Will We Ever Know the Truth About JFK?

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President and Mrs. Kennedy disembark in Dallas.

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In a little more than two months, it will be the 50th anniversary of the assassination of John F. Kennedy here in Dallas.

It goes without saying that it was a traumatic event for this country — particularly so for this city (my grandmother always regarded it as a black eye for Dallas) — and I suppose many people have lived for years, probably decades, with a desire to know the real story of what happened that day. Perhaps they, like my grandmother, believe that whoever pulled the trigger couldn't possibly be local because, well, everybody knew that folks from Dallas wouldn't do that kind of thing — even though Dallas in general was known to be hostile to the administration.

Initially, I guess, a majority of Americans accepted the Warren Commission's conclusion that Lee Harvey Oswald was the lone gunman. That was how most Americans were raised in those days — to respect authority and accept its word on everything (the deceit of the Johnson and Nixon presidencies would go a long way toward eroding that inclination).

At the dawn of the 1960s, conformity was in fashion in America, just as it had been (and still was) in the European cultures from which many Americans' ancestors had come — and they, like all other immigrants before and since, brought their values with them.

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After the home movie that Abraham Zapruder made that day went public a few years later, suspicions rapidly grew among Americans that the Kennedy assassination had been part of some sort of conspiracy. America had been souring on the Vietnam war, and the pump was primed for conspiracy theories to flourish.

A general consensus arose that the true story had not been told, either by omission or commission, and that view gained some momentum in the mid–1970s when a special congressional committee evaluated the evidence from prominent assassinations in the 1960s — President Kennedy, his brother Bobby and Martin Luther King — and determined that it was probable that there had been more than one gunman in Dealey Plaza that day.

I guess that is the only thing that many Americans agreed on — and, I will admit, I was one of them. There is little agreement about who was responsible — some say the CIA, some say organized crime, others say Cubans, still others say right–wing extremists. Some of the more elaborate scenarios combine two or more.

I use the past tense — was — for myself not because I now believe the Warren Commission (I don't), but because I believe that, whether the Warren Commission was right or wrong, it doesn't matter now. Too much time has passed, too many material witnesses are deceased or suffering from dementia, and we will never know what the truth is.

Some people will never believe that. They will keep searching for the truth, and I do hope they find it, but I have strong doubts that anyone ever will.

Some people will insist that they already know the truth. I have dealt with such people all my life — on some subjects, I must admit, I am one of those people — and I have learned that it is usually futile to attempt to change their minds.

And who knows? They might be right — as one of my favorite journalists, H.L. Mencken, liked to say in letters to angry readers.

Perhaps Lee Harvey Oswald did shoot Kennedy. Perhaps he did act alone. I don't know. What I do know is that there have been unanswered questions from the start. Granted, some of the questions eventually received plausible answers, but it has often seemed in the Kennedy case that, whenever a single question has been answered, it has raised two new questions, and we seemed to drift farther from the truth than we were before.

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Not even the best mystery writer could invent as many red herrings and dead–end leads as there have been in this case over the years. It is alleged that many of these were the results of sloppy investigative work or human error or even coincidence.

If Oswald really did act alone, it is hard to imagine the investigation into the murder of any president being handled as sloppily — or as many coincidences occurring. There has been plenty of doubt about the number of shooters — heck, even the number of shots — in Dealey Plaza that day, and it did take the Dallas police an inexcusably long time to seal off the Texas Schoolbook Depository after the shots were fired and the consensus among witnesses was that at least some of those shots had been fired from that building.

Maybe there are simple explanations for things that appear to be so clearly sinister. I am a defender of our legal system in spite of its flaws, and I know things are not always how they seem — but, really, so many? It defies logic and common sense.

Suppose Oswald had not been killed but had lived to face trial. America's legal history is filled with cases where juries acted differently than many observers expected. How many times in your life have you heard of a verdict that was contrary to public opinion? That was one of the things I learned during my days on the police beat. You can never tell what a jury will do, but you can be sure that someone won't like it.

No one knows what a jury might have said about the case against Oswald. The closest we came was the case brought by Jim Garrison in New Orleans that was re–enacted in Oliver Stone's "JFK." That trial was only a few years after the assassination, when the trail presumably was still warm, and it resulted in an acquittal.

In 2013, it is a decidedly cold case, and I believe it will remain so.

In (almost) the words of a once–popular TV show, the truth may be out there. I just don't think that, at this stage, anyone will find it.

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The Mysterious Death of Warren Harding

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President Warren Harding and his wife, Florence

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Today is a milestone anniversary of a presidential death that is still shrouded in mystery.

No, I am not speaking of the Kennedy assassination.

Here in Dallas, we know (or most of us do) that this year is the 50th anniversary of that assassination — which is, of course, still a subject for debate, but this year it seems to be even more of an industry than usual (until just recently, the city was taking applications for free tickets for people who want to be in Dealey Plaza at the precise moment on November 22 — 50 years later, of course — when the president was shot).

Before we turn our full attention to that anniversary, let us pause for a minute or two to think about another presidential death that happened 90 years ago today.

I'm speaking of Warren Harding, America's 29th president, of whom e.e. cummings wrote

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"He writes the worst English that I have ever encountered. It reminds me of a string of wet sponges; it reminds me of tattered washing on the line; it reminds me of stale bean soup, of college yells, of dogs barking idiotically through endless nights. It is so bad that a sort of grandeur creeps into it. It drags itself out of the dark abysm of pish, and crawls insanely up the topmost pinnacle of posh. It is rumble and bumble. It is flap and doodle. It is balder and dash."

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Based on what I have read of President Harding, he was an amiable, well meaning individual, but he was also someone who was easily manipulated.

He was a journalist by trade and had a relaxed management style as publisher of a newspaper in Marion, Ohio. It has been said that, in some 30 years as the newspaper's publisher, Harding never fired anyone. He seemed to like people, and they liked him. But, as I say, there were those in his administration who took advantage of him.

