Later, visited a working hot glass studio with four glory holes (that's what they call them, honest) and stadium seating looking into the zone of fire. At least a hundred Dallas hipsters watched as a glassblower named Reese and his team created Chihuly style glass flower bowls, reminding all of us thirty Texans, temporary or not, to keep swigging coolered, kept-on-ice Ozarka water, so we wouldn't pass out on a heat-wave Dallas night made hotter by propane torches, kilns and glory holes stoked and glowing.
Dallas girls might not be easy, yet they'll laugh entertainingly and keep you company if you utter an endless stream of flattery. It's key not to stop, chirpping endlessly like a Mockingbird, a bird that taunts you daily on an old Dallas street named Mockingbird. Call them pretty as many times as you want, compliment their look for the evening, its hard to overshoot the mark. I haven't said, "You've done more for the south than Robert E. Lee," but I'm holding that line in store. Better, many of these gals know its a lyric from Mame.
I met a mom and a daughter in a historical hotel called the Melrose Hotel. A friend from work sent me there, recommending it as top notch for good, intellectual, symposium conversation. Symposium originally meant drinking party, with wine or grappa, you can check the etymology). Brenna the sister and Patti the mom were marrying their midwestern son to a Texan woman that weekend, celebrating the nuptial at the Melrose and they were wondering if their relation planned to bring his bride back to the shores of the Allegany.
The two opened up after five minutes of outrageous flattery; I started with two, but Brenna requested more silver-tongue words. I recommend pointing out that the entire megaplex of Dallas - Fort Worth depends upon the grace of a single river, the Trinity, and whatever the Ozarka water company can ship from Wood County, Texas. Whereas the midwest can slake its thirst from six world-class ponds, a bonus from living near that watershed. I had to level with them. Their kindred had fallen under the spell of a genuine Kacky, Texan for Katherine, one of those girls who wear their flaxen blonde hair pulled severely back from their foreheads, and bound up in a pony tails so cooling winds can waft on her neck and nape. If you see a woman dancing shoeless, even on spintery wooden floors, you know she's a Texan.
I gave them two tests to see if he would return. One, did he know the three ways a Texas girl says yes? One is a general yes, with all three letters sounding in a dictionary way. Then there's the second yes, which sounds like yeth, but its a shibboleth. You can't say it right unless you learned your mother's tongue here from a native Texan mother. I haven't heard the Third Texas yes, but when you do, you know you're about to have good time.
Test number two. Does he know the words from Elvis Presley's American Trilogy? Not all of these three songs, but the one about the land of cotton:
Oh I wish I was in the land of cotton
Old times there are not forgotten
Look away, look away, look away Dixieland
Oh I wish I was in Dixie, away, away
In Dixieland I'll take my stand to live and die in Dixie
For Dixieland, where I was born
Early Lord one frosty morn
Look away, look away, look away Dixieland
If he knows even a few lines he's under the influence. If he sings them during his two minute shower, short because Lake Lavon is down eleven feet, then he's a goner. I understand Brenna's going to run these tests at the wedding rehersal dinner, but I'll never learn the results. Lately, I've been whistling Dixie driving home at night, making sure to change that line about dying in Dixie to "Live and leave from Dixie".
Wilbo
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