EDITION OF SUNDAY 10-27/MONDAY, OCT. 28, 2019 [PetPowellPress] The Dallas Cowboys had Sunday off, the State Fair of Texas has been closed for a week, the weather was beautiful and we decided to focus on other things.
Most people reading this already know of the ongoing mission to save animals not just from the streets, but from the city/county shelters that house so many unwanted dogs and cats.
At our house, we’ve never gotten a dog or cat from a shelter. They just show up in our path of the day. I found Texas Earl the Cheeseman, a Rottweiler, in a city park waiting for his ride to come back. [That's Wendy on the couch, Earl sleeping and Dudley gnawing his tail -- he has needs.] I walked out the front door one day and found a black and white kitten named Stevie Ray clinging to thin limb in a mimosa tree.
The range of “recovery” at our house is pretty much between those two situations: From someone’s unwanted dog encountered in a public place to dog or kitten showing up without a note or an explanation. Seriously, why would one smaller-than-your-hand-sized kitten show up in a yard that had no known feral cats?
Just another one of your urban miracles. That’s my funspouse Martha cuddling Stevie Ray, the Oak Cliff tree kitten. Left, he's growing up.
All of you veterans of animal rescue have enjoyed your own adventures in getting new dog and cat friends for somebody else. Bless your hearts, your patience and your pocketbooks. Yeah, I didn’t win Lotto Texas this weekend, either.
A QUILT FOR A CLINIC?
FIVE BUCKS A TICKET!
Quilts are works of art, don’t you think? They look great and you can sleep under ‘em, too. With a cat or dog. Or both. They know quilts are made for sleepin'. And some are made for displayin'.
We’ve mentioned this fundraising campaign before, but it’s such a great quilt, you probably would be miffed if we didn’t remind you that tickets in the December 1 raffle are only $5 each. [LARRY ASIDE: You can’t park at a Dallas Cowboys game for five bucks, but you might be able to curl up under a blanket with a canine or a cat during a football game. Three happy individuals gently sleeping like newborns in a hospital display window.]
We got the reminder of the lottery from Sydney Busch, the reliable tipster and enduring mainstay of Friends fo the Animals at Cedar Creek Lake, the non-profit that operates the world’s most successful spay/neuter clinic at Gun Barrel City.
Coincidentally, Sydney notes, “this fabulous quilt” was “lovingly handmade and donated by the Gun Barrel Quilter Guild to Friends of the Animals.”
You can get the tickets at the clinic in Gun Barrel City each Tuesday (spay/neuter day) or at the clinic’s Second Saturday special events (10 a.m. to noon.) And, you may also call 903-451-4701 to ask about buying chances to win that Gun Barrel Quilter Guild artwork.
Speaking of artwork, you can read about the Gun Barrel Quilters Guild online HERE
and that is where you’ll also see this artwork with the goal of “straight stiches.” Well, the picture had me in stitches! I think it might have been the boots — I’m a native Texan, you know.
HERE’S THE LATEST PROMO
FROM DALLAS ANIMAL SERVICES
Yep, another good deal at Dallas Animal Services.
And while looking at the DAS Facebook page, we ran across a video of this available dog and an explanation from DAS with (for you who don't read comics, a Peanuts reference): “His name is Max but we're wondering if we should change it to Linus? 🤔 Max (#A1070702) was cold yesterday and decided to let our staff know that he wasn't letting go of his blanket anytime soon. He's available for adoption at our PetSmart Everyday Adoption Center on Coit Rd." See the video HERE. And you know to go to dallasanimalservices.org to see the dogs and cats waiting for a home or a needle.
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[LARRY ASIDE: We put the animals ahead of our personal contemplation. Animals are our mission -- animal and the people who help them. What follows is a bit of a look into a heart.]
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ONCE UPON A TIME
IN A WORLD NOW GONE
THERE WERE LOYAL STAFFERS…
A PERSONAL CONTEMPLATION FOR 10-27-2019 — Ah, how I miss The Dallas Morning News -- the one that I knew.
I know I’m not alone. The date 10/27 is an anniversary. There were a bunch of us excused from further participation on 10/27/2004. Fifteen years ago. The shape of things to come in newspapers, it turned out to be. I'd only been there since 1975, writing a column for more than two decades of that time. (That’s me at age 15 at a high school journalism conference --I did not know that a newspaper would break my heart 4 decades later. The possibility wasn’t mentionedin the textbooks back then. What? Gray sweater and slacks, yellow button-down oxfordcloth shirt, matching yellow socks, loafers -- no beard until 1971. I'd have been a model, but I'd already learned most of the alphabet.)
Some of the “10/27s” have moved on to other careers. Some keep writing. Some retired. Some, as it is said, “have gone on.”
The paper looks different now — the printed one, I mean. [LARRY ASIDE: I haven’t picked one up since 10-27-2004. I abruptly but politely cut short my exit "gee-we're-really-sorry meeting with the suddenly former bosses to go downstairs and cancel my subscription. Seemed like the thing to do.]
I know The Big Paper Downtown publishes online. I read it there. I know that it has great writers — some new to the place, some “leftovers” whose career paths changed. Not sure it still has local copy editors. I’m not in the loop on office memos.
And the newspaper moved from a can’t-miss-it stately and majestic monument from the previous century [I took that photo a year ago, before it was sold.].
The paper is now in an office you have to hunt for in downtown Dallas. That’s OK, it’s not the size of the building, it’s the size of the heart in the building. Not sure if — two decades into a “new century” — newspapers have hearts, but I know their journalists do.
To the current staff, I would like to be there with you, gang, but, then again, I’d have missed a lot.
I got to spend a decade writing for the great animal advocate Bob Walton’s beloved Urban Animal Magazine. I’d have missed about 4 years in marketing for the non-profit World Affairs Council of Dallas/Fort Worth — an enduring organization that strives to make a positive difference by responsibly informing people of the state of the world/nation.
And, I’d have missed editing some entertaining books, such as House No. 5: A Memoir, the romantic adventure on a Greek island written by my ol’ DMN colleague and friend Bob St. John and illustrated by his wife, Sandy THE Artist! It’s a great book — has travel, heart, adventure and humor. It’ll take your mind off politics. It's an excellent read about heroes and good people on a wonderful island. A story of real people.
Of course, if I’d been allowed to remain at The Big Paper Downtown, I could have afforded home repair and important dental work.
But, I’d have missed writing about thousands of dogs and cats — loved or in need of love — at www.readlarrypowell.com. I’d have missed posting wisecracks about modern life, modern news reporting and modern predicaments.
This is a good point to quote the Greek philosopher Heraclitus: “The only contant in life is change.”
But I did get one constant from The Big Paper Downtown. My laughterspouse Martha — she was the boss’s secretary. She quit a decade and a half before the paper tossed us 10-27s. Why? She’d founded PetPowell Pet Sitting Service. One of her newspaper bosses (notorious for being unreasonably tough) asked why she was leaving, and she replied, ‘“I’d rather work with animals than with you.” Everyone laughed. In different ways, but they laughed.
Nowadays, most newspapers appear to be in a state of transition, moving from an ever-thinning packet of printed sheets to an every-increasing collection of “clicks” on line. For now, you can still hold the paper and read it with morning coffee. You can choose to hold actual paper in your hands, or you can choose to hold a plastic screen that connects you to the world and allows you to check out how OTHER papers and media covered a story.
And you don’t have to wait for morning to get the news (sometimes) — the computer era made almost all print news “instant” — just like radio and TV. With that competitive pressure, reporters and editors (There are still some copy editors, right?) have to be quickly accurate and undertanding of the facts so they can responsibly report a story. It’s not easy. But doing things right is good for the democracy and its residents.
[My current editor, The Senator, agrees with that position. He wandered up to our house one day, handed over his resume and got the editing position. We've never had layoffs in our newsroom. Darn, looks like my hair has gone gray since that 1991 wedding to Martha!]
There are fans of newspapers. Now and then, at readlarrypowell.com, we’ll post someone’s appeal for newspapers. Is that an appeal for the “industry”? Of course not. The appeals we publish are from rescue groups, clinics and shelters asking for donations of newspapers to help keep the kennels tidy. I think you know what i mean. Newspapers have always been a multi-purpose product — ask a parakeet or a puppy.
So, and this is directed to my fellow 10/27s, has the passage of time diluted my resentment over being tossed out of a newsroom I loved? Not hardly. Heck, I didn’t think I was done with a long career that went from copy editor, to assistant news editor, to national editor, to metro features editor, to metro columnist and TexasLiving writer. Of course, I wasn’t the one doing the thinkin’ at the company.
So, yeah, I’m still miffed. I still wish our ageism case had survived an appeals review. I’d like to have a newsroom job back just long enough to write the farewell column I was denied after decades of trying to help the paper triumph daily.
I still have one other thing I’m hoping to see: For the sake of the city, the county, the school district, the state and the nation (thus the world), I’m depending on the current crop of journalists and managers to promise that they’ll keep honest newspapering forever strong, honest and dependable.
And here’s how I know there’s no going back for me: My favorite office chair is in the dump.
That’s it, there.
This was my chair for more than two decades. People put bumper stickers on the back. I edited and wrote in that chair for so long that on 10/27/04 I got to take it home. It was like me - the company didn’t want it, either. Call it a parting gift.
I used it and repaired it and, finally, a few months ago, gave it the “final chair rites” and rolled it — 3 wheels still worked — into the big ugly pile at the City of Dallas Sanitation Transfer Station on Westmoreland next to Dallas Executive Airport. Best editing/writing chair I ever had. Comfortable and room to squirm when you needed to tell a reporter, “Take another shot at this.”
My favorite bumper sticker has to do with SMU and the NCAA Death Penalty that shut down the storied football program from 1986 through 1988. When SMU began to play football again — against horrifying odds — someone published bumper stickers reading “SMU FOOTBALL A Quality Program Since 1989.”
In 2019, the Ponies have made a comeback. It should happen to all 10/27s. There’s no statute of limitations on making a comeback.
Here are some personal facts:
— Now, a few months after the trip to the dump, I still miss that wonderful chair.
— Fifteen years after 10/27/04, I still miss the newsroom — even dream about it and the people, the great and wonderful newspeople. The brightest in town.
— Management? Don’t really have what you’d call “dreams” about those people and their lawyers. Love ‘em though. Of course, I love mangy dogs that bite me, too.
[That's my girl, Porche. She'd never lay me off to use my enormous salary to make up for management decisions. She promises.]
And if any of you in that management team are still at the paper, well, heck, you just go ahead and have a nice day. You know, on Friday, the paper’s once-soaring AHC stock closed down at $3.78 a share. At a Dallas convenience store Sunday, the price of the Sunday edition of The Once Big Paper Downtown was $3.99.
I’m not sure what that means. Paper carriers will never throw rolled up stock certificates into your shrubbery. I'm almost certain. But I don't really understand 21st century newspaper management. Sometimes I think the understanding of the mission has been lost.
Here’s the way we used to end stories in the “old days”: We’d type ‘-30-.’ But this isn’t the old days. And, at the end of this contemplation you should know that I still think an honestly edited and written newspaper is the greatest tool for preserving democracy and freedom.
I don’t have enough money to invest in a newspaper, but, heck, I’ve got cats and dogs to feed. They’re all housetrained, so we don’t take the paper.
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