On Aug. 2, 1923, President Harding died of an apparent heart attack in San Francisco. But there were suspicions at the time of other causes — and those suspicions have lingered. It might have been a stroke, some thought, or it might have been ptomaine poisoning.

Or it might have been a deliberate act.

Harding had been on a speaking tour of the western United States that summer. It could have been anything, people said at the time — heat, food, whatever — and an autopsy would have clarified things considerably. But, as Kennesaw State professor Russell Aiuto observes at Crime Library, there was no autopsy. The president's widow, Florence Harding, would not allow it.

"Within an hour of [Harding's] death, he was embalmed, rouged, powdered, dressed and in his casket," Aiuto writes. "By morning, he was on a train, headed back to Washington, D.C."

That got suspicious tongues wagging. Think the Kennedy assassination is awash in conspiracy theories? For nearly a century now, Harding's death has variously been attributed to natural causes, negligent homicide, suicide and murder. There is a solution to suit every taste.

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President Warren Harding and
Vice President Calvin Coolidge

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Natural causes is supported by the knowledge that, as Aiuto observes, Harding "lived the fat–filled, tobacco–infused and alcohol–drenched life of early 20th Century America with gusto." There are indications that Harding suffered from coronary artery disease that went undiagnosed and, consequently, untreated.

Negligent homicide had its defenders, too — like one of Harding's physicians, who believed Harding could have been saved had it not been for medical treatment he had been given, treatment that would have been effective if Harding suffered from indigestion but not effective for angina.

Then there have been suggestions that Harding may have killed himself.

It seems to be beyond dispute that Harding was despondent, presumably about Cabinet members whose conduct was under fire, during his tour of the West. And his behavior during that time prompted questions at the very least. He had made out a new will before leaving Washington in June. He sold his newspaper, which he had owned and published for decades, a few weeks earlier — and for far less than its value.

But suicide seems less likely when one considers that the signs pointed to his intention to seek re–election the next year.

That brings us to the last prospect, murder. Like the current occupant of the Oval Office, Harding's administration was beset by numerous scandals, any one of which could have led to homicide.

Even Mrs. Harding has been mentioned as a suspect. A book that was written by a man with a checkered past and published several years after her husband's death alleged that Mrs. Harding had two motives: 1) to save his reputation by having him die while he was at his most popular, and 2) to get even with him for his extramarital affairs, especially one that supposedly produced an illegitimate child.

Mrs. Harding died a year after her husband so it wasn't possible for her to defend herself against the charges — which don't seem to have been given much credibility.

Aiuto describes Harding's life and presidency as both comic and tragic. "Harding had many admirable traits — kindness, charm, generosity — but he was basically an inept man, without many talents," Aiuto writes.

"Besides the buffoonery of his days in the Senate and the White House," Aiuto goes on, "there is the tale of a man in over his head, trusting of untrustworthy associates, trying to do his best."

It's possible that one of those untrustworthy associates — with unguarded access to the president — poisoned him. It's just as possible — maybe even moreso — that Harding's lifestyle or medical malpractice hastened his demise.

After 90 years, though, it seems highly unlikely that the truth of the matter will ever be known.

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Death at Six Flags

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A Dallas woman was killed while riding a roller coaster at Six Flags Over Texas last Friday evening.

The investigation into the case is ongoing, and I prefer not to jump to any conclusions before all the facts are in, but it sounds like the woman's safety belt was not fastened correctly.

It's been a long time since I was at Six Flags Over Texas — longer, in fact, than it has been since the Texas Giant, the ride on which the incident occurred, made its debut — and I do not know what kind of security precautions are in use on that or any other ride today. Seems to me that the last time I was there, people were held in place by some kind of metal bar, but published reports today suggest that something akin to a seat belt is in use now.

A photograph I found on the internet (at right) seems to show some kind of modified bar with some sort of padding around it, perhaps to protect the park goers from the bar.

Maybe there were too many complaints about how hot those bars were in the summertime. I don't know.

What I do know is that witnesses said the woman tried to tell whoever it was who seated her and fastened her safety apparatus that she wasn't secured correctly. The attendant's behavior was described as nonchalant, kind of dismissive.

Reportedly, it was her first trip to Six Flags, but she apparently knew enough about the ride's security features — perhaps from watching others while standing in line — to know that something was not right.

The woman who died was named Rosy Esparza. She lived in Dallas. I don't know how old she was or how many children she had. According to reports, two of her children were on the ride with her, and they were, as you might expect, in hysterics when the ride came to a stop, and they tried frantically to get someone's attention.

By the time their mother was located, it was not possible to resuscitate her — if it ever was. The Texas Giant has been known as the tallest wood–steel hybrid roller coaster in the world, more than 150 feet tall. That's roughly the height of a 14–story building.

It's hard to imagine a height from which a person could be thrown from the ride and be expected to survive.

Ever since I heard about all this, I have been thinking about the last time I went to Six Flags. It was right after I had moved to this area, and some friends of mine came to visit me from Little Rock. One of my friends, Mike, was an absolute nut about roller coasters. The three of us went to Six Flags one day, and Mike made a beeline for the first roller coaster he spotted.

And, I swear, he rode that ride over and over and over again — must have ridden it 10 or 12 times before he had finally had his fill (temporarily). My other friend, Steve, and I sat on a bench near the ride and watched him in utter amazement. After about the third or fourth time, we started joking about Mike and his infatuation with roller coasters.

He wasn't riding the Texas Giant. The Texas Giant didn't exist yet. But I have been thinking of that day so long ago — and wondered what I would have done if I had seen my friend get thrown from a roller coaster.

Roller coasters, of course, appeal to thrill seekers, but always in the backs of their minds is the assurance that roller coasters really are safe, that they are fast and exhilarating but not really dangerous.

