Tag Archives: Dallas

adventure, Attractions

In Dallas, Cowboys Out, Perot In!

We fervent Washington fans (and one rogue Vikings fan, a birth anomaly) actually looked into doing a tour of Texas Stadium in Dallas.  Officially known as AT&T Stadium, it is, apparently, the largest domed structure in the world.  What else would you expect in Texas? And ever since I read Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk, I’ve had a morbid curiosity about seeing the inside of the Cowboys locker room.  That was my rationale. 

What tipped the scales was the price tag for the tours–$17.50 for adults, $14.50 for kids. For the self-guided tour.  Granted, it would have included access to the locker room.  The Cowboys organization made it easy to Just Say No.

Okay, the week was also blacked-out for tours of any kind.

Instead, we took advantage of the singular accomplishment of another towering Texan–the five-foot, five-inch Ross Perot.  Many of us know him as an unsuccessful, but compelling independent candidate for president in 1992 and 1996.

He is also the major benefactor of the Perot Museum of Nature and Science in downtown Dallas.  Just opened at the end of 2012, this may be the single coolest museum we’ve ever seen.  Hiphoto 4(2)ghly interactive and geared to kids of all ages, the museum’s biggest challenge for us was to keep the kids moving through the four floors.  Each stop captured their attention and imagination, and wouldn’t let go!

We only had four hours to spend, and we could have easily stayed threphoto(19)e times as long.  The staff was helpful, and manned special-activity tables to entertain and educate.  What a gift–to educate while mesmerizing. Now I know why magicians loves schools! We dug for dinosaurs and raced cheetas and professional athletes in a footrace and built our own biphoto 5(3)rds!

We joined the Perot Museum to gain access to partner museums across the country. It also got us into their special Dinosaurs exhibit in advance of non-members!

In the museum’s Sportscenter, I stumbled across this–signed by Roger Staubach of the Dallas Cowboys, the man every ‘Skins fan loved to hate back in the day.  And we didn’t even have to tour Texas Stadium to see it!

 

Attractions, featured

The Sixth Floor

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I paid a pilgrimage yesterday, to the sixth floor of the Texas School Book Depository.  And to Dealey Plaza visible out its windows.

Everything’s been said about November 22, 1963.  And still so many questions linger.  I looked for something new, for me, and found it. In listening to the inventory of items found at the window, I heard, for the first time, something I’ve probably heard a hundred times before: “…a partially consumed lunch.” Let’s see…maybe eat half my liverwurst and cheese, set up the boxes in the window…” If I live to be a hundred, so many elements of that day won’t compute.

Suffice to say if and when I ever make it to heaven, one of my first five questions will be, “…about Dallas, 1963….” and judging by the respectful crowd on a Tuesday morning in March 2014, I won’t be the only one.

As I walked the solemn exhibits, I wondered if the seniors around me in the museum were split as I was, so viscerally between the present and the past.  I have never been so emotionally impacted by a place before, and at my age, I have seen a lot of places.

I know how arrogant this next part will sound, but it’s the truth.  I had to come to the museum to make sure they got it right.  It is one thing to study history–the noble and the shameful elements that make up our today.

But Dallas is my history.  Just like millions of others my age and older, it happened to me.  I know that because images of those four days are poised in the wings of my mind, clear and young and indelible.  I lived it and live it.  And so I wanted to be sure they got it right.  For myself, and for my kids, about which 1963 is to them what World War I was for me: a chapter in a book.

Amazingly, they did get it right.

No display calls attention to the fact that Jack Kennedy was no saint. The exhibit is a shameless tribute to the man.  But it avoids the temptation to sidestep the host of  questions that linger about the many factions that both revered and reviled Kennedy, and how one young, career loser leans forward at the end of a chain of dark coincidences to set aside his sandwich and obliterate Camelot.

 

A man may die, nations may rise and fall, but an idea lives on.

John F. Kennedy

February 8, 1963