the past? what past?

excuse me, I am brain dead today. The 10-hour shifts are catching up with me and I have had to resort to a thesaurus to find the words my memory won't share with me.

This news item exemplifies one of the reasons I had wanted to leave Dallas for so long. The caption reads, "Preservation officials say the Haskell Avenue YWCA is one of East Dallas' few institutional buildings left standing from the early 20th century." There are many wonderful houses from the 1920's, 30's and 40's that I wouldn't have minded living in but the land is more valuable than the housing as people can buy a city lot, tear down the old house and build themselves a 3 or 4,000 square foot McMansion in its place. My friend M renovated a 1921 Craftsman house that had been set for teardown but in the meantime the house next door to her was demolished and a two-story duplex erected, and two houses across the street from her have been razed to make way for condos. Her house is so nice, but the neighborhood is being destroyed.

Dallas is one of those odd places which seems to have no history, and anything that seems to point to a hazy past is slated for destruction, unless there's a chance it might attract a major professional sports team to the city. I lived more than 30 years in the city of Dallas in Dallas County and I can't tell you from who or what or where the name originated. What attracted me most to McKinney was its celebration of its past. And I know that the city of McKinney in Collin County was named for Collin McKinney, who established the city in 1849.