For the most part, that's true. Friday's fatality was only the park's second in more than half a century of operation. And the website for the national organization of amusement parks has been running a message reminding people that the chances of anyone being killed while riding a roller coaster are extremely slim.

But, no matter how slim that chance may be, the fact is that there is that chance. It is not impossible, and no one seems to be pretending that it is — unlike the promoters of the Titanic a century ago.

It is my hope, however, that the investigation will be thorough, that no shortcuts will be taken. Public safety should be the top concern — if not the only one.

Certainly, if there was negligence on the part of anyone on Six Flags' staff, it should be uncovered. But that is not the only thing that investigators should seek.

If there is any kind of problem that caused this and can be corrected, it should be identified and corrective measures should be suggested.

Blame is not the only thing that needs to come from this.

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Caught in the Cross Hairs of History

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A picture is worth a thousand words, the old saying goes.

And some pictures are worth a lot more than that. Some pictures are iconic. They are the images that come springing to mind when one thinks of an important event — like the 9/11 attacks or the Apollo 11 moon landing.

Or the JFK assassination.

As you may or may not know, this year marks the 50th anniversary of the assassination of President Kennedy. It's a big event here in Dallas. For months now, the Dallas Morning News website has been featuring a special link to an observance of the anniversary. A local commemoration is planned around the anniversary.

I expect, when the anniversary is only days or weeks away, many TV stations/networks will run retrospectives on the assassination and the Kennedy presidency. Schoolchildren may write essays on the Kennedy presidency and/or the assassination.

Since January alone, I've already seen part or all of Oliver Stone's "JFK" more times than I can count.

Some of the images from that event are iconic — shots of the Kennedy motorcade as it approaches the killing zone, shots of the Schoolbook Depository, the shot of Lyndon Johnson taking the oath of office on board Air Force One, shots from the day JFK was buried.

I've heard some people say that the photo of the accused assassin, Lee Harvey Oswald, being gunned down in the basement of the Dallas city jail two days after the assassination by Dallas night club owner Jack Ruby is an iconic shot for them — and, to a certain extent, it is for me, too. A photo of that moment won a Pulitzer Prize.

I suppose the iconic part for me is the way the cop on the left is kind of pulling away at an angle, as if he wants to be sure he is out of range of the bullet — with his mouth contorted in that sort of semi–grimace.

The gun, of course, was aimed right at Oswald's belly and at close range. There was no conceivable way that the cop could have been shot. Must have been an instinctive thing — like when the folks in Dealey Plaza hit the deck when shots rang out. I suppose no one could be expected to process so much information that efficiently in a second or two.

Back in November, when the sacrifice of Officer J.D. Tippit on Nov. 22, 1963 was commemorated with a state historical marker, former Dallas homicide detective Jim Leavelle was there and said, when asked about his response to the shooting of Oswald, "You don't have time to let things go through your mind, you react. You do what you got to do. You don't stop to think."

That second or two has taken on a life of its own.

For 50 years, that second in Leavelle's life has been in the cross hairs of history. And today that moment brought the 92–year–old Leavelle more notoriety. Dallas' police chief gave him the Police Commendation Award and renamed the department's Detective of the Year Award in his honor.

"Police Commendation Award" must be something akin to a lifetime achievement award — because Leavelle has been retired since 1975. And I suppose this year was chosen to give it to him because it is the 50th anniversary of the assassination.

And not to be too indelicate about this, but Leavelle is 92 years old. There is certainly no guarantee that he will be around in six months when the actual anniversary comes up. If he is, I'm sure he will be among those who are recognized for the roles they played, however minor, on that day. Can't be that many of them left.

While I readily admit that the image of Leavelle at the moment that Oswald was fatally wounded is dramatic and memorable and will always summarize the shock and confusion of that time in American history, I have to feel Leavelle's role in the assassination was minor.

He was the first to interview Oswald in custody and may have been the last to speak to him — at least when he was conscious. As they were making their way down to the basement and their rendezvous with history, Leavelle said, "Lee, if anybody shoots at you, I hope they're as good a shot as you are."

Oswald replied, "Nobody's going to shoot at me."

But, of course, someone did.

Other than that, other than being handcuffed to Oswald when he was mortally wounded, I know of no other accomplishments in Leavelle's career as a detective. I'm sure he had some in a quarter of a century of service. Most people have accomplishments in their lives.

But few have the photographs to prove it.

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Nothing Can Go Wrong ... Go Wrong ... Go Wrong

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Big Tex in happier times.

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Back when I was in high school, I attended a weeklong journalism workshop on the SMU campus. Several non–journalism activities (more of a social nature) were scheduled that week as well, including the showing of the movie "Westworld" after the workshop concluded.

I was reminded of that movie when I first saw video footage of Big Tex in flames at the Texas State Fair — or, to be more precise, I was reminded of Yul Brynner, the evil robotic gunslinger, and "Westworld"'s tagline — "Westworld — where nothing can go wrong ... go wrong ... go wrong."

These days, I teach journalism in the Dallas community college system, which includes advising the students on the newspaper staff.

The paper is published weekly, and each edition is completed on Friday. (The paper is then distributed the following Tuesday.) The advisers have to be there until the last page is done, which is actually a lot of fun for me. It reminds me of the days when I used to work on newspaper copy desks.

It also reminds me of what working for a newspaper is like, the nightly challenge of playing beat the clock. There are things you expect — like deadline pressure — and things you don't expect — namely, the news.

Well, of course you expect news! It's your business, after all. But it is often a reactive sort of business. Sometimes you do know what to expect, albeit in a general sort of way, like when a trial is scheduled at the courthouse or a big game is about to be played at the high school. You don't know what the outcome will be, but you know the trial — or the game or whatever — is coming up.

Much of the time, though, you cannot anticipate what the news will be. You simply react to whatever happens.

Which brings me to yesterday.

I was driving to the campus Friday when I heard on the radio that Big Tex, the iconic figure from the Texas State Fair, had burned.

