in 1969 after a slow withdrawal. Funny how each of us made the break in our own way. We were just getting by on my salary alone, watching every penny and managing to set aside enough from payday to payday to eat out Friday nights at McDonald’s. Our passtime was driving all over Dallas, out to Lake Lavon on the weekend, which was literally due east of Plano on Texas Highway 78 in Collin County, northeast of Dallas; down to mall at the Northpark Center at the junction of Texas Highway 75 and West Northwest Highway, better known as Highway 12; or into Dallas to walk around Dealy Plaza and One Main Place on a Sunday, watching the well-healed have Breakfast at Brennan’s Restaurant. But, our most favorite pass time was Dallas Love Field. We were there for the first flight to leave for Hawaii, the arrival of the first L1011 and DC10. It was an inviting airport that welcomed you whether you were passing time or had somewhere to go. It harkened back to a time in the past, the late 1940s and early 1950s when propeller planes plowed the airways. The other great treat that Love Field offered was Bachman Lake, an expansive park at the end of the runway.

The eastern reach of Bachman Lake begins as a stream the runs under Lemmon Avenue where it intersects with Highway 12 and surrenders its name to Marsh Lane. From this junction the stream widens into the lake, which hugs Highway 12 as it curves toward Webb Chapel, bounding the body of water on the north and northwest side. The lake is trapped on the west and southwest by Harry Hines Blvd and on the east and southeast by Love Field’s two runways. On Sundays while everyone else was at church—and people went to church on Sunday in Dallas—we would bring our picnic lunch and sit under one of the two runway approaches to the airport and watch large lumbering jets—a lot of 727s and 707s—their landing gear deployed, scream onto the runway at Love Field. We would cover ME’s ears as each jet approached and she would giggle at our excitement.

It was a great park for people watching, too. On one visit we were picnicking and across the lake from us a limo slowed to a crawl and eventually stopped directly across the lake from us. Out of one door a new bridge jumped from the back door, her wedding dress still as white and fluffy as when she put it on earlier in the day. The bemused husband, jacketless, rushed after her as she sprinted for the lake laughing. He eventually caught up with her and swept her up in his arms and hauled her back to the limo that slowly drove away. I often wonder what ever became of them.

The second half of 1969 was when I began to collect on my GI Bill. I had enough college tuition coming to me to put me through four years of college. The tuition reimbursement was welcome extra salary as it amounted to more than I ever paid in tuition and books. I started at little El Centro Junior College in downtown Dallas, nearby One Main Place. The great irony was this hotbed of liberal thinking literally growing in the shadow of the towering archconservative symbol of commerce One Main Place. The classes at El Centro were packed with discharged servicemen, from the Army, Navy and Air Force, many of them fresh from combat in Viet Nam. We were all there to turn our swords into plowshares.