Cotton built Dallas. Oil shaped it into a major city. Lee Harvey Oswald made it infamous and then JR Ewing
showered it with stardom.
Rich
Burlingham
“Where the heck
is Ben Wheeler, Texas?” I thought
when I learned on Facebook that an old secretary/friend from my agency days was
moving to this East Texas town just west of Tyler and only about an hour from
Winnsboro. Before we left on our
trip I told her we needed to get together when the kids and I made it out to
Texas and though she offered to drive up to Winnsboro, I figured that the best
time would be on our return trip from Mississippi because it would only be a
few miles out of the way.
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Durenda Chalmers |
I’ve known Durenda
and her husband Tim since the 80’s.
They, along with their kids, were willing participants in a number of
industrial films I made for various clients. We shot at their house and Tim, a marketing guy who worked
at JC Penney, played a construction truck driver for a Nissan Diesel Truck
video. They also appeared in a send-up commercial for a fake product called
KTed Hair Producing Formula, that was parodying Ted Koppel, late of ABC News’
Nightline for an Armour Foods sales meeting, of all things. In the commercial we say the product is
good for the whole family and we show the Chalmer family all wearing wigs akin
to Ted Koppel, even the dog (my ex’s dog Bubba, a Miniature Pinscher). Durenda
was our department’s assistant for a while as she made the rounds of the
agency. She is now a schoolteacher
in Irving but is looking for a district closer to their new digs.
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KTed Spoof Commercial Still - The Chalmers circ. 1990 |
Come to find
out they don’t really live in Ben Wheeler but a suburb called Red Rock which
really means they’re out in the country, pretty much like my sister. In fact, their house and property
mimics closely to my sister’s spread.
House on hill, orange rocks everywhere, pond, deer in yard, out
buildings/barn, etc, and I even told her all she was missing was a stray dog
that would wonder to their house and end up staying. A few weeks after our visit – guess what? Callie came a visiting and decided to
stay with them. Since then they
added a pup and named it after Cooper the dog from Winnsboro, not Cooper the
nephew from Allen…or so I think.
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Chalmers East Texas spread |
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Chalmers' Red Rock Estate |
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Callie and Cooper |
Their house
was cozy and nicely decorated with Tim’s uncle’s colorful art. Tim was nice enough to occupy the kids
while Durenda and I reminisced about the good ole agency days. He showed them around their property, including the friendly horses from next door. Ironically, another ex-agency person we
knew had organized a reunion at a local Irving pub, but I was already back here
in California and could not attend.
It would have been nice to see everyone after 15 years. The agency was like family back then
and I don’t think I will ever experience a work situation like that again in my
lifetime – and I’m not the only one to think that as we use Facebook to keep up
with each other. After a few hours
of visiting we got back on the road in order to get back to Winnsboro for
dinner. It seems we’re always
trying to make dinner in Winnsboro. Hmmmm. The visit was a nice cap to the Mississippi excursion.
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Tim and the kids feed horses |
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Avery makes a new friend
|
We basically
had 13 days left in Winnsboro before beginning the trek back to Moorpark and so
we had to get in everything we hadn’t gotten to earlier. These included haircuts, oil change for
the Honda, packing and shipping a box of my old stuff from when I was a kid
that wouldn’t fit in the car and going through boxes of Molly’s old clothes to
see if there was anything that Olivia could use. I also had a fatty cyst cut out of my back by brother-in-law, Van. Who else would you want to cut into you.
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The Honda gets a change thanks to Van |
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A hole in my back or is that Senor Wences' mouth? |
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Grandma & the Kids |
It was no big deal and I think my sister hovering over me was more annoying than having my back cut into but I guess she was just looking out for me - in case Van got distracted and cut something crucial out of me. I guess a lot of this could have been done before we embarked for Mississippi
but you know how it goes – most of it was done the last few days we were
there.
Thirteen days
was a long time when kids don’t have anything else to do so I had to come up
with activities to keep them from getting bored or from watching marathons of Star Wars movies or a box set of How I Met Your Mother, which Olivia
enjoyed doing with my sister in her upstairs suite. My mom did her part, including helping Avery bone up on his letters before he'd start kindergarten only a few weeks later. She also aided Olivia in determining what old clothes to keep and what was more Johanna's style.
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Grandma the tutor |
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Do they make my hips look big, Grandma? |
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More mom's style |
The first
post Mississippi adventure was a trip to Sulphur Springs, the next biggest town to the north of
Winnsboro, along interstate 30 and home to the Southwestern Dairy Museum. As I have spoken, this part of Texas
was dairy country, one of the largest in the nation, and like all industries,
they needed a commemorative museum to celebrate all things dairy. From the giant cows and silo in front
to the historical displays depicting the early days of milking cows inside, the
museum was quite interesting and educational. They even had an old fashioned soda fountain where the kids
got some fresh ice cream. The
woman tending bar was nice to the kids and gave them a bunch of bread to
go feed the ducks and fish in the pond outside the museum.