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I didn't grow up here, but I know many people who did, and I knew Big Tex was special to them. He's been greeting visitors to the Texas State Fair with his robust "Howdy, folks!" since 1952.

Any journalist in this area — and, for that matter, in neighboring areas — ought to know that. And I was pleased to find out, when I walked into the newsroom, that the student newspaper staff was on top of it. A photographer was on the scene (and came back with some great photos), and one of the reporters was trying to reach a professor on the faculty who is something of a Texas State Fair historian (and has written a book or two on the subject — or so I am told).

The professor couldn't be located, but the reporter uncovered some interesting facts that I didn't know.

I didn't know, for example, that Big Tex started as Santa Claus in a town southeast of here called Kerens.

And then a mayor of Dallas, R.L. Thornton — whose name adorns a stretch of road here that is always jammed. It is always mentioned whenever the TV or radio stations report about traffic problems — purchased Big Tex, and he's been greeting visitors to the fair ever since.

The folks at the fair swear he will be back next year, presumably with a more current wardrobe and some new boots, but it didn't look too promising when he left Fair Park in what looked an awful lot like a body bag.

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As the afternoon wore on, I felt more and more like Murray, the news writer on the Mary Tyler Moore Show who kept coming up with sick jokes about a colleague at the TV station, known only as Chuckles the Clown, who had been killed at a circus parade when he dressed as a character named Peter Peanut and a rogue elephant shelled him to death.

(When Lou Grant observed that it was a good thing more people weren't hurt, Murray agreed and said, "You know how hard it is to stop after just one peanut.")

Since I first saw that episode back in the '70s, I've discovered that there was a lot of truth in it. I spent many years working in newsrooms, and they are breeding grounds for gallows humor. Virtually nothing is sacred.

And I've lived in Texas long enough to know that Big Tex is sacred — or, at least, semi—sacred — to many.

But I really had no idea just how sacred he was until yesterday.

In the reporter's article, there was a quote from a girl who said she had been to the fair just a week ago and shot some video footage of Big Tex for a project on which she was working in school. "And now he's gone," she said to the reporter.

As I read it, I could imagine her eyes welling up with tears.

Then, as I was driving home from the campus around 8 p.m., I heard someone on one of the radio stations doing a tribute program to Big Tex.

"We've lost a friend today," the host said somberly as the song "My Heart Will Go On" (from "Titanic") played in the background.

Maybe it was all done tongue in cheek, but it sounded deadly serious to me.

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Half a Century of Six Flags

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It isn't unusual these days to see a "Six Flags" amusement park in several places across this country — from coast to coast.

You'll even find them in foreign countries.

Some have always been "Six Flags" parks. Others began their existences with other names and under different management, but they were later absorbed into the "Six Flags" corporation. In all, there have been nearly three dozen "Six Flags" amusement parks.

But the very first one opened to the public 50 years ago on this date in Arlington, Texas, about 25 miles west of where I live today. It officially opened for business on Aug. 5, 1961 (the day after Barack Obama was born).

That theme park was known then — and it's still known — as "Six Flags Over Texas," a name it took from the fact that six different nations ruled Texas in its history — Spain, France, the Confederacy, Mexico, the Republic of Texas and the United States.

It was modeled after Disneyland's concept of dividing the park into several sub–sections (theme parks within a theme park, you might say) — but Disney focused more on general themes like Adventureland, Fantasyland, Tomorrowland.

My grandparents lived in Dallas, and my family visited them often when I was growing up. Outside of the Texas State Fair, there really wasn't much to bring families to Dallas when my parents were children, and I don't think things were all that different before I was born, but "Six Flags Over Texas" changed that.

My mother and my grandmother could hardly wait until I was old enough to take to "Six Flags," which was constantly adding new things in the 1960s and 1970s. When the day finally arrived that we went to "Six Flags," I think they were more excited about it than I was.

And, after they took me the first time, it became a regular thing for us every summer.

(Incidentally, although its primary days of operation have always been from late spring to autumn, "Six Flags" is open for seasonal events today, like its annual Spring Break kickoff, which got started in the 1980s, and its Christmas programs.

(I can't remember if it was open during the Christmas holidays when I was a child. We didn't pay attention. We were busy with other things.)

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I loved the rides — some more than others — and I loved the food. And, on especially hot days, I loved the cool of the park's theaters, where song–and–dance shows (often featuring area college students as performers) were repeated frequently every day.

It really was a wonderful combination of entertainment and a crash course in history. As a child, I was attracted by all the things that attract children, but, in hindsight, I have often wondered if maybe the seeds of my interest in history were planted on those day trips to "Six Flags" — an interest that, I am confident, led me to study journalism in college.

Sure, there were the kinds of rides you expect to find at an amusement park. There were roller coasters and bumper cars and a miniature train that went all the way around the park, but there were also several theme–specific rides.

(I remember that the Oil Derrick Tower, which represented the 20th century oil boom in Texas, was the first thing you could see as you approached the amusement park from any direction, looming as it did high above everything else.

(It was visible for miles along that relatively flat terrain, and it was the landmark I watched for — because I knew, when I saw it, that it was really happening. It wasn't an abstract concept.

(I've only been to Disneyland once, and I was a teenager when I did that, but I presume that is how kids feel when they catch their first glimpse of Sleeping Beauty's Castle.)

Many of the rides featured guides who provided an historical narration. OK, sometimes it was modified a little to give the guests more of a sense of being in the moment — a little jam on the bread, as Andy Griffith said once on his TV show.

Sometimes, as I say, the narrators took a little poetic license, but that was all right. The stories they told — to borrow a line from Mark Twain — were mostly true.

And I wasn't going to quibble — because I was only a kid, and I was having fun the way kids do.

I never stopped to think about how the tour guides' stories might be subtly influencing how I thought and what I knew — or what I thought I knew.

But they did — in ways I am still discovering. Even today, when I'm watching, say, The History Channel and something is said that contradicts something I heard in one of those narratives, I do a kind of mental double take.

