Coffee with some Cream and Sugar

     I was gonna tell you a memory I have from when I was a little boy. I was living with my grandparents at the time. I got up early in the morning and would go with my grandpa who was a farmer, who also pumped oil wells. So, we got in the pickup early in the morning and we went out. We loaded the pickup with hay and then we went and fed the cows and drove around to all the different pumping units on the farm that he took care of. We got up to one pumping unit - I think it was on what you call the “Branch Place.” There were a bunch of pumping units (some people call them the “nodding donkeys”), but they’re pumping units for pumping oil. He had gotten out of the pickup and he had a little book, kind of like what you take orders on at a restaurant like this one. He went up, walked up the stairs to one of three big metal tanks - cylindrical tanks. He walked up to the top and he had what looked like a big metal tape on a reel, with a wind-up handle on the side. At the end of the tape it had a brass weight, a plumb bob, for surveying. He would drop it down in the tank and then pull it back up, kind of like checking the oil in the car, measure the level and then he’d figure out how much oil was produced that day and he’d mark it down in his book. So while he was doing that, I was kind of running around, as you do when you’re a little boy with a lot of energy.

There was some pipe casing lying on the ground, almost two feet in diameter - thirteen and two-eights, actually. I heard this yipping noise like little puppies. So, I got down on my knees and I looked in the end of this pipe. For all I knew, they sounded like puppies barking down the pipe. So I went and got my grandpa, or as I called him at that time, Huppy, because I couldn’t say “Grandpa.”

He was a big man, well over six feet, but he probably weighed close to two-seventy-five. He looked sort of like Santa Claus. But, he always wore blue Oshkosh overalls and he always had a stockman’s hat on. He was a very powerful, strong man as I remember him, being a little boy. He also always carried in the front pocket of his Oshkosh overalls a bag of Bull Durham with the tag hanging out so he could roll his own cigarettes. Anyway, he bends down over the casing and looks down and sure enough, there was this noise coming out of it. So he went and got something lying next to the tank. Sucker rods, you call them. It’s what gets the oil going up and down the pipe. He gets a potato sack from the back of the pickup and he puts it on the end of the pipe and he ran the sucker rod down the casing and out the end pop three, not puppies, but coyotes puppies. I’m not sure what you call a baby coyotes; I guess you call them puppies. So we put them in the bag and put them in the back of the pickup truck and drove home.

My grandpa had a chicken coop, without any chickens in it. The coyotes had gotten all the chickens. So he put the coyotes in there. We kept them and fed them and I took care of them and stuff. They kept growing, getting bigger and bigger. I ended up giving a couple of them to different people around the countryside, near our farm. I kept one of them – I don’t even remember the name I gave him – but he eventually got wilder and wilder and it got to the point where he didn’t want to be touched and obviously wasn’t a puppy. Eventually, I turned him loose into the pasture.

I guess it was about a year later. In the summertime we slept with the windows open, because it was so hot. We were sitting there at night, you could hear back in the pasture, which might have been a quarter-mile, half-mile away. It went down towards Beaver Creek, which ran down the back of my grandfather’s farm. He lived between Duncan, Oklahoma and Comanche, Oklahoma. But you could hear the coyotes. I guess he found a mate and they’d had their own set of puppies. They had a den in a washed out area near the creek. At night, you could hear all this howling and it was kind of cool to know that I had found the puppy, raised it, and turned it loose and now he was back there making more puppies, more coyotes (and eating our chickens).

Anyway, that’s a fond memory from when I was little boy.

-Weldon, Poor Girls Cafe

Chai Latte

Well, I remember my first Thanksgiving break home from my freshman year of college. That would have been two years ago. I was in a complicated thing with this guy from home - my ex-boyfriend - but it was before we were back to dating again. My grandparents were in town and I don’t have a great relationship with them and I really needed to get away, so he came and picked me up.

We basically drove down Beltline (the street that we’re on now), eventually hitting Preston and going to Alpha and finding the Half-Priced Books that’s there and going in and we just wandered around there, talking about books, skirting the fact that we still were still in love with each other, but didn’t want to admit it. Then we drove in circles around the center and then up and down Beltline, getting caught at all the lights (because there are so many lights on Beltline!)

It was ridiculous, trying to find out what we were gonna do and I asked him just to try. I really wanted him at that time to just take me away. The Toll Way was right there, and you could just drive. Preston goes to Oklahoma! You can just go to Oklahoma! There are so many options! We didn’t. He was, like, “I need to get you home. Your parents want you home. Your grandparents are here and you need to go see them even though I know that you’re out here avoiding them.” 

I dunno, now that my grandmother is actually really sick, I’m glad for things like that. That other people would make me realize that, however upset I would get at them, they’re not going to be alive much longer. I should spend more time with them. But, I’m also glad I didn’t run away with him. That never would have actually happened. In retrospect, there are a lot of things I didn’t realize at the time, but it’s weird how roads, like Beltline, can conjure up random things like that.

-Erin, Dunn Bros. Coffee

Almond Latte

Based on where we are (we are in the Oak Lawn/Cedar Springs area), I definitely remember the first time that I came here. It was years ago now and it was really exciting. I was a senior in high school and I’d heard of the area. I mean, like, this is Dallas, Texas; I didn’t know there was a “gay” area in Dallas, but I’d heard of the area.

So, my first date was with this guy, and we decided to come to this area. I think, actually, we came to this place, because we came to eat. I don’t remember how that went, but I remember we left and just started walking around. I mean, I’m looking at the sidewalks right now where we walked and like, it was one of our first dates and we weren’t holding and but I actually felt like, “Oh my gosh, I could hold somebody’s hand here.” It was really cool.

     There’s a neighboring business building, next to the area. So, for some reason, we leave this magical place of rainbow flags and pride and go to this business building. They have a pretty courtyard.

He was really shy. He wasn’t really talkative or responsive. I was doing most of the talking. I started jumping around on the fountains and trying to splash him and being playful. Getting this cute guy out of his shell. So, that was a very fond memory. I think we took several photos and did a little photo shoot.

So literally every time I come here I think about just walking the sidewalks and how much fun it is just to be in the area. Despite being in Texas, a very red state, I have found a blue, liberal city. And I have found the most liberal street of them all. It serves coffee and pancakes and happiness.

-Trent, Cafe Brazil