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Avery has an utterly good time |
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Bellied up for a cool one |
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A little too much exercise will get you this |
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The ducks know who has the goods |
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Look Avery, plaster milk! |
In terms of
the gift shop I got out of there relatively unscathed – the kids only souvenirs
were commemorative plastic ice cream scoops. After feeding the ducks in the Texas heat we drove by the
town square where my sister said was a one-of-a-kind bathroom - only one in the
nation, she remarked. Right in the
middle of this quaint Texas courthouse square – very typical of small town
America – was an ultra modern all-glass public bathroom built by Commercial Glass & Mirror Company. Basically, it was a mirrored box that looked like something out
of a Dr. Who episode. What made
this water closet unique was that those inside could see out but outsiders
couldn’t see in. Of course, we
tested it in only a way Avery could test – he mooned the world from inside. We discovered that it was true – nobody
saw his bare butt or at least we hope.
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A tribute to Poppa |
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All glass mirror bathroom in Sulphur Springs, TX |
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"You can't see me...ha!" |
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"King me" |
It’s so hot in
Texas in August that farmers feed their chickens ice so they won’t lay boiled
eggs. That reminds me of a joke
about Texas heat. A Texan dies and
goes to hell where the devil keeps it at 120 degrees and 90% humidity. The devil notices the Texan is happy
and carefree. He asks him why is he
so content and the Texan replies, “Why shouldn’t I be…this is like Houston in
August.” The devil is furious so
he turns the temperature down to freezing and he goes over to the Texan who is
still grinning. “Why are you still
smiling,” asks the devil. “Well,
it’s because the Rangers have finally won the World Series.”
You don’t do
too much outside when it’s blazing hot – even going in the pool, which the kids
did a few more times, required sitting and sweating out on the patio. This quickly turned into watching them
through the windows while staying inside.
Even in the house I would sweat sometimes. But even with the heat I had the crazy idea of taking the
kids to the zoo. I remembered we
took Olivia to The Caldwell Zoo in Tyler when she was small and she enjoyed it so we packed up
the Honda and we zoomed to Tyler zoo.
I also planned to take them to the Tyler Discovery Science Museum, which
was recommended by my mother – at least that was inside.
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Tyler's Caldwell Zoo |
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The kids with kids. |
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Avery gets a tickle petting a goat |
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"Hey, Charlie, did you hear the one about a pelican and a goose enter a bar..." |
Tyler is about
an hour’s drive from the house and the quickest route is the back way on Farm
to Market roads all the way into Tyler.
It’s a nice zoo but it sure was hot, even in the morning and because of
the heat most of the animals were hiding in their bunkers trying to stay
cool. The kids had a good enough
time, especially at the gift shop, which is strategically placed at the
entrance or should I say exit...and unavoidable.
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You come hear often? I love your neckline. |
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"Tickle, tickle." |
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I don't think I can fit in your shoes. |
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"Hear kitty, kitty, kitty." |
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A rare Moorpark monkey spotted in Texas |
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Two bears and a boy enter a hot zoo... |
After a visit
to a local pizza place with a pretty good buffet we headed to downtown Tyler
and the Discovery Science Museum.
The kids went crazy and had a terrific time. One section had a variety of animatronic
dinosaurs, including one that Avery could actually ride. Another contained all kinds of playacting scenarios – from a
hospital to a vet clinic to a bank to a courtroom to a firehouse and every
other occupation you could think of.
Avery and Olivia could have stayed there all day. There were all kinds of other
interactive displays, such as a tornado wind booth, pirate ship, mine tunnel
where you can experience what an earthquake feels like, robots, and my favorite
– a TV News Station where the kids can play news anchor, camera operator and
director.
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Olivia gets all lawyered up |
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Dinos at the Discovery |
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Like Aunt like niece |
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"Yeeehaww! |
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"Yes, we have plenty of fake money, ma'am." |
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"Your big red heart sounds great Clifford." |
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Wallstreeter in training. |
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You can never find parking when there's a fire. |
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Aye, matee, I spot SpongeBob, too. |
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On the set of Good Morning Winnsboro |
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Olivia wants all the limelight |
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So that's what a tornado feels like. |
Next door they added
even more interactive science displays where the kids can learn about all kinds
of things, from inertia to static electricity.
