Moby Dick and the Statler Hilton

Every profession has its Moby Dick; a challenge that is the pinnacle of professional; something so difficult that everyone with the ambition to be great aspires to it but only the truly great achieve.

In baseball, that challenge is to reach of batting average of .400—something that hasn’t been done since Ted Williams, the Splendid Splinter, managed it by hitting .406 back in 1941. The achievement is legendary for the way Williams accomplished it. He was hitting over .400 going into a closing day double header whose results didn’t matter in the standings. His manager offered to let him sit the games out to preserve his .400 average (at that time it had been over a decade since anybody had managed the feat), but Williams refused, saying “If I can’t hit .400 all the way I don’t deserve it.” He went six for eight to raise his average to .406.

In basketball, the challenge is to score 100 points in an NBA game. It’s only been done once, by Wilt Chamberlain in a game played in Hershey, Pennslyvania on March 2, 1962. Only 4,162 people attended the game, but later many more thousands claimed to have seen the most famous individual performance in the history of basketball.

For downtown Dallas real estate developers, that challenge is to renovate the Statler Hilton, which is probably why a standing room only crowd of over 200 attended a recent lecture by Dallas architect and preservationist Marcel Quimby (her website is here: http://www.quimbymccoy.com/index.html) on the Statler Hilton a few weeks ago. The Statler Hilton is often called the “first modern hotel”. It opened in 1956 with the kind of fanfare that we don’t see anymore. One airplane was chartered to fly luminaries in from the west coast and one from the east. It took one thousand people to staff the hotel, included all sorts of innovations in architecture and hotel design, and, when Conrad Hilton himself opened it, the Statler Hilton was the Southwest’s premier hotspot.

Ms. Quimby’s talk was interesting—especially when a women who had worked at the hotel’s opening interrupted to give her personal recollections—and informative. The discussion continued until it seemed the audience would have to be ejected, not just asked to leave. Much of the fascination, I believe, comes from just how difficult it would be to restore the Statler Hilton.

The building is enormous, 600,000 sq. ft. and almost 1,000 hotel rooms. The hotel has been closed for quite a few years. The sizes of the rooms and other features aren’t up to current standards—the rooms are too small, the doors too narrow, and the ceilings too low. The Statler Hilton is owned by an investment group from the Hong Kong who don’t seem likely to sell it to anyone at a bargain price. The hotel is full of asbestos. In short, it’s too big, too expensive, will take too much work and no one has been able to figure out a way to use all that space that is economically viable.

But people keep trying—I feel the attraction myself. I think a great part of the desire to rebuild the Statler Hilton (besides the “good” reasons related to it historical significance) is no different than explanation to Sir Edmund Hillary when asked why he climbed Mt. Everest—perhaps the greatest challenge of all, “Because it is there.”

You can read more about the hotel, among other places, here: http://nostalgicglass.org/display.php?pn=18.

Have you ever wanted to be invisible?

I was invisible just last weekend. I wanted to take my canoe out for a paddle. Usually when I go paddling I go out into White Rock Lake or up White Rock Creek away from people. But last weekend it was too windy. The wind was blowing steadily from the south at about fifteen miles per hour with gusts to twenty miles per hour. A south wind on White Rock Lake means a fetch of four miles for the waves to build up. There were big rollers for White Rock Lake—maybe eighteen inches from crest to trough.

Now waves that size aren’t much by most standards, but between the waves and the wind, paddling my solo canoe was going to be a lot of work. I’ve been canoeing a long time and if I stayed alert and was careful, then I should be safe from tipping.

But I didn’t feel like working, and I never feel like getting wet. So I went down to the lake in the morning and went away to wait for better weather. Better weather didn’t come, so in the evening I went back to the lake and decided just to paddle up and down the shore for a little exercise.

There were dozens, maybe hundreds of people in the park. They were picnicking, walking, riding bikes, running, fishing and many other activities. As I cruised up and down the shore, I realized that no one, at least not adults, saw me. The earth and water were different realms and as long as I didn’t threaten to come ashore, then I was automatically ignored. Once and awhile I could feel eyes sweep over me without pausing and knew that I was still invisible.

I canoed by a large family group staging a tug-of-war, by an older teen trying teach six young children how to fish, by a couple being a little too intimate for a public park, and many others and nobody saw me, except the children.

Little kids would stop and stare wide-eyed as a paddled just a few feet away, too young yet to have learned not to see.

Patriot Solar Power, L.L.C.

Bringing the benefits of solar power to middle and lower income residents of Dallas, Texas

(This is the Executive Summary for a new project we’ve been working on for the past year, Patriot Solar Power. It was originally inspired by T. Boone Pickens and the Pickens Plan. We think we’ve finally got the details worked out well enough to see if there is interest in funding a pilot program, but the ultimate goal is to bring a greener Dallas to all our residents, regardless of income).

Project Overview:

Photovoltaic generation of power (solar power) has become an economically viable source of power generation in Dallas, Texas because of incentives at the federal level with the 30% renewable energy credit and locally with Oncor’s new incentive of $2.46 per watt of photovoltaic power for residential users (limited to five kilowatts per customer). However, the initial capital cost of installing a solar power system (estimated by Oncor at $6,000 to $10,000 per kilowatt) is prohibitive to almost all middle-income and lower-income residents in Dallas.

Central Dallas Community Development Corporation (Central Dallas CDC) wants to change this and bring the benefits of solar power to the middle and lower income residents of Dallas. We will do this acting through a limited liability company, Patriot Solar Power, L.L.C. Patriot Solar Power, L.L.C. will make solar power available to residents living in areas of the City of Dallas where the average median income is less than 80% of that for the Dallas Metropolitan Statistical Area, beginning with an initial program bringing solar power to 100 households.

The solar systems will be installed for program participants at no cost. Patriot Power will receive as lease payments a portion of the utility bills paid by participants to their electric company, based on the value of the electricity produced by the solar systems. The process will be entirely transparent to residents, who will pay their utilities bills as always. The utility bills of the residents will not increase because of the solar power systems. In addition, Patriot Power, L.L.C. will return a yearly rebate to each participant equal to 10% of the value of the energy generated from the solar panels at their home.


Project Financing – New Markets Tax Credits:

The economics of Patriot Power, L.L.C. work because the existing incentives for solar power can be wrapped within a New Markets Tax Credit structure, potentially reducing the cost by an additional 25%. New Markets Tax Credits must remain invested in the project for a seven-year period. By the end of the period, a sinking fund established to repay the New Markets Tax Credit loan that will have grown sufficiently to refinance the loan.

At the end of the seven-year period, Patriot Power, L.L.C. will double the rebate to program participants to 20% of the value of the electricity produced by the solar system. Any excess proceeds beyond those needed to maintain and operate the solar system will be expended to pay for the installation of additional solar systems or for other activities that will result in the reduction of the use of nonrenewable energy resources in North Central Texas.

Independence Day

I would rather say Independence Day than the Fourth of July, it reminds us why we celebrate today.

IN CONGRESS, JULY 4, 1776

The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America

When in the Course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security. — Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.

He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.
He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.

He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.

He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their Public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.

He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.

He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected, whereby the Legislative Powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.

He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.

He has obstructed the Administration of Justice by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary Powers.

He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.

He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harass our people and eat out their substance.

He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures.

He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil Power.
He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:
For quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:

For protecting them, by a mock Trial from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:

For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:

For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:

For depriving us in many cases, of the benefit of Trial by Jury:

For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences:

For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies

For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:

For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.

He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.

He has plundered our seas, ravaged our coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.

He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation, and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & Perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.
He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.

He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.

In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince, whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.
Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our British brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.

We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these united Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States, that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. — And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes, and our sacred Honor.

— John Hancock
New Hampshire:Josiah Bartlett, William Whipple, Matthew Thornton
Massachusetts:John Hancock, Samuel Adams, John Adams, Robert Treat Paine, Elbridge Gerry
Rhode Island:Stephen Hopkins, William Ellery
Connecticut:Roger Sherman, Samuel Huntington, William Williams, Oliver Wolcott
New York:William Floyd, Philip Livingston, Francis Lewis, Lewis Morris
New Jersey:Richard Stockton, John Witherspoon, Francis Hopkinson, John Hart, Abraham Clark
Pennsylvania:Robert Morris, Benjamin Rush, Benjamin Franklin, John Morton, George Clymer, James Smith, George Taylor, James Wilson, George Ross
Delaware:Caesar Rodney, George Read, Thomas McKean
Maryland:Samuel Chase, William Paca, Thomas Stone, Charles Carroll of Carrollton
Virginia:George Wythe, Richard Henry Lee, Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Harrison, Thomas Nelson, Jr., Francis Lightfoot Lee, Carter Braxton
North Carolina:William Hooper, Joseph Hewes, John Penn
South Carolina:Edward Rutledge, Thomas Heyward, Jr., Thomas Lynch, Jr., Arthur Middleton
Georgia:Button Gwinnett, Lyman Hall, George Walton


Do not forget, that every signer committed treason in the eyes of the King and knew they would face the hangman if the revolution was unsuccessful. The courage of these men is our inheritance today.

“Now that was a pretty good day.”

A few people may recognize the title as a quote from Groundhog Day, a movie starring Bill Murray where every morning when he wakes up it’s the same day, February 2 or Groundhog Day. The movie is worth a discussion of its own—it says a lot about the human condition—but early on in the movie Murray’s character says something that comes to mind today. Murray laments that he’s forced to repeat this same snowy February day in Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania endlessly and remember a day in the Virgin Islands that he would much rather have repeated; a day where he lies in the sun, drinks margaritas and meets a girl.

Outside of the movies we don’t get to repeat days, but if we did then a day like I had on the Fourth of July a few years ago is one that I could stand to relive a few times. Just like this year my wife and I were in Santa Fe for the weekend over the 4th (that’s the start to pretty good day in itself).

We walked out on the Plaza and into the yearly Pancake Breakfast sponsored by the Santa Fe Lions Club. The morning was bright and beautiful—the weather stayed that way all day. The entire town, locals and tourists, had turned out on the Plaza for the party.

After that we headed up the high road to Taos. We intended to see a festival dance at one of the Pueblos but it was cancelled, so we headed up towards Chimayo. We stopped at El Sanctuario de Chimayo. The church there is almost two hundred years old and, known locally as the “Lourdes of America” is a site of pilgrimage for those seeking cures and the Penitentes (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Penitentes_(New_Mexico). Originally we only wanted to look at the church building, but as we came in Mass started so we sat down to listen.

To my surprise, the homily was one of the most beautiful sermons I have ever heard. Somehow, the priest tied together the idea of Independence Day and the start of a new country with salvation and the fresh start given to us all in a way that made both more meaningful. I no longer remember the words, only the impression they left, but I left the Sanctuario uplifted.

From there we wandered down the road to Centinela Traditional Arts (http://chimayoweavers.com/), the business of Irwin Trujillo, a seventh generation weaver from Chimayo and one of the truly great fabric artists in the country—in 2007 he was a National Endowment for the Arts National Heritage Fellow. Irwin and his wife Lisa, also a weaver, spent more than an hour with us, talking about he art and traditions of weaving in the Hispanic villages of Northern New Mexico. Unfortunately the beautiful rugs woven by Irwin, like the one you see here, are beyond our means, but the following Christmas my wife bought me a rug from one of their other weavers.

Then we lunched at Rancho Chimayo, one of the best restaurants in New Mexico (http://www.ranchodechimayo.com/). Unfortunately it’s closed this year until August because of a fire. We continued up the High Road to Taos, stopping at an art gallery, looking at the historic villages and old churches, and gazing at the scenery.

Our final stop was Black Mesa Winery (http://www.blackmesawinery.com/) where the owner himself led us through a wine tasting. After that we returned to Santa Fe for dinner.

Looking back, what made the day so perfect is that we were going no particular place in no particular hurry and everyone we met seemed to feel just the same. It was Sunday and a holiday. I felt we were spending the day with dear, old friends. We just happened never to have met any of them before.

I don’t expect tomorrow to live up to the standards of that day—expectations that high would be courting disappointment. But that was a pretty good day to be an American.

Up on the rooftop!

If, like me, you were a boy growing up in the ‘50s, then one of your favorite toys was probably an erector set. Invented by A.C. Gilbert in 1911, the really cool thing about erector sets was that they used real nuts, bolts and metal parts—just like actual construction work. The top of the line Erector Set, pictured here, included a crane that you could use to haul pieces up and down. It’s hard for most of us to remember now, but in the 1950s American life still has a more muscular tone (college was the exception, not the rule), and the men who built the tall buildings were at the top of the pecking order of blue collar jobs and the men who ran the big equipment were at the very top.

My career took me about as far from the big iron as possible. I was an English major as an undergraduate and then studied Comparative Literature and Law in graduate school, but on one Saturday in June all the feelings of the power and joy of men working and building things came flooding back when we put the outside air handler on top of CityWalk@Akard.

Look at the pictures. This piece of equipment weighs 17,200 lbs, almost nine tons. That’s bone crushing weight. There is no room for mistake. An error could cost millions of dollars, serious injuries, even cause a death.

Akard Street between San Jacinto and Patterson was closed for the operation (that’s fun in itself!). The enormous piece of machinery was lifted seventeen stories high and slipped sideways into place with only about six inches clearances on each side. Everyone on the job was holding their breath, waiting to see if the crane operators were really as good as they said they were—because the task looked impossible.

The skill of the crane operators was unbelievable. It was like watching astronauts or fighter pilots at work. You could see pride in the perfection of their work and joy in the power of their equipment. Slowly, handsomely the air handler rose seventeen stories, then moved sideways, out of sight over the building. Everyone is quiet for ten, fifteen minutes, and then the crane releases its load. The equipment is in place.

Immediately, less than an hour after starting to lift the equipment, the crane operators are preparing the crane to move again. You don’t let a million dollar crane sit idle a minute more than necessary.

I was happy just to have a privileged place to watch as the Owner’s Representative and feel the joy of building things.

On Sale Today! The Food of a Younger Land

A couple of weeks ago I had the opportunity to go to a reading and book signing by Mark Kurlansky, author of Cod, Salt, 1968: The Year that Rocked the World and many other books. Because I went to the reading, I had an opportunity to buy his newest book, The Food of a Younger Land, which isn’t being officially released until today. More about the book itself in a moment, but first a few words about Mark Kurlansky, one of my favorite writers.

Kurlansky, although only a few years older than me (probably 62 or so), gives the impression of being a relict from an earlier age of newspapermen. He was a bit rumpled, curly haired and diffident in manner—until he began talking about his books when he seemed to come alive. As he tells the story, he was stationed in the Paris bureau of an American newspaper during the waning years of the Franco dictatorship in Spain. Kurlansky pitched the idea of going to Spain to do a series of articles on the resistance to Franco and his editor approved. When he got to Spain, he found out there wasn’t any resistance movement, the country was just waiting for Franco to die.

Needing to find something to write about in order to justify the cost of the trip to his editor, Kurlansky wandered up to the Basque country and fell in love with the people and green mountains (he denied the stories on the internet that his love for the Basques springs from either the fact that he was really of Basque ancestry himself or an unrequited love for a Basque women, but I like to think they’re both true). That trip led to several of his first books, including Cod and A Basque History of the World, and his gift for story telling and finding interest in the most mundane subjects led him to give up journalism for a successful career as an author.

His latest work, The Food of a Younger Land, is interesting, if not quite up to the standards of his best work. In the waning years of the depression, just before the beginning of World War II, the Federal Writers Project (part of the Works Progress Administration—one of FDR’s New Deal job programs) started a new project to be titled “America Eats”. The idea was to collect information on food and folk traditions from around the country and document them.

The project was never completed—the Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbor interrupted it. A great deal of material was collected, however, and it’s lain in couple of dusty boxes in the Library of Congress for more than sixty years until Kurlansky found it, edited it, and produced the book The Food of a Younger Land.

As you might expect from such a collection, the writing is uneven. There are pieces by well known writers such as Zora Neale Hurston and a recipe by Kenneth Roberts, whose Good Maine Food is still a valuable cookbook, and pieces by unknown authors. The country is unevenly represented—some areas completed their work and some submitted nothing. But Kurlansky is an editor with great sensitivity to his material and the selection is fascinating.

Local food traditions give rise to an amazing number of celebrations. Possum, grunions, lutefisk, oysters, crab, salmon, buffalo, chitlins, eggnog, beef, pig fries, and many other foods set the stage for a community gathering. Stories of oddities like the Oregon family that swore, after one of the family was killed and eaten by a cougar, to kill and eat every cougar they could find—generation after generation—are included as is a hilarious rant against the current state of mashed potatoes. Recipes are given. Strangely, most of the useful ones seem to be for strong drink, but some food recipes such as Depression Cake (made without eggs or butter) or Grand Central Oyster Stew (which is still made the same way at Grand Central Station in New York and which I’ve made many times) are still useful. Others, such as Squirrel Mulligan, Minnesota Booya, Kentucky Burgoo or Virginia Brunswick Stew look scary, even to me. Still, they are part of are traditions and deserve (suitably modified) to be brought back.

There is historical material not available elsewhere such as information on Indian cooking and the picnics that immigrants to Los Angeles held yearly to celebrate there home state.

Finally, Food of a Younger Land includes the amazing (?) poem, “Nebraskans Eat the Weiners” that begins:

Nebraskans eat the wieners,
And are they considered swell!
They are eaten by the millions,
That is one way you can tell.

I’m afraid you’ll have to buy The Food of a Younger Land to read the rest of this one of a kind epic. I’m considering having it set to music and sung at my funeral.