Post-Thanksgiving Thought: Why 1963 Was a Very Good Year

1963: Innovations in the kitchen, while even more helpful, begin to grow more complex. The P-7 self-cleaning oven is introduced. In developing the oven, which uses a pyrolytic system to remove food soil, GE engineers are granted some 100 patents.

While it took about another two decades for a self-cleaning oven to enter any of the houses in which we have lived, what a great invention GE brought to life. 

Last night I pressed a button, and this morning I woke up to find all traces of Thanksgiving had vanished from my oven.

White Wings Are No Bird-Brains

Can’t stand having the “Deadly Scenario” post as the lead.  Need to supplant it with something peaceful - doves.

Anyone with a bird feeder knows what gorging gourmands doves are.  Often one of them sits on the window sill by my desk, peering at me with eyes encircled with  the same shade of iridescent blue eyeshadow I would apply in eighth grade once out of my parents’ sight on the way to CYO Friday night dances.

Seems as though more and more white wings are in the city each year.  And, according to the San Antonio Express-News, volunteers are out there attempting to count them:

White-winged doves first nested in citrus trees in the Lower Rio Grande Valley.  However, since a freeze in the 1980s, they’ve shifted populations to more urban areas.  Bexar County has the most, about 7 percent of the total.

Do ornithologists really believe the doves moved here because of a freeze? Would you rather dine at an urban restaurant where a loving owner watches you enjoy your meal, or feed in the country where the man who leaves food for you stands nearby waiting to shoot you dead?

A Good Year for Goodyear

The Board of Directors of San Antonio’s Inner City Tax Increment Reinvestment Zone (TIRZ) approved $694,002 to fund the Southtown Street Enhancement Project.  According to the City of San Antonio’s website:    

The project will include curb bulb-outs, making more permanent the existing parallel parking along S. Alamo Street and take the street down to one lane in each direction. The curb bulb-outs will provide several benefits to include narrowed street intersections for shorter pedestrian crossings that will naturally calm traffic speeds, and added sidewalk/curb area that will allow for larger street planting areas outside of the overhead lines.   

The tire tracks on this bulb-out "enhancement" on South Alamo Street clearly indicate its effectiveness in calming traffic.

 

In other words, the bulb-outs function much the way bumpers do in pinball machines, bouncing the cars of unsuspecting tourists and inattentive motorists (of which Southtown evidently has many) back into the roadway where they belong.   

The success of the project can be measured by the lines of cars backed up on St. Mary’s and Alamo Streets trying to enter the Southtown business obviously benefiting the most from the installation of the bulb-outs in the King William neighborhood:  

Prediction: The completion of Southtown's bulb-outs mean a good year is ahead for Goodyear.

Update on January 6, 2011:  Just noticed the bulb-outs on South Alamo Street are no longer naked.  White lines also seem to help drivers keep from ramming into the concrete.  This crepe myrtle blooming  in the spring should be beautiful, but drivers exiting Turner will be unable to see if any vehicles are coming from the south….  Maybe the neighborhood needs a new body shop?

Pearl Farmers Market

On Sunday afternoon after the San Miguel Writers Conference, I had been charged with fetching some freshly made sauce and pasta from Natura on my way back up the hill to Chorro.  Sunday, however, meant it and seemingly all of the neighborhood tiendas were closed.  I asked an ex-pat at the conference where to head, and, much to my disappointment, she recommended the Mega.  Naturally, I headed in the opposite direction, to the old market house in the heart of downtown San Miguel de Allende, where produce and flowers are artfully displayed, even on Sunday.

Upon my return to San Antonio, the Saturday market at Pearl Brewery provided a welcome transition back to reality.  While pop-up tents perched in a parking lot are not as colorful as the old market house, the produce and fresh meats were bountiful.  Children were dancing to the live music, and the browsers – arriving not only by car, but by bike or on foot - came armed with their reusable cloth sacks  from home.

The vendors Pearl has assembled seem to be have chosen with great care.  Last Saturday brought rustic breads from Sol y Luna Baking Company; artisanal cheeses from Humble House Foods; jams and soaps from Imagine Lavender of Vanderpool; guajillo honey pecans form Al’s Gourmet Nuts; luscious-looking jams produced by Watson Farms of Stonewall; and olive soaps and oils from the Sandy Oaks Olive Orchard near Elmendorf, site of Les Dames d’ Escoffier San Antonio Chapter’s second annual Olives Ole! festival on Saturday, March 27. 

Many Saturday market shoppers arrive by bike or on foot.

Sol y Luna Baking Company crafts rustic breads spiked with fresh herbs or jalapenos.

I might just have to return to Pearl for another transitioning session when I return from Merida next week.