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Learning the bones...Granddaddy would be proud. |
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Olivia B the Science Geek |
We would have shut the place down but when we arrived they
offered a joint ticket for a show at the planetarium at Tyler Junior College,
about a ten-minute drive from where we were. It was the last show of the day and we were the only one’s in
the audience. I thought it would
be more of a typical planetarium show but it was a very interesting film about
aquatic dinosaurs called Sea Rex, about
Julie, an imaginative young woman, as she travels from a modern-day aquarium to
the Triassic, Jurassic and Cretaceous periods. It was Avery’s first planetarium visit but I hope to take
him to the Griffith Park Planetarium to see a real show. I do remember leaving the cool Center
for Earth & Space Science Education and entering the 5:00 pm heat
doldrums. I think we kind of moved
in slow motion to the car because the weight of the heat was just too much. Ahhhhh! Air conditioning.
|
Tyler Junior College |
A funny side story…while at the Discovery Museum I was
standing around when I heard a woman ask if I was Rich Burlingham. I was a little taken aback as I had
never seen this older lady before in my life and I only knew a few people in
Tyler. Come to find out, she and
her husband used to live in Winnsboro and their kids were patients of my sister
who now have kids of their own, one of which was also named Avery. This was rivaling the Kim-Kim story. She saw my Avery wearing a Winnsboro
T-shirt and asked him his name.
She was a talker and spent the next 20 minutes learning all about them
and their kids and their grandkids and where they are all living and their
vacations and what they had for breakfast…well, maybe not that but I’m sure if
I didn’t excuse myself I would have found out that and much more. It’s a small, small world, after all.
|
The Two Averys |
It was our last Saturday in Texas and so I called up my
friends Bob and Steve to see if they’d go with us to downtown Dallas to take a
photo of the kids and I where JFK was shot holding our hometown paper, The
Moorpark Acorn. As you may recall,
I had forgotten to pick one up before we left and Johanna had to mail one to
Winnsboro so we couldn’t get photos of us along the first leg of our trip I thought that nobody else would
have a photo at Dealey Plaza. To
make Avery happy I thought we could park the car at the DART light rail station
near Bob's house and take the train downtown. Avery
wanted to go on a subway but the only place in Dallas where the trains went
underground for a short while was going into downtown. We did just that and Avery enjoyed the
ride. We got off at Union Station,
where the Amtrak trains come into and which was only a short walk from Dealey
Plaza. Bob and Steve said they’d
meet us there.
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Lovers Lane DART Station, Dallas, TX |
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Waiting for the train |
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DART tunnel entrance on the Red Line |
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Who's that guy in the blue shirt? |
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Natural train riders |
We strolled over and just as we got to the corner of Houston
& Commerce I heard my name called out. It took a while but I finally saw Bob’s head sticking out
Steve’s car as they were looking for parking. We hooked up soon after and proceeded with picture taking,
making sure we got the Schoolbook Depository Building in the background. In all my years in Dallas I didn’t ever
go visit the site of the JFK assassination. I drove past it but never visited on foot. I do recall one rainy day when coming
up Commerce and stopped at a red light at Houston St. when a Jamaican women
pounded on my car looking for a ride.
For some reason I said okay and let her get into the car. She was very grateful she didn’t have
to walk miles in the pouring rain and I was glad to help out.
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On the spot where JFK was shot. |
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Steve, Bob and the kids |
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Why didn't this shot win the Acorn contest? |
Bob and Steve drove us pack to our car and we then
caravaned over to eat lunch at Snuffer’s in Prestonwood. The original Snuffers over on
Greenville Avenue next to the Granada Theater had been torn down and was
getting rebuilt. Snuffer’s had been
a college hangout and a location in several student films, as was the theater
next door. They have great fried
mushrooms and burgers. After lunch
I wanted to get a photo of the kids and I at our alma mater, SMU and so we
drove to campus. It was Saturday
in early August so it was fairly quiet and we were able to park near Owens Fine Arts Building where the three of us had spent most of our time making films
and TV shows and editing all night long in the basement. We walked around the arts center, which
has been expanded and renovated over the years. They added the Greer Garson Theater. The film and television department
moved out to another building and so the old television studio, which was
originally supposed to be a dance studio when they built the building back in
the 1960’s reverted back to just that – a dance studio. We went inside to see the old
hangout. It was both joyful and
sad.
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Three amigos at what was the old SMU TV studio. |
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Showing off the alma mater |
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The old equipment room - what do you mean the CP is checked out! |
After getting some photos in front of the SMU main sign,
with Dallas Hall in the background, Bob had to get home to take his daughter
kayaking and we had to go meet Kevin, Kim and the cousins in Allen so the
reunion had to end. We headed
north to have dinner with the Brooks clan so the kids could see their cousins
one more time.
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Future SMUers? |
We headed
back to Winnsboro late after a long day.
We all got to do something we liked and the kids got to see where Dad
spent four crazy years way back when.
I’d say I’d like my kids to go to my alma mater but it’s way too
expensive now.
We spent Sunday getting packed and buying supplies. We would leave early Monday so we could
get to NASA’s Space Center Houston with enough time to see everything. Here we go – the last leg begins.
(Next on A
Road Trip Adventure Across America: A tour of East Texas, NASA and Galveston
Island)
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