I don't mind, though. I had fun, and I am thankful for the memories — and whatever actual knowledge I picked up along the way.

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How Hot Is It?

It's been nearly 20 years since Johnny Carson left The Tonight Show, but, if you can remember when he was the show's host, you can probably remember many of his ongoing routines.

I'm thinking of one in particular that was usually likely to surface during Carson's monologue, but it could happen at any time. It frequently popped up when something really extreme had been happening — for example, a lot more (or a lot less, for that matter) rain than usual.

He would say something like, "It was so wet (or dry) today that ..." and, before he could finish the joke, the audience would roar as one, "How wet (or dry) was it?"

As I say, it could be anything extreme — or anything, at least, that was perceived to be extreme. It could be "Dan Quayle is so dumb" or "Al Gore is so wooden."

Weather was always a good source, but it could be anything. Carson and his writers could be very creative at times.

(All together now — How creative were they?)

Lately, as the nation has been enduring the kind of heat wave that usually seems to be reserved only for Texas, I've been missing Carson.

Well, actually, as far as I am concerned, late night TV has never been the same since he left — so missing Carson is not a new thing for me — but, when there's something in progress like this heat wave, I really miss him.

These times cry out for an opportunity for heat–weary people to shout in unison, "How hot is it?"

Jacy Marmaduke of the Dallas Morning News has been keeping area residents advised as local temperatures have cracked triple digits daily for four straight weeks now.

Recently, this summer's heat wave claimed the second slot on the historical list. It overtook the summer of 1998 a few days ago.

I was living in Dallas in the summer of 1998, and that was, indeed, a brutal summer. I was working for a trade magazine and I had to cover a trade show in Chicago that July. While I was there, I encountered quite a few people who had come from places to the north — and some were complaining of the heat.

Personally, I didn't find the heat in Chicago nearly as severe as the weather I had just left. The difference was noticeable upon my return.

I don't think that would be true this summer. Nearly the entire country has been sweltering. It's been easing lately in places where it usually doesn't get that hot, but much of the country remains in the heat wave's grip.

Depending upon the cloud cover we have, our streak of triple–digit days may come to an end around here tomorrow — but, even if it does, the immediate forecast suggests that a brand–new streak is likely to begin on Sunday, and that one seems certain to continue for awhile.

Besides, as a meteorologist told Marmaduke, there isn't much difference between 99° and 100°. The difference is almost entirely psychological.

If the streak does not end tomorrow, the summer of 2011 may well go down as the hottest on record — at least in terms of consecutive 100° days.

To accomplish that, it will have to exceed the triple–digit streak of 1980 — and it just might do that, but it will never match the intensity of the summer of 1980.

I remember that one, too.

I wasn't living in Dallas in those days, but my grandmother was, and I remember coming here with my mother to visit my grandmother, who was starting to experience symptoms of dementia.

Daytime highs in 1980 seemed to get past 100° before noon and just kept climbing through the afternoon. I remember several days when temperatures flirted with 110° (the worst actually exceeded 110° a few times) — and I remember driving on the streets of Dallas and hearing the asphalt squish beneath the tires.

In 1980, a daytime high of only 100° was seen by some as a sign of an imminent cool front (it never was, but hope sprang eternal. Those triple–digit temperatures were daily facts of life for more than six weeks).

Needless to say, you could do a lot more than fry an egg on the pavement.

This summer's heat wave has been a scorcher, but the summer of 1980 (if it possessed human characteristics) would scoff. I can just imagine the things it would say. "Amateur!" it would sneer. "In my day, I gave 'em heat they're still talking about three decades later."

If some have their way, though, that consecutive triple–digit streak will tumble, and the summer of 2011 will be atop the list when all is said and done.

Marmaduke quotes a 15–year–old from Plano who wants a streak he can tell his grandkids about.

All I can say is, be careful what you wish for.

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Foresight in Hindsight

I taught journalism on the college level for awhile in the 1990s, then I was sidetracked by other things.

(I liked the way Robert Redford used that word to describe, in "The Natural," why he had been away from pro ball for so long. I think it frequently applies to life in general.)

Nearly a year ago, I returned to the classroom. I've been teaching journalism again, and I've also been teaching developmental writing, which focuses on the fundamentals of written English (subjects, verbs, prepositional phrases, dependent and independent clauses, etc.), at the local community college.

As the start of my second year there approaches, I've been thinking about what I learned last year and how I can improve what I've been doing.

That isn't quite as easy as it may sound because there are many differences between being a professor at a four–year college and being an adjunct professor at a community college. I can't always apply what I learned in the classroom then to what I'm doing now.

Last year, I spent the summer preparing to teach classes that wound up being canceled just before the school year began because enrollment in those classes wasn't sufficient.

It wasn't that way when I was teaching in the 1990s. In those days, I knew what I would be teaching long before the semester began. My classes were never canceled because enrollment didn't reach a certain level.

Anyway, I hope I'll be teaching journalism again this fall. It remains to be seen if I will.

I do know, though, that I will be teaching developmental writing again — because it is required unless incoming students meet or exceed a certain grade on their placement tests — and I've been thinking about what I learned from teaching that class last year.

I think one of the most important things I have learned has to do with expectations.

Some of my students are foreign students for whom English is a second language, and they compare the rules of their native language to the rules of their acquired one. That is their frame of reference. It is how we human beings process information. We compare new knowledge to that which we already have.

For others, I think it's a simple matter of applying logic — if something is true in one usage, it must be true in all usages. Same sort of thing, really. It's all based on past experience — and the knowledge of previous outcomes.

I was thinking about this the other day, and I was reminded of an old episode of I Love Lucy in which Lucy, who was expecting the couple's baby, decided that everyone who came in regular contact with her child — Ricky, Fred and Ethel — had to speak nothing but perfect English.

