Yesterday, I went to White Rock Lake with Chris. We visited all the old stomping grounds. Enormous John Junkill's former residence was one of them. Other than a few minor changes, it is still basically the same as ever. The yard and the little culdesac where the house is located still offer the same remarkable view of both the lake, itself, and downtown Dallas. Back in the 80's (during the Cold War hype and hysteria), Enormous John used to say, if anything ever really did happen, he would lay back, relax, and spend his last few minutes on Earth watching the bombs go off over Big D.
Chris and I also paid a visit to the Bath House Cultural Center. For years, after it's heyday in the 1940's and 50's, it fell into disuse and disrepair (as did the entire lake and park). We remembered it as an empty building, frequented by troublemakers (like us) and overrun with their beer cans, cigarette butts, and graffiti. These days, it's been reborn and refurbished and is, once again, used for plays, musicals, and social events. We went inside, briefly, and looked about. Not exactly posh, but nice enough.
We travelled all the old roads and mysterious pathways that crisscross and encircle each other all around the lake. There was an observation point with (free) telescopes for viewing activity out on the water or on the far shores. We saw a boating dock where the White Rock rowing club was launching a few kayaks. There were also cranes, geese, and ducks all over the place. We even saw a plaque commemorating an official WRL Day, back in 1995, and claiming eternal rights to the lore and legend of the Lady of the Lake. (I'm pretty sure, though, that the specter of a drowned socialite is a common myth at urban oases everywhere.) Looking at the plaque, I thought of the popularity-courting Mayor Quimby from the Simpsons, and how, with his Kennedy-like drawl, he constantly dedicates days to people, places, and events.
Some of the houses around WRL are palacial, with huge lawns that cascade down to the lakeside road. Others are smaller and simply unique and interesting, and were probably built around the 1930's or '40's. These got me thinking that, if I ever won the lottery (or wrote a bestselling book), I would buy homes all over the world. A castle or a farm somewhere in the British Isles (possibly next door to Sir Paul McCartney, himself, on the famous Mull of Kintyre ... in my dreams, that is). A hobbit hole (or house) in New Zealand; like an earthship. A flat in London. A little hideaway in Japan, Hong Kong, or Singapore. And one of those big houses by WRL, so that I could come home to visit friends and family. All of whom would live in a variety of wondrous homes, bought for them by me.
Ah, dreaming ...I'd forgotten how ... goddamn job.
We drove all around the area. Did some hiking about. I was reminded of a scene in the bonus features from the Monty Python and the Holy Grail dvd. In it, Terry Jones and Michael Palin return to the places where they filmed the movie decades before. They are now two sweet little old men, a far cry from the rapacious young satarists of years earlier. The two of them visit the legendary scenes from their youth (the castle of the French taunting, the killer rabbit's cave, the Gorge of Eternal Peril) , sending themselves up, and having a jolly time reminiscing about their young and crazy days with the Pythons.
There were no signs of any ethereal ladies, even though Chris kept claiming to see mysterious hitchhikers and threatening to pick them up. Nor did we see any virgin-sacrificing satanists. Not that the latter didn't actually exist (at least in some capacity) atop Flagpole Hill on dark nights, so long ago, when the area was still rundown and largely abandoned.
The legendary phantom island, I discovered, is not actually an appartion, as I had originally believed, but rather a recurring mistake made by map-makers. It seems that almost every map of White Rock Lake (especially the computer generated kind) depicts an island in the lake's center, alternately dubbed Belle or Bonnie Belle Island. In fact, this land mass does not, and has never, existed and is a mysterious fabrication on the part of mapmakers. Thus, the disappearing island.
I've also heard fish stories about monstrous catfish. Something about a body of water really brings out the yarnspinner in people. It is true, however, that German POWS were incarcarated in the military facility that stood on the shore of White Rock during WW2.
Sprawling for more than 1000 acres, in the shadows of downtown Dallas, the lake and park are - yes, folks - bigger than Central Park.
As of yet, no lake monsters have been sighted in White Rock. But I've got photoshop, so anything could happen.
I enjoyed our visit to the lake, quite a bit. It made work seem far away, and I started dreaming and thinking of things bigger and more important than that little bookstore and how suffocating and limiting it can be. I really think I should write more. I think that, if I don't, then I'm not really serving my purpose here. Maybe that's a bit dramatic, but I really do feel the need and the desire to do it. Even if all that ever comes of it is an old tome, a family heirloom, great-great-grandpa Benny's crazy book of kooky half-truths and weird imaginings; passed down through generations and read by the parents to their kids.
Or maybe it would be discovered in an attic trunk somewhere, dusted off and appreciated by some descendant of mine. That'd be cool.
Of course, selling millions of copies and bumping elbows with J.K. Rowling and Dan Brown wouldn't suck, either. But that's less important than doing what I love and feeling good about it. And a helluva lot less likely.
It'll be overacheiving (for me) to even finish a book, much less peddle it to a publisher or sell even one copy.
Just finishing it would be okay with me.
Kicking around on a piece of ground in your hometown
waiting for someone or something to show you the way
- Pink Floyd
