August 13 - “Doing Dallas”

Big plans were on tap for our tourism minded selves this day. We took the huge step of venturing into the Big City - Dallas - for our next foray. Two stops there.  The Texas school Book Depository Sixth Floor Museum (phew. That’s a mouthful). And The George Bush Presidential Library on the campus of SMU.

 

The Bush Library was pretty impressive. Besides all the displays related to his presidency, my favorite was the special exhibition on humor in the presidency. Using my choices, I track really close to the humor of Teddy Roosevelt. Nice. He’s one of my favorite presidents anyway.

 

At the Sixth Floor Museum, we re-lived a pretty traumatic time from our childhood. Newsreels were playing from the time on a continuous feed loop, and I remembered hearing them the first time. We were able to look through the window where the shots were fired. Then we walked out onto the grassy knoll where some of the other shots might or might not have been fired from. There were two large X’s painted on the street marking the spots where President Kennedy was actually hit. That was pretty somber. But then tourists would race into the street, stand on the spot laughing and pointing down, while a friend would take a photo.  Then they would run haphazardly out of the street to avoid oncoming traffic. Absolutely crazy. And disrespectful.  I was kind of surprised at the range of emotions the whole experience raised in me.

 

On the way home we were going to stop for gas, but the line was ridiculous. Walmart was having a sale - $3.09 a gallon. So we went into the antique mall to look around. Strangely enough, we found two old books about the Kennedy assassination. We bought them.

 

We may or may not have found some other activities to do later in the day, but alas, due to time limitations, I shall be forced to expound upon them another time.  Suffice it to say for now that we spent a good deal of time gazing into a Hawaiian future.

 

Colossians 3:13 says, “Bear with each other and forgive one another if any of you has a grievance against someone. Forgive as the Lord forgave you.”

 

Father, thank you for the chance to relive some history. It was sobering. Amen.