Ricky, whose native tongue was Spanish, resisted, but Lucy made her point by asking him to read out loud a story that worked in several words that had similar spellings but different pronunciations — all in just a few sentences.

The spelling was o–u–g–h. It was pronounced differently, of course, depending upon which letter(s) came before.

Anyway, the story Ricky read was about a woodsman. It spoke of how he cut boughs (pronounced bows) from trees.

All this cutting made his hands quite rough (pronounced ruff). Also, apparently, all this cutting released a lot of junk into the air, which gave the woodsman a hacking cough (koff).

There were other sentences that contained words like enough (enuff) and through (threw). I'm sure you get the idea.

Ricky mispronounced each word and got increasingly frustrated. Spanish isn't so complicated, he protested. A sound is always the same. It sounds the same. It is spelled the same.

Many of my students last year (and, I am sure, many of my students in the coming year) would sympathize with Ricky. Why must written English be so complicated?

Well, the main reason is that the British Isles were occupied by different conquerors over the centuries, and elements of those languages were absorbed into the evolving English language. In English, you will find words with roots from all corners of the globe — primarily from the civilizations that actively occupied Britain at different times but also from cultures that were more like bystanders.

Each contributed words (and whatever linguistic peculiarities came along with them) to the language.

As a result, you have to work a little harder to make sure that you do things correctly in English. One must apply, as fictional detective Hercule Poirot put, the little grey cells. One size does not always fit all.

I tried to make this point with my students last semester by contrasting written English with other subjects — and I unexpectedly learned a couple of things about the shortcomings of the modern educational system.

In math, I told my students, when you learn the multiplication tables, you know that they will never vary. The answers will always be the same. Two times three will always equal six. Three times three will never equal six.

You can count on it.

In chemistry, I told them, H₂O is always the chemical formula for water. It is never the chemical formula for anything else.

You can count on it.

Those examples made my point, but I wanted to add one more for emphasis. In hindsight, I should have stopped when I was ahead — and launched into my discussion of the peculiarities of the English language.

In history, I told my students, events always happened whenever they happened. When you commit an important date to memory, it doesn't change. The years in which the American Civil War was fought will always be between 1861 and 1865. The year of President Kennedy's assassination will always be 1963.

To drive home my point, I said to my students, "If someone says '1776' to you, what do you think of?"

I was shocked that no one, in a classroom full of people, raised a hand to indicate that he/she knew the answer. I thought everyone knew the Declaration of Independence was signed in 1776.

I still think it is a good point — even if the modern education system doesn't seem to be producing high school graduates with adequate appreciation for their history. I mean, even if those students don't know those dates, they are facts that you will find in any history book.

English is much more ambiguous. It isn't as certain as a mathematical equation or a chemical formula or a date in a history book.

But that is what makes English, both spoken and written, a living, vibrant thing.

My students want written language to be a simple, fill–in–the–blank proposition, like the mathematical formulae they learned when they were younger. Logically, they know that only three times two will equal six so if they are asked to complete something like this — 3 X ___ = 6 — they know that 2 is the only possible answer.

But the rules are different for language. My students seem to have trouble understanding that the very same word may be a noun in some uses — and a verb in others.

For example, take the word run. Ordinarily, that is a verb — They run in the park.

But it can also be a noun — for example, when it is used as part of the names of events or when it is used to describe the act of scoring (particularly in baseball). Under such circumstances, it becomes a noun.

The same thing applies to spelling, punctuation, all that stuff. You've gotta use your brain.

If I can get my students to use their brains, I feel we're moving in the right direction — even if there is still much to be done on the basics.

That's the way I feel about the people who are in charge of the debt ceiling negotiations in Washington these days.

Creative solutions are required. Everyone — the president, the speaker of the House, everyone in Congress — needs to put the interests of the nation ahead of everything else.

I'd like to get all of them to look beyond their limited horizons.

They might not be able to resolve the situation once and for all — but, at least, they could deal with this crisis and move beyond the roadblocks.

Our problems, as John F. Kennedy said, are man made. Therefore, they can be solved by men.

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The White Stuff

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We're enduring another round of winter weather here in north Texas.

Dallas looks a lot like it did last week, with freezing rain and a little snow.

An acquaintance of mine posted this on Facebook today. It kind of sums things up.

There were a lot of people who complained about the terrible weather we had here in the days just before Sunday's Super Bowl.

A Super Bowl should always be played in a warm–weather city, they said. Well, good luck finding one that also happens to meet the NFL's requirement that a city cannot host a Super Bowl unless it also has an NFL franchise.

Fact is, this is pretty unusual weather for Dallas. I've lived here for most of the last 22 years, and I visited here on a regular basis when I was a child — and on rare occasions it does get cold and it does snow, but mostly what we get around here when it gets cold is ice.

We don't get that much of it around here, anyway. Besides, the weekend before the Super Bowl was balmy.

That's the kind of thing people are accustomed to around here. The weather can change in the blink of an eye — except in the summer, when it rarely deviates from "hot" and stays that way from April to October.

The people from Pittsburgh and Green Bay who were whining about Texans' "wimpy" responses to the winter weather need to come down here sometime in the summer — when the temperature is over 100°.

They'll find that most Texans are accepting of the heat. They expect it every year. They may not like the high utility bills or having to get in cars that have been sitting exposed to the summer heat all day, but it doesn't catch them by surprise. It's part of the bargain they made when they decided to live here.

But ice and snow wasn't part of that deal. That's why all those Packer fans and Steeler fans found there were no snow plows around here to make it easy for them to get around last week. Snow plows would be an unconscionable waste of public funds — and that is in the best of times.

It has been said that Jerry Jones wants to bring the Super Bowl back to Dallas for the 50th anniversary in February 2016. It has also been said that many folks want to play that game in Los Angeles. That is where the first Super Bowl was played, and L.A. is, after all, a warm–weather location.

But L.A., once home to two NFL franchises, is now home to none. Either an existing franchise will have to move there, or a new franchise will have to be created there — or the NFL will have to change its own rules.

And even if the NFL does change its rules, there are very few American cities, even L.A., that can promise mild, sunny weather in February. The best any can do is to point to the historical trend and claim that the odds favor one thing or another — and that trend in Dallas has generally favored mostly mild conditions.

But anything can happen here, as the cartoon above clearly illustrates. Texans know that. That's why they can sit back and chuckle about a Super Bowl that didn't produce the kind of economic windfall they expected because the weather turned nasty.

That's Texas for you, they're surely saying today. The temperatures were really nice the weekend before the Super Bowl. If everything had been done a week earlier, it would have paid off the way everyone hoped and expected.

Texans have reputations for being gamblers, and I suspect that most would understand what a friend and former co–worker (and frequent gambler) used to say about sure things.

There's no such thing, he would say, as a sure thing. That's why they call it gambling.

Scheduling a Super Bowl in north Texas was a gamble — weatherwise.

I'm sorry if it disappointed our visitors from Wisconsin and Pennsylvania. I would have liked to oblige them by providing them with sunny skies and warm temperatures during their visit, and, as I say, if everything had been held a week earlier, we could have.

But the weather turned on us. It was one of those Texas things.

All things considered, I'll take the winter we're having over the one they're having.

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In Honor of Groundhog Day ...

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Did you ever see the movie "Groundhog Day?"

Of course you did. I guess that's sort of like asking if you ever saw "Forrest Gump" ... or ... "Titanic."

Anyway, since you almost certainly have seen "Groundhog Day," I'm sure I won't have to mention the general theme of the story — but I will anyway.

The star, Bill Murray, kept living the same day (Groundhog Day) over and over again.

Shoot, the idea has almost become a cliche. If you mention "Groundhog Day" to anyone, it's practically code language for experiencing a really bad sense of deja vu.

Locally, we've taken that concept to new extremes lately.

The icy weather we've been experiencing this week apparently has put an excessive demand on the state power grid. To keep from having total blackouts, so–called "rolling blackouts" were initiated.

I knew nothing about this when the first one occurred in my neighborhood. It came shortly before 6 a.m. I was still in bed, and there wasn't much noise or light in my apartment at that hour so my first indication that anything was different was when I woke up and realized I felt cold. I looked at my clock, and the digital numbers were not illuminated — and right away I knew the power was off.

I was searching in the dark for a flashlight when the power came back on about 20 minutes after it went off. I fixed some breakfast and watched the national news. The apartment was warming up again — and the power went off.

It came back on about 20 minutes later, and I immediately checked some local news sources. That was when I learned about the rolling blackouts.

In a way, it was a relief.

I've been living in these apartments for more than 10 years now, and we've had our issues with the utilities. In all fairness, it isn't always a complex issue; sometimes it is the provider's fault. My point is that it is a recurring theme.

Last March, for example, early on a Sunday morning, someone apparently ran his/her car into the power station that serves my apartment complex, and power was cut to all the customers who were served by that station.

Snow had been falling for about an hour before the accident. I never heard whether the snow contributed to what happened, but I have a pretty good idea that it did. All I know is we got a ton of the stuff that day — extremely unusual for Dallas, Texas.

I tried repeatedly to reach someone at my apartment complex office, but no one was in the office. The power was off all day, and residents couldn't contact anyone.

There have been other episodes like that, and I wasn't anxious to repeat them, but the knowledge that these rolling blackouts were happening everywhere was reassuring. It meant that the fault wasn't with the apartment complex and it wasn't with the provider. It seemed more like an act of God.

After awhile, though, I began to feel like Bill Murray, looking for new ways to make the most use of the hour of power that I would get before being plunged into a comparatively brief period of nothing.

There is talk that there will be more of these rolling blackouts tomorrow. Local temperatures are not expected to rise above the mid 20s.

Makes me nostalgic for those days when temperatures around here were in the 70s. Was it only last weekend?

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My Street Becomes an Ice Rink

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Well, they say a picture is worth a thousand words.

This was the scene in front of my apartment a few minutes ago.

Just to set the stage for you, we got rain, freezing rain, sleet and snow here in Dallas starting early this morning and continuing until a little while ago. Even now, we're getting some blowing snow, but the snow isn't as heavy as it was.

Snow isn't the problem, though. It never really is. There are times when snow is a little slippery, and that keeps it from being a very pleasant experience, but ice is never a pleasant experience, whether you're walking on it or trying to drive on it.

It's deceptive, too. The pavement may look all right until you're on top of it — then, you quickly discover that it isn't all right, after all.

And neither are you. If you're on foot, you are apt to find yourself going from vertical to horizontal with no warning. And if you're behind the wheel, you may find yourself spinning out of control.

Apparently, some seemingly clear spots deceived some drivers on my street. None of the vehicles in the above picture were in motion.

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It doesn't look like we're going to get above freezing around here for a few days, which means anything that is slush when the sun goes down will turn to ice overnight. Driving could be pretty hazardous.

Stay tuned for future developments.

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It Oughta Be Obvious

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So far, those of us who live in north Texas have been spared the brunt of the winter weather this year.

If you don't live in this part of the country, your reaction may be to shrug your shoulders at that little tidbit of news. Most people seem to think that Texas is a hot, sweltering place all year round.

Well, it is a hot, sweltering place for much of the year. But it can get cold here in the winter. Last year, we set a local record for the most snowfalls in a single winter season.

Nothing even remotely like that has happened so far this year. Sure, it has been cold and there have been a few snow flurries, but nothing like last year.

That's going to be great for the folks who come here for the Super Bowl in a few weeks, no matter who wins on Sunday. I think it goes without saying that whether the fans come here from Green Bay or Chicago, Pittsburgh or New York, the weather here will be nicer than what they've been dealing with lately.

I'm not saying they should pack their sun blocker and summer clothes before they come here — unless the weather forecast calls for unseasonably warm temperatures (which it might — I met a friend for lunch a few days before Christmas, and the temperature got into the 80s that day). But they can expect milder temperatures while they're here.

(I wouldn't recommend that they come back in July or August, though.)

This Sunday afternoon, while the Packers and Bears are playing in Chicago, the daytime high here in Dallas is predicted to be around 50° with a chance of rain. The forecast for Chicago calls for a daytime high that is nearly 30 degrees colder. It will be even colder in Green Bay.

Sunday evening, it will cool down into the 40s around here, but it will be about half that in Pittsburgh, where the AFC championship will be decided. It should be much the same in New York.

A lot of things could happen in the next 2½ weeks, but my best guess is that conditions won't be significantly different than they are now so Dallas should seem comparatively balmy, whether you're coming here from Green Bay or Chicago or New York or Pittsburgh.

Ah, yes, Pittsburgh.

Pittsburgh is where the above video was shot. I'm told it was made yesterday.

Now, Pittsburgh is roughly 1,000 miles northeast of here. Seems to me that the folks who live there should be well acquainted with the hazards of driving in winter conditions.

To be fair, ice is the kind of thing folks in this part of the country usually have to deal with. If we're going to get anything in the way of winter precipitation around here, it is likely to be ice. Pittsburgh always seems to get snow in the winter.

And I would a whole lot rather drive on snow than ice. I've tried to drive on ice before. And, brother, let me tell you that it ain't no fun.

Ice is the kind of thing you get when you're sort of caught in the middle. It isn't warm enough where you are for precipitation to be rain, and it isn't quite cold enough to be snow. They call it freezing rain around here.

I don't know what they call it in Pittsburgh. Whatever it is, there must be some sort of technical explanation for why those folks had ice on the roads yesterday instead of snow. But it looks like a lot of people in Pittsburgh just have no clue about driving on icy roads.

So let me tell you the main rules about driving on ice. Then, you'll have them when you are faced with this problem:

Rule #1 for driving on icy roads — Don't.

Rule #2 — Obey all rules.

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The JFK Assassination

I've been writing blogs for more than three years now, and I have written about the John F. Kennedy assassination every year on the anniversary of that terrible event.

Tomorrow will be its 47th anniversary, and most of the people who were in Kennedy's entourage in Dallas on that day are gone now.

When I was growing up, I often wondered if the mystery of who actually pulled the trigger — or who arranged for the assassination to take place — ever would be solved.

But as the years have gone by, I have become less convinced that that will ever happen.

I still believe there was a conspiracy, and I could recite my reasons for believing that, but I also believe that solving the mystery no longer matters.

As it approaches the half–century mark, the Kennedy assassination is the Great American Mystery. It has become a cottage industry of sorts, and solving the mystery would eliminate the goose that laid the golden egg.

Go into any bookstore. You will find shelves devoted to the Kennedy assassination. Look online. You will find site after site dedicated to someone's theory, no matter how outlandish it may be, of what really happened on Nov. 22, 1963.

Folks in Dallas long ago learned there was money to be made from the Kennedy assassination, even many years after the fact. Oliver Stone came here to make his film "JFK" 20 years ago, and many people in the area made money from the cast and crew, providing food and lodging.

Long before that time, the Texas School Book Depository — which the Warren Commission told America was the place where Lee Harvey Oswald fired all the bullets at the Kennedy motorcade — was transformed into a museum that primarily exists to promote the Warren Commission's version of what happened.

A few blocks away, a museum dedicated to alternative theories opened its doors.

But it's been years since anything resembling a serious investigation into the events of Nov. 22, 1963, was undertaken.

And today, on the eve of the 47th anniversary, the only thing related to it in the Dallas Morning News is an article that reports that the man who came across Officer J.D. Tippit's body and reported to the police that he had been shot will be publicly honored tomorrow for his actions.

The man's daughter told the Morning News that her father never spoke about that day in the years that followed. "Maybe this will finally be the end of it," the man told the Morning News' reporter.

Well ...

Ironically, the man once worked for Jack Ruby, the Dallas nightclub owner who killed Oswald.

Everything connected with this case seems to go in circles.

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Hot Enough For You?

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They say a picture is worth a thousand words.

But there's only one word that would be adequate for this — and it probably wouldn't be appropriate to post it here.

I took this picture from the balcony outside my bedroom in Dallas, Texas, around 4:30 this afternoon. If it isn't clear to you, that black–and–white thing is a person dressed in a full–body cow costume. He/she is holding a sign that promotes the management's "m–o–o–o–o–ve in specials" with one hand and waving at traffic with the other.

This is not new. Someone — perhaps several different someones — has been standing out there for a couple of hours a day most of this year.

At 4:30 this afternoon, the temperature in Dallas was approximately 94° — which really isn't too bad by historical standards. I've been in Dallas in many Julys when the temperature was much higher. If you live in Dallas, you just take it for granted that it's going to be hot here in July. I don't know if climate change exists, but it's going to have to be pretty extreme to change that reality.

Anyway, as I say, it hasn't been quite as hot as it often is, but we've had a lot more rain this summer than usual, too — which is strange because our wettest month tends to be May, but this year May was abnormally dry so things seem to be happening in a kind of reverse order — and that, along with the higher–than–usual lake and river levels in this part of the country, seems to have elevated the humidity quite a bit as well.

Now, don't get me wrong. It is usually humid in north Texas at this time of year, but it is abnormally so this summer.

Consequently, at 4:30 this afternoon, the heat index stood at 102°. And I'm sure the person inside the cow costume was a sweaty mess.

I've been out of work for quite awhile and I've considered things I never thought I would consider, but I have to say that it's hard to imagine being so desperate for money that I would do that.

I don't know how much they're paying that person to stand out there in that costume in the sweltering heat of a Dallas July, but it would have to be a lot.

Especially with the latest forecasts calling for actual temperatures near 100° later this week.

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