Archive for December, 2024


A Friend, A Cop, and The Morgue

Filed under: Communications, friends, guitars, Music, travel, writing — Leave a comment
December 16, 2024

Ridgmar Mall

By Dan Roark

Kevin was my roommate when I was manager of Famous Ramos Hot Dogs in Ridgmar Mall in Ft. Worth in the early 80s. Kevin worked across from Famous Ramos at a jewelry store, the name of which escapes me. I think it was Sterling Jewelers, but don’t quote me. He played a little guitar, as I recall, but not much. He rode bulls at a local rodeo on weekends. We did play a few shows together in Ft. Worth over the years before disco kicked in. I played guitar while I sang and he followed along on his guitar.

When the job at Famous Ramos ended, I moved out, got married, and moved back to Dallas. But we still kept in touch. We were living on Marquita, in the M streets, off of Matilda, one street east of Greenville Ave. The marriage didn’t last too long after we moved to the house on Marquita, despite producing a beautiful daughter previously.

I don’t know if I had a housemate when the phone rang, but it’s highly likely. It was a duplex that my parents and I owned. We rented out the other side. I often had friends hanging out. Kevin had arranged to come over to Dallas for the evening. But he was running late. This was back in the days when CB radios were common. Whoever was with me at the time and I had been drinking beer and smoking whatever. The phone rang – we still had landlines at the time.

Being a smartass, I answered, “City morgue, you stab ’em, we slab ’em!”

“This is Officer Harman of the North Richland Hills police.”

In my head I begin to panic.

“Yes sir,” I replied – not having any idea why he was calling.

“Kevin Hunter is running late and wanted me to let you know that he is still on the way.”

“I appreciate it,” I said. “Thanks for calling.” My voice was a little shaky.

“Have a good evening.”

I hung up and starting breathing again.

While I was glad to know that Kevin was still on his way, I was a little perturbed about him having the policeman call me. He knew me and I would have thought he would know not to have a cop call me. Yet it wasn’t like he had him actually stop by.

But it worked. And it turned out to be a pleasant evening.

Keep writing the songs that are in your heart.

Peace be with you.

paypal.me/danroark

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Suspicious Activity

Filed under: Communications, craft brewery, Current events, travel, writing — Leave a comment
December 9, 2024

By Dan Roark

There are numerous things that happen that can seem suspicious. Not that they are implied to be inherently bad, but at least enough to be, well, suspicious. And suspicious in different ways. There’s odd suspicious, “what the hell are they doing” suspicious, and holy crap! suspicious. I’m sure there are more, but we’re concerned at the moment with these three.

Odd Suspicious

Odd suspicious is simply things for which there doesn’t seem to be an answer or solution. I was driving north on I-35 from Farmers Branch to across Lake Lewisville. Traffic was moving, but slower than the speed limit. Naturally, people were being stupid in every lane, braking at the slightest thing that surprised them since they weren’t paying much attention anyway. Changing lanes made no difference because the morons were doing that first – ad nauseum – which was causing the problem in the first place. There was no lane to change to that wasn’t occupied by someone not going the speed limit for one reason or another.

Then I come around a curve and suddenly there’s no one in front of me for like a quarter of a mile. Where did they freaking go? They didn’t exit. They didn’t speed up. So where did they go? Did they get sucked into the ethos so fast I didn’t notice?

“What the Hell are They Doing” Suspicious.

I turned onto Trend off of Beltline. Trend is a short street with a turn that becomes Arapaho after the light at Marsh. Most of Trend is trucking companies with docks everywhere and trailers in front of a lot of them with small businesses on the west side. When I turned onto Trend I saw two cars following each other slowly into a parking lot with trailers at loading docks. And they didn’t seem like they were supposed to be there. But they were definitely following each other and about to get out and meet outside the cars.

At least they didn’t pull in between the trailers at the loading docks. That would have been creepy. I thought about taking pictures for this post, but that would have been even more suspicious – someone following another person into a dark parking lot – or someone trying to take a picture of them doing that. They weren’t just meeting for beers. There’s plenty of places in the vicinity to do that. One of those places is Bitter Sisters Brewery, where I was headed.

They weren’t there for that. But who knows what they were there for. Probably not anything legal.

“Holy Crap” Suspicious

There are several places where construction is in process in the area (Dallas and Denton Counties) that have a sign preceding them that says “New Traffic Pattern.” I have no doubt the situation is repeated in other counties. And when I say construction is in process, I mean that there are fifty to one hundred pylons or traffic cones (the terms are interchangeable, but in my mind traffic cones are the ones that actually look like cones, and pylons are the other ones) but, in a number of cases, there are no machines  or personnel present. And the patterns rarely change, if at all until progress had been made enough to move the sign – which seems to take forever.

Over three days of taking J.D. to work every day, we both tried to a get a picture of the sign saying “New Traffic Pattern.” It alternated with “Slow Down.” It is at a traffic light so we had to get there at the right time to get the picture. And each time we had a chance to take a picture, the result was similar to what you see in the picture here. We used a camera, an android phone, and an iPhone. But that was not what we saw with our eyes – or through the cameras for that matter.

So it wasn’t a matter of being there and then being gone. And it wasn’t exactly an optical illusion – except maybe for the camera. I’ve been taking pictures for years. I’m not an amateur, but I’m not a professional. And I’ve never had this happen before.

Is the sign haunted? Not likely. Why would extra-terrestrials, if they had superior intellect (which has not been confirmed), screw with our traffic signs? Even if they didn’t have superior intellect, why would they screw with our traffic signs? Our traffic is so screwed up now they would only be able to wonder what the hell we were thinking.

Which is why it’s holy crap! suspicious. Some forces from somewhere were at play. But from where no one knows…

 

Keep writing the songs that are in your heart.

Peace be with you.

Paypal.me/danroark 

 

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