Tag Archives: metroplex

Dallas

Dallas: (n) a city in NE Texas.

If you want to lose your prejudice, travel.

I dare say it is impossible to refrain from some sort of stereotyping of other individuals and races as long as you remain in one locale, or only scuttle about a hundred miles or so.

Although you may try to be open-minded, black people seem ridiculous when you’re only around white people. And white people all look like slave owners when you are living in an urban area, surrounded by your identical color.

Travel is an amazing thing.  You immediately see two lies played out:

  1. People are different
  2. A region can reflect an attitude

In both cases, it’s just not so.

Although the South touts hospitality, it is only dribbled out based upon whether the Southern lass or gent deem you to fall into the realm of normalcy.

And people being people—possessing biological, mental, spiritual and emotional propensities—generally speaking ooze out favored sentiments.

The first time I went to Dallas, Texas, I was expecting cowboys, Southern jargon, big, thick steaks and beautiful women adorned with pumped-up hair and large smiles.

Don’t get me wrong—these are available.

The Chamber of Commerce, the churches and the politicians make sure they have representatives of this style of Dallas on call for the tourists.

But when you step a little deeper into the community, you find human beings. Most of these souls don’t have enough security, finance or agenda to be hateful or loving.

They’re just doing the best they can.

So these folks are not different at all and feel no compulsion to reflect the attitude of Dallas or any other metroplex they might need to represent.

Bigotry is kept alive by business, religion, politics and entertainment wishing to keep us separate.

We have certainly learned this year that when the same problems are thrown at people who are supposed to be different, those who survive stumble upon mutual solutions.

Before

Before: (prep) during the period of time preceding a particular event, date, or time.Dictionary B

It was a sentimental period in my life, which because of hindsight, I can now refer to as “silly.” I don’t know why it came upon me.

Maybe it was nostalgia.

Maybe it was listening to too much classic rock and roll music.

But for a few weeks, I had a yearning to return to my little hometown and walk the streets, to see if I still fit in.

It became an obsession.

Maybe it was because I was so dissatisfied with my “after” that I wanted to regain my “before.” I’m not sure.

But nothing fit.

When I returned to the place of my birth, I found that the location had evolved and become something quite different–without my permission.

Nobody knew who I was. Old places that once held deep significance to me were now abandoned or turned into a Dairy Queen.

I was lost.

All I wanted was to go back to where I was before, while simultaneously bringing the financial security and prowess of what I had become.

  • Before no longer existed.
  • The present was not friendly.
  • So the future held no hope.

My hometown was no longer my home, nor was it just a little town. It was a burgeoning bedroom community of a metroplex twenty miles to the south, which was gradually swallowing it whole.

I felt empty.

But I realized that emptiness was necessary… in order to rid my soul of all the childish ideas which needed to scamper away to make room for the man.

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