Change / No Change
It’s been a long time since I’ve moved. As a matter of fact, MOST of my friends have been at our addresses a long time, even that one friend - you know, the one who was on the "lease is up let's move it out" plan.
If you live somewhere a long time, one can occasionally find your mind wandering into a twilight zone. I has this happen last night, literally in the twilight.
I had to scoot across to Arlington to get my new glasses before the place closed up. Leaving 5 minutes later than I wanted to when you’re rushing to beat a deadline is nerve wracking and frustrating. So I’m shooting across town knowing that the freeway at 820 and 20 is under construction and basically a “No Fly Zone.” This has me cutting across the southwest Green Oaks area of Arlington. Many decades ago we lived in this area and my uncle Bill also lived in this area - before everything was 4 or 6 lanes, before Green Oaks existed [though construction has begun] and for a couple of years I delivered for Dominos in this area so I am pretty familiar with this end of town.
I’m sitting at the light at Pioneer Parkway and Park Springs Blvd. impatiently waiting for the light to change and there I am in that flashback. It probably doesn’t hurt that I’m jamming to something from the 80s on one of my own mix CDs but I find myself in the “used to be” mode.
The 7-11 has been there forever. The gas station on the northeast corner as well. The insurance agency is in the old Pizza Hut building. That’s where we’d pick up in the late 70s / early 80s. I have a memory or implied memory that that jukebox is where I first heard Queen’s Crazy Little Thing Called Love. Maybe it was the first time I PLAYED it on the jukebox? The old 2 for a quarter jukebox!
Behind that is Decorator’s Warehouse but back then in was Edison’s which morphed into Service Merchandise. That was the store I chose the Rolling Stones’ Some Girls and the Blues Brothers’ Briefcase Full Of Blues over Kiss’ Hotter Than Hell.
A little down Park Springs was the complex where Henry and Ed had units just across from each other, the scene of one hilarious night of intoxication with [not named to protect the guilty but if you think you know you’re probably right] trying to sneak into Ed’s ground level window and ending up trapped behind his couch. Also, another complex where one of the fellow Dominos drivers lived and at where much youthful debauchery ensued. A little down the way on the north side one of my fellow Sound Warehouse workers lived in a duplex.
The aforementioned friend was in town this week for their annual Christmas trip and we met down at Gina’s Pizza in Burleson. [AND we ran into two old classmates with their son and one of his friends.] Gina’s used to have a very faded paper map circa 1983 of Burleson with some of the businesses that were around then. They had it painted on the wall after the remodeling / updating done a couple of years back. That list is a time warp for those who have been going to Gina’s all these years but probably more so to people who were in high school or junior high around this time. Looking at places that are no longer standing like the Dairy Twin, Safeway and the Wilshire Theater. The places that are now something else: Buddies / Winn Dixie, Eckerd Drugs, the Hallmark store, another Pizza Hut, the Taco Bell, the bowling alley, the Bonanza… and yet McDonald’s is still at the same place [with addition]. Gina’s is still here [sorta]. The Dairy Queen.
I mean we are talking about 40 years. There are going to be changes. Some things are noticed and some not so much, depending on what you know about what was once there and what you’re looking for. Arlington and Burleson have grown a lot and changed a lot in that time.
And then some things change very little. I’m still driving around listening to the same 60s, 70s, 80s and 90s music I have always preferred even though it’s on CD instead of the radio or cassette. I have my grey now and I’m double my size but I’m still me, the same way those Arlington and Burleson have changed and not changed.
Happy New Year!
