3:00 pm CDT
New Sites on the Elfis Network

9/11 Activism

Coming Soon: 9/11 Podcast

2:53 pm CDT
More on the "Suicide" Bombers

What Really Happened: The 7/7 London Bombings: How to Set Up a Patsy

Daily Mirror: Was It Suicide?

Infowars re BBC article: Frame-Up: Do These People Fit the Bill of Suicide Bombers?

6:56 pm CDT
The Forgotten World



When I look at this photo, I become lost in it; I find myself inside the photo, riding in the backseat of the blue white-topped Ford once again, traveling east down the West Freeway, gazing at the building on the right (the one with the flags on top--the Channel 11 building), turning my four-year-old head as we pass, hoping for a glimpse of the Three Stooges, Icky Twerp, the Little Rascals, Cap'n Swabee, Popeye, Bugs Bunny, Mickey and Amanda, and my other tv friends. Yes, looking at this photo brings it all back, the magical fascination with the Channel 11 building and the way it felt to be alive in 50s Fort Worth ...

The car keeps moving eastward, past the Hulen Street exit, beyond the photo's range, but I can see it all, because I am there, once again: passing Mrs. Baird's Bakery on the right and breathing the fragrance of a factory full of fresh bread, then passing the post office and train station on the right, and on the left, downtown: the Continental National Bank under construction, orange girders like Tinker Toy sticks in the sunlight, and other downtown buildings of note: the Greyhound bus station, Hotel Texas (where several years later JFK will sleep his last night on Earth and give his last speech before going to Dallas), and the movie theatres on Seventh Street--the Palace, the Worth, the Hollywood. And moving west on Seventh in the blue white-topped Ford, then joining Camp Bowie Boulevard, we pass Will Rogers Coliseum where the Shrine Circus comes to town every year (and where, 15 years later, I will see the Jefferson Airplane play), and Forest Park Zoo and Ashburn's Ice Cream-yes, it all comes back, and I am struck by how much I forgot ...

I forgot how little traffic there was in those days, how much easier it was to move around in the city. And forgot, too, how few buildings there were, how sparse the cityscape was; today's jumble of buildings and signs and parking lots and power lines did not yet exist, therefore everything was spread out, with wide-open stretches of ground between. Yes, it all comes back: the forgotten freedom of limitless movement through the open sunlit spaces of 50s Fort Worth ...



And I'm struck by something else: I've been riding through this forgotten world for several minutes now, and have yet to see one McDonalds or fast-food franchise of any kind; all the eateries are locally owned, like the Longhorn Drive-In where waitresses come out to your car and clamp big metal trays onto the driver's window, or (if you prefer) you can go inside where the pinball machines are ringing and the juke box is rocking and the air is laden with the smell of French fries and burgers on the grill and the sugary goodness of soda fountain cherry Cokes. Yes, it all comes back ...

And I'm also struck by the number of mom-and-pop grocery stores-neighborhood establishments with ceiling fans, and sawdust on the butcher's floor, and bulging bins of fresh fruit and vegetables, and aisles of forgotten candies like Black Cow Suckers and candy cigarettes, and the horizontal refrigerators up front packed with bottles of forgotten soda pops like Mission Orange and so many others, and racks of forgotten magazines and paperbacks with lurid covers, and comic books all new and crisp, the ink and newsprint still fresh. Yes, it all comes back, so much that was forgotten ...

And, when night falls on this forgotten world, the neon signs come alive; images dull and motionless in daylight, now blaze with brilliant color and begin to move, creating cartoon shows on every corner and every curve of the road ... a neon star flashing bigger then smaller, then bigger again, in front of the Star Motel ... a neon cocktail dancing atop the Hi-Life Lounge ... an orange neon arrow streaking beneath the red neon Indian head at the Pontiac dealership ... a neon steak sizzling in the sky above the Cattlemans Steakhouse ... a neon bowling ball hitting neon pins over and over at the Cowtown Bowl ... and on the screen tower of the Pike Drive-In Theatre the greatest animated neon spectacle of all: giant neon cowboys on a neon prairie at neon sundown, one cowboy moving a neon skillet back and forth over a neon campfire, another strumming a neon guitar, and another on a neon horse twirling his neon lariat (all within sight of the future grave of Lee Harvey Oswald) ...



I stare up at the neon tableau from the backseat of the blue white-topped Ford as we approach the neon-trimmed ticket booth, and am lost in its magical reality, just as I will soon become lost in the reality of the animated images on the other side of the screen tower: Woody Woodpecker in fiery color, fifty feet high, his laughter resounding from a hundred speakers in the popcorn- and hot dog-scented summer night, echoing upwards into a sky strangely bright with a blazing field of stars-strangely, I say, because I forgot the clearness of the Fort Worth sky in this forgotten world. And now it all comes back ...

And, before the first feature is over, I fall asleep in the backseat of the blue white-topped Ford, and am dimly aware of the car moving homeward through empty streets at midnight, and coming to a stop on Newark Street, and my father carrying me into the house and tucking me into bed where I fall back to sleep with a bliss forgotten, surrounded by forgotten toys and storybooks, surrounded too by forgotten friends sleeping in their own houses on the same street, and I fully expect to wake here in the morning. For I have forgotten there was ever any world but this one: a world with stars in the nighttime sky, a world of neon cowboys, a world of Mission Orange and candy cigarettes, a world of burger joints and wide open spaces, a world of magic and wonder, all of it seen from the backseat of a blue white-topped Ford ...

Then I set down the photo and it all comes back: the jumble of buildings and signage, the congested freeways, the road rage, convenience stores selling overpriced gas and fructose-filled candy and colas, and drive-through windows dispensing sacks of plastic burgers and fries, and supermarket magazine racks full of nothing to read, and reality tv, and gangsta rap, and brain-dead summer blockblusters--yes, it all comes back, the world unknown to the boy asleep in the forgotten world ...