Organizers believe the next graffiti cleanup in our neighborhood could be the biggest yet SIDEBAR: What: Graffiti Wipeout Day When: Saturday, March 25, 9 a.m.-noon Where: Meet for breakfast at Central Square Park, 3003 Swiss at Oak Wear: Paint clothes appropriate for the weather What else: Lunch provided by the Meadows Foundation will be served afterwards For information: Call Scot Williams at 214-793-1881 Off the top of his head, Bill Peterson can name most of the locations in our neighborhood marked by graffiti. He has taken photos of more than 100 of these sites and hopes that after graffiti wipeout day, any trace of spray paint will have disappeared — possibly for good. “It’s broken window syndrome,” says Peterson, a Peak’s Addition resident. “If you clean up your neighborhood, that says to the folks living on the edge that, ‘Hey, we‘re watching you, we don’t like that stuff, and if you don’t want to go to jail, go do it somewhere else.’” Peterson and others like him in our neighborhood who have been painting out graffiti for years believe their efforts have made a visible difference. They’re hoping to recruit more people to the cause during Graffiti Wipeout Day, which “could turn out to be the biggest graffiti clean-up ever” in Dallas, says Little Forest Hills resident Scot Williams. The event, organized through Councilman Gary Griffith’s office, will cover an area at least twice as large as any of the previous clean-ups with teams tackling everything from I-75 to I-30 to Lakewood. Events in previous years have attracted as many as 75 volunteers; organizers hope this year’s will draw 100 or more. Peterson says the abatement will target three types of graffiti: taggers, murals and gang graffiti. Taggers, he says, are the people who “tag” utility poles and such with their specific markers. “They think it’s cute, and they can do it in 10 seconds, and it just does an enormous amount of damage,” Peterson says. The murals or scrollwork cover much larger spaces and are more decorative, but Peterson refuses to refer to their designers as “artists” because “that’s too generous.” “Some of them could go out and make money doing this, but they don’t — they deface public property,” he says. Gang graffiti is what happens when gang members mark their boundaries with their logo or “test their territory” by spraying out another gang’s logo, Peterson says. To get rid of all this graffiti, volunteers will either paint over it or use a chemical treatment to remove it, depending on the surface. They will split up into teams with an experienced team leader, and police will escort the teams sent to an “edgier area,” Peterson says. Purging graffiti requires persistence. Peterson and a friend abated one area twice, and each time gangs immediately returned to mark it. But they went back to clean it up a third time last fall, and to this day the area remains essentially graffiti-free. “What we’ve noticed is once you clean it up, it sticks,” Williams says. “The graffiti artists aren’t winning — we’re winning.

It satisfies, it fascinates and it’s got a rich history — what’s the deal with chocolate? Ask Pauline Ofstad what her favorite chocolate recipe is, and she laughs. “It will just take me a second to get it,” says the Lakewood grandmother. “I always keep it handy because so many people ask me about it.” Ofstad is to chocolate what Hemingway is to writing. She has competed in — and won — State fair baking competitions for almost 40 years, including first place in the fair’s Ghirardelli-sponsored competition in 2004 with something called chocolate molten cakes. So, with Valentine’s Day upon us, who better to ask about chocolate’s appeal than someone who knows this much about it? Because, frankly, chocolate has always kind of baffled me. I appreciate a chocolate chip cookie now and then, and a bit of brownie is always welcome, but this whole chocolate thing, the chocolate decadence cakes and the chocolate towers and all of the 1980s restaurant cuisine created around heaping piles of chocolate, has never much appealed to me. Give me a well-made apple tart or a blueberry pie; now that’s dessert. “But the thing about chocolate is that so many people are passionate about it,” says Ofstad, who bakes not only in competitions but for her husband, grandchildren and daughter, whom she describes as a chocolate fiend. “I know a lot of people who don’t love chocolate, but I also know a lot of people who do love chocolate. If it’s chocolate, they want it for dessert.” There are all sorts of scientific facts and almost-facts about chocolate’s popularity, especially among women — which is especially interesting, since some research indicates that the Mayans and Aztecs, who were probably the first to turn cocoa beans into chocolate about 1,500 years ago, didn’t allow women near the stuff. And the Victorians were likely the first culture to give chocolate gifts for Valentine’s Day, which is also especially interesting given their wonderfully repressed attitude towards sex. Could that have been the first example of substituting food for affection? Since then, chocolate has been called an aphrodisiac, addictive (since it contains caffeine), and it’s supposed to be good for the heart since it contains antioxidants (though one wonders where its fat content figures into that). Chocolate may even contain some mood-altering chemicals, according to the Neurosciences Institute in San Diego, that resemble the active ingredient in marijuana. But researchers have also found that, to get high, you’d have to eat more than 25 pounds of chocolate in one sitting. All of this, of course, overlooks what Ofstad has always found — that chocolate tastes good. “It’s not dessert if it’s not chocolate,” she says. “The people who are passionate about it, they like any degree of chocolate.” Ofstad’s award-winning repertoire includes not just the molten cakes, but a chocolate crème brulee and a chocolate layer cake. But it’s the molten cakes, she says, that not only attract the most attention, but that bring the most smiles at dessert time. The recipe is deceptively simple — just two ounces of chocolate per serving, plus butter, eggs and sugar that are combined and then and baked in ramekins to produce a soft, liquidy center of chocolate inside a flourless, cake-like exterior. “Cut into it, and it’s like syrup,” she says. “It’s delicious. Garnish it with some powdered sugar sprinkled over the top and some raspberries on the side, and that’s a dessert anyone would be proud to serve.” She may be right. That even sounds good to someone who doesn’t much care for chocolate. Wonder what I’m having for dessert on Feb. 14?

Expect to see wines from Down Under to make more news in the next year: • New Zealand, which has taught the world a thing or two about $15 sauvignon blanc, is going to do the same thing with $15 pinot noir. Or so says Kim Crawford, one of that country’s leading winemakers, who notes that substantially more pinot is being planted by wineries and growers as part of that effort. “I think we are now with pinot in quality about where we were with sauvignon blanc about 10 years ago,” says Crawford, who heads Kim Crawford Wines, part of the multi-national Vincor empire. “And I think the market for pinot is wide open right now, just like it was for sauvignon blanc.” He has a point, in both cases. Despite a couple of wines that have acquired a cult following, most New Zealand pinot noir is quite ordinary. This is in contrast to its sauvignon blanc, which may be the best in the world (and especially for the price). Plus, it’s difficult to find well-made pinot noir for less than $20, no matter where it’s produced. • Yellow Tail, the Australian brand that taught the world how to drink $7 wine that has a cute animal on the label, is taking a step up in class. Its newest venture is Yellow Tail Reserve, a line of $11 wines designed to compete with $15 wines. The goal, says John Casella, the managing director of the company that produces Yellow Tail, is not to sell the new wine to current Yellow Tail drinkers. Rather, it’s to convert wine drinkers who spend $15 a bottle on something from California or France, in the same way the original label stole business from $10 wines from those regions. The reserve wines are a touch more interesting than their less expensive cousins, and the pinot grigio, with good fruit and some crispness, can hold its own with more expensive wines from elsewhere in the world. But can this line duplicate the success of the original Yellow Tail? That’s going to be difficult, regardless of their quality. The $7 Yellow Tail has sold more than 21 million cases throughout the world, an almost unprecedented success in the wine business.

This neighborhood resident takes crime fighting seriously NTCC Monthly Meeting Friday, Feb. 17, registration at 7 a.m. Breakfast: 7:30 a.m.; Presentation: 8 a.m. Renaissance Hotel, 2222 Stemmons Freeway Speaker: Howard A. Schmidt. A lifelong security officer and strategist, his career has included stints with eBay, Microsoft, the White House, FBI and the Department of Homeland Security Cost: TBA, reservations required — call 214-965-9000 For information, visit ntcrimecomm.org Thanks to Jean Maier Dean and her band of crime fighters, around 1,000 offenses were cleared off the police books in 2004 that might have otherwise gone unsolved. Just who is Dean? Well, she looks about like any other neighborhood resident. She’s lived on Swiss Avenue for two years with her husband and their three “beautiful” chocolate labs. But while she might have a soft spot for her dogs, she’s dead tough on crime. Dean is the new chairperson of the North Texas Crime Commission (formerly the Greater Dallas Crime Commission). She’s been a member of group since the late 1980s, chairing the Crime Stoppers Committee for a number of those years. But it wasn’t until this year that Dean decided to take more of a leadership role. There’s no personal story behind that decision. Like many of us, Dean has been the victim of the occasional petty crime — “I’ve had my car stolen and house broken into a time or two,” she says. It’s just that she feels strongly about being personally involved and supporting our law enforcement agencies. “Fighting crime is everyone's business because it affects everyone — if not directly, then indirectly,” Dean says. “Law enforcement cannot fight crime without the public — they rely on the citizens to help with information, tips and witnesses to incidents.” Which is where the NTCC comes in. The 55-year-old organization works with a number of local law enforcement agencies, as well as the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, the Drug Enforcement Agency, the FBI, IRS, the U.S. and district attorney’s offices and many more. The NTCC helps law enforcement by funding special programs and training as well as “giving law enforcement an opportunity to network among themselves,” Dean says. One of the group’s most successful programs is Crime Stoppers. It’s through that committee — which has groups in more than 150 local schools as well as for the general public — that so many unsolved crimes have been prosecuted. “The Adult and Campus [Crime Stoppers] programs combined paid out over $210,000 in rewards to anonymous tipsters in 2004,” Dean says. “Crime Stoppers is definitely one of our best assets.” Other NTCC committees include: Auto Theft, Legislative Issues, Kids and Cops, and Anti-Fraud. The latter is gearing up for NTCC’s annual Scam Jam event April 1, which educates the public about identity theft as well as other types of fraud. In addition to getting the word out about Scam Jam, Dean plans to focus on membership recruitment of individuals, law enforcement and corporations. The NTCC currently has about 200 members total. “We’re a very well-kept secret,” Dean says. “I’d like to get the community more involved, to make them aware of the North Texas Crime Commission and how important an organization it is and how much it can help the community.” Membership dues vary, but individuals can join at the $125 level and be as involved as they want to be. Corporate memberships are also available. The money, Dean says, is of course a crucial part of NTCC’s mission. But so, she stresses, is the show of support. “We just need to support our police and law enforcement agencies the best that we can. And as a concerned citizen, I want to be involved and do what I can do,” she says. For information about NTCC membership or events, visit ntcrimecomm.org

Tom Aldinger has achieved the almost impossible on Lakewood Country Club’s greens No one besides Tom Aldinger can sit in the clubhouse and boast that he has aced every par three green at Lakewood Country Club. Someone tried once. Aldinger heard a man bragging that he had shot four holes-in-one — every single par three on the course. Aldinger put an end to his gloating by explaining that his own record was five holes-in-one — the regular par threes plus a practice green acting as an official hole while the course was under construction. The fact that Aldinger has aced even the practice green “is just crazy,” says Gilbert Freeman, Lakewood Country Club’s head golf professional. “Hole-in-ones are a funny thing,” Freeman says. “There are many great golfers who have never even made one, and there are regular people who have.” Even Freeman, Lakewood’s head golf professional for many years now, has never shot a hole-in-one. But when Aldinger’s golfing buddies pooh-pooh his achievement as nothing but pure luck, Aldinger good-naturedly rebukes them. “With tongue in cheek I say, ‘Oh no — it’s absolute skill,’” he laughs. It took Aldinger more than a decade to achieve his distinction as Lakewood’s king of aces. He shot his first hole-in-one in 1984 on the 12 th green. The next two took place in 1987 on holes five and 14. The third was particularly tricky because Aldinger shot it during a bad weather. “The fog was so bad we couldn’t see the green, but we know the direction the green is because we play there all the time,” Aldinger says. “Obviously, it’s mental telepathy, too,” he teases. His fourth ace was the temporary hole in 1990, and his fifth was the seventh green in 1994. And now that he has aced every single par three, he has started to repeat them. Aldinger’s most recent hole-in-one happened last fall, again on the fifth green. “The anomaly about it is I’ve never repeated a hole until this year,” he says. And Aldinger says he has “never even sniffed” a hole-in-one outside of Dallas’ city limits. It’s only on Lakewood Country Club’s course, where Aldinger plays twice a week, that the stars align. Though the clubhouse is Aldinger’s bragging turf, it’s his wife, Nancy, who buys the trophies. She was elated after learning about his first hole-in-one, and immediately ordered a “No. 1” trophy with a spot for the aced golf ball on top. The second one surprised her just as much, Aldinger says, but four aces later, it’s become old hat. “Now she just kind of rolls her eyes and says, ‘Give me the ball. I’ll take it down to the trophy shop and get it mounted,’” he says. “For the last one, she made me pick up the trophy.” The trophies, each engraved with the date, hole and distance, sit in Aldinger’s office. “Probably my grandkids will take those balls out of the trophies and hit them over the fence and into the creek,” he quips.

In spite of the stigma, these neighbors mark their memories and milestones with ink John Peterson lives in a ranch-style home near White Rock Lake. He spends his weekdays convincing the wealthy to entrust their money to his investment firm. And he is a faithful churchgoer who is committed to his wife, newborn son and others above everything else in his life. Just looking at Peterson, his neighbors would never guess that he has tattoos. That’s right — tattoos. Not the kind that stick on with water and scrub off with soap, but the kind that required Peterson to walk into a place with a name like “House of Pain” and ask a pierced-up, ink-covered artist to repeatedly stick a needle into his skin. Peterson didn’t get his tattoos on a college dare, or after one too many margaritas, or during a wild streak before he settled down into married life and started having children. He’s not a businessman by day and a biker by night. For Peterson and others like him in our neighborhood, tattoos are personal and meaningful. In their view, body art imitates life. “No matter who you are, you judge at first sight — ‘He’s got a tattoo,’ or, ‘Who is this progressive freak who has an earring?’ I like to challenge those judgments,” Peterson says. “I have tattoos because I like them.” Not that he flashes them around — especially not at work. Most people who get tattoos for personal reasons, including Peterson, are more discreet about it. Their goal is not to show them off but to appreciate them privately — though they probably wouldn’t hesitate to chat about their tats if someone asked. Their subtlety makes these people even more of an enigma. They sit on our PTA committees, sing in our church choirs and frequent our breakfast joints. These neighbors challenge us to think differently about body art by bucking the notion that tattoos are either a youthful indiscretion, a drunken mistake or an affiliation with the so-called “tattoo culture.” The only box they fit into is the one marked “none of the above,” and that’s what makes their stories intriguing. Lovebirds for all time Kim Dates works in sales and marketing for Janimation, a digital creative studio, and so does her husband, one of the company’s creative directors. They met at a New Year’s Eve party and within a year were discussing marriage. Around the same time, they saw a TV show that told the story of a gay man in California whose late partner loved hummingbirds. Even though hummingbirds weren’t indigenous to the area in which they lived, he planted a garden in an attempt to attract them, but never had any success. When he died, the couple’s friends came to the house for a wake. Suddenly, a hummingbird appeared in the garden, and the man decided it was his partner reincarnated. The story touched Dates, and since she has always loved hummingbirds, she decided to get two tattooed on her lower back —a blue one for her husband, and a pink one for her. “If I come back, I’ll come back as a hummingbird, and he’ll know it’s me,” she says. Of course, Dates’ husband takes a lighter approach to her body art. “He always says he wants to come back as a cockroach, which I’ll probably kill when I see it,” she laughs. The hummingbirds aren’t Dates’ first tattoo. The initial one happened right after college when Dates was living in Houston. Her best friend, Courtney, already had quite a few — “I think she’s covered from head to toe now,” Dates says — and had always tried to persuade Dates to join her at the tattoo studio. Wanting Courtney to visit her in Houston, Dates promised her that if she showed up before the end of the year, she would do it. The day before New Year’s Eve, Dates’ phone rang. It was Courtney. “She called and said, “Guess what? I’m here. Let’s go,” Dates says. Sticking to her promise, Dates allowed an artist to tattoo a vine around her thigh. She wasn’t exactly happy with the results, but even now, at age 31, she doesn’t really regret it. The tattoo evokes thoughts of Courtney and her spontaneity — the kind that could involve waking up one morning and deciding to go to Paris — and reminds Dates not to take life too seriously. “If I had to do it over again, I would still do it,” Dates says, “but I would do something different.” And Dates say she doesn’t plan to get any more tattoos, except perhaps baby hummingbirds once she has children. Timeless, not trendy Nothing about Melissa Carpenter’s tattoo is flashy. It’s monotone, no more than an inch in diameter and placed subtly on the inside of her wrist. Carpenter grew up in Dallas but had the tattoo done while she lived in Los Angeles, where “everybody and their dog has a tattoo,” she says. She found it while flipping through a thick book of symbols. It is the triquetra , an ancient Christian symbol composed of three interlocked ichthus, more commonly known as “Jesus fish.” Its triangular shape symbolizes the Trinity — Father, Son and Holy Spirit — and the Celtic Christian church uses it most often. Even before Carpenter read the description of the triquetra , she was drawn to it. It wasn’t until she returned home that she realized it was embossed on the cover of a Bible she had owned since high school. That’s when she decided to put it on her wrist. “I don’t like piercings, except for my ears, and I don’t really have any strong reason why I had to have one — I just wanted one,” she says. “And I wanted something that would be timeless and mean something to me. I didn’t want a trend.” That was six years ago. Carpenter is now 35, back in Dallas, consulting for Arbonne and staying at home to care for her 9-month-old son. Her tattoo, though tiny, still garners some attention. Most people think it’s “cool,” she says, and others don’t give it a second thought. But Carpenter says it has never generated a negative response. The most common misperception, Carpenter believes, is that people who get tattoos don’t know what they are doing and don’t give it any thought — for them, it’s just a trendy thing to do. Carpenter also thinks it’s important to recognize that for many people, tattoos are a form of expression, though she can’t say the same for herself. “I wasn’t trying to say anything to anybody, and I could care less about what anybody thinks about my tattoo” Carpenter says. “I like it, and I like looking at it.” Put it behind you Beverly Geurian admits she was too young when she got her first tattoo at 16. She and a friend wanted to do something crazy, and decided to get matching kiss imprints on their backsides. “We didn’t really research it, and we weren’t happy with it, but we didn’t have to pay for it because we were cute,” she laughs. That was it for Geurian, at least for the next 17 years while she was married to someone she now describes as “controlling.” When she divorced him at age 33, she decided to cover her old tattoo with something more meaningful. She had always collected Texas memorabilia, so she settled on a depiction of the state of Texas with a rebel flag flying through it. Geurian calls the image her “scream of freedom — something I could do and nobody could tell me I couldn’t do it.” And she didn’t stop there. Not long afterward, Geurian decided she wanted the words “soul mate” written in Chinese symbols across her back. There wasn’t a new man in her life — the soul mate the tat refers to is Guerin herself. The person for whom she’s a soul mate simply hasn’t found her yet, she says. Geurian, now 37, is considering one more tattoo. She has four children altogether, and wants a vine on her lower back composed of their names. All she needs, she says, is the right artist to design it. Fired up During John Peterson’s years at Baylor University, he watched as his soccer team buddies had soccer balls tattooed on their ankles — “really cheesy,” Peterson scoffs — and ribbed his brother for getting a tattoo with fraternity letters. It’s not that Peterson thought tattoos were stupid; he’d wanted one since he was 15 or 16. But he wanted something original. “It’s a pretty big investment — and I really don’t do anything on a whim,” he says. Except for his first tattoo, he did just that. Two years ago, while on his honeymoon, he and his wife were walking down the dirt roads of Playa del Carmen, and Peterson suddenly exclaimed that he wanted a wedding band tattoo. He made the spontaneous decision, he says, because everything in his world was perfect at that moment. He also recalls his grandmother once telling him that people don’t fight long enough to stay married. “This is my commitment to fight long enough,” he says. Peterson’s wife, knowing her husband’s affinity for fire, suggested he put flames inside the band. The tiny blue blazes he chose were a sign of tattoos to come. “I’ve got this thing with flames — I don’t know what it is,” he says. “I wish there was a really cool story to go behind it. I used to love fire as a kid, but I never set anybody’s house on fire or anything like that.” The idea for a flames tattoo had been rolling around in his head for some time, but Peterson kept putting it off. As he approached 30, newly married and almost ready to start a family, he decided it was now or never. So he found a tattoo artist who created mirror images of flames climbing up Peterson’s feet. The shades of red, yellow and orange resembled something out of a hot rod catalog. “I would never ever put them on a vehicle I own, but I tattoo myself with them,” Peterson grins. At his investment firