LITTLE GIRLS AND MORE MEMORIES

I just had another wonderful memory that I omitted in the last post. I have my Senior Moments more frequently than I used to, but it's great when you have a great flashback!

When I was a young girl (in training to be a young lady), a very special treat for me was going to Dallas to shop. Growing up in Fort Worth, that was pretty much a no-no since the two towns were in strong competition at the time. I remember one time when Amon G. Carter, who was a friend of my families and a very prominent citizen in Fort Worth, took a sack lunch with him to Dallas and ate it on the street corner since he didn't want to patronize any of their restaurants. Now that's really strong competition! Big Amon, as Daddy called him, didn't like Dallas at all since Fort Worth was HIS town. After all, he owned the only newspaper in town, The Fort Worth Star Telegram!

Anyway, every year just before school started, my Mother would sneak me over to Dallas to a very exclusive dress shop for children called Young Ages, and buy my wardrobe for special occasions there for the coming year. At the time, Fort Worth didn't have anything like that. The dresses were lovely little one of a kind frocks, and I always felt very special when I was wearing one. Since I had to wear uniforms at the private school I attended, this made dressing up much more important to me.

After we shopped, we would go to the Adolphus Hotel for lunch and watch the ice show. For several years, there was a small ice rink in the hotel itself and as you dined, you could watch a special performance by professional ice skaters. What a treat! The hotel was just down the street from Neiman Marcus, so after lunch we would finish our shopping there and head home before Daddy arrived home from work. It was Mother's and my little secret.

Neiman's has always been a special place to me as well. Mr. Marcus did not have a store in Fort Worth at the time (that came much later) and at Christmas time my Godfather, Ben E. Keith, would always buy me something really special from there (he wasn't as fussy about shopping in Dallas as his good friend Amon was). He also knew that I loved to receive presents from that store (I still do!) They wrapped things more beautifully that any other place in the world in my eyes, and I think I really liked the wrapping as much as the gift inside.

Here is some interesting information I found on the Adolphus. When Queen Elizabeth II visited Dallas in 1991 it probably didn’t occur to her that she was staying in a hotel built on a beer budget with champagne taste.
Built in 1912, the Hotel Adolphus was bankrolled by hotel namesake Adolphus Busch, co-founder of the Anheuser-Busch brewery in St. Louis. Mr. Busch built the 260-room hotel for $2.5 million. However, shortly after the hotel opened, he died in his native Germany without seeing the Texas hotel.
For nearly a century the hotel has maintained its gilded-age flavor of opulence and gracious living. When the grand 19-story hotel opened on Commerce Street, it was deemed “the most beautiful building west of Venice’’ by the architectural critics of the day, and has since attracted scores of other accolades gushing over the toney restaurants and plush decor.

In addition to the royal visit, the hotel was known for its impressive guest list of the fabulously famous. The hotel’s guest book reads like a Who’s Who of the 20th century.
For example, here are some of the signatures: Steve Allen, The Andrews Sister, Maya Angelou, Lucie Arnaz, Arthur Ashe, Gene Autrey, Joan Baez, Irving Berlin, Peter Bogdonavich, Yul Brenner, George Burns, Michael Caine, Rosemary Clooney, Bill Cosby, Bing Crosby, Faye Dunaway, Amelia Earhart, Greer Garson, Gatlin Brothers, Dizzy Gillespie, Jane Goodall, Merv Griffin, Ethan Hawke, Hildegarde, James Earl Jones, B.B. King, Janet Leigh, Jay Leno, Yo-Yo Ma, Mickey Mantle, Roger Miller, Mary Tyler Moore, Edith Piaf, Arnold Schwartzenegger, Grace Slick and Donald Trump.
In addition to its impressive guest list, the hotel boasts a collection of museum-quality art. Busch family members took some major pieces when the hotel was sold. However its current holdings include: Portrait of a Woman as Diana, the Huntress, by Jan Gerritz van Bronchorst; Venus and Cupid, by Louis Courtat; The French Court by Ladislaus Bakalowicz; and a still life by the Dutch painter Pieter Gerrits van Roestraten.
In the past, the Dallas Museum of Art has used the hotel for some of its art exhibits, said David Davis, director of public relations.
In its earlier years, the hotel was known as much for its entertainment shows as it was for its accommodations.
“It was a landmark hotel for dining, dancing and entertainment,” said Tony Zoppi, who wrote the entertainment column “Dallas After Dark” . Any important person who came to Dallas stayed at the Adolphus.”
The hotel’s shows were presented in the now defunct Century Room, which at one time operated a retractable ice rink for skating shows. The Century Room has since been converted into the parking drive in front of the hotel.
“It was a beautiful room,” Mr. Zoppi recalled. “Everybody wore a coat and tie of course, and the women wore beautiful dresses and furs.”

After reading this, I now know why it was so special to me. I had no idea about all these things at the time as I was such a young girl, but I know my Mother did. The world would be a very dull place without our memories. There are those wonderful times and experiences in our minds that we can recall and relive whenever we like. I'm very thankful for that.

XOXO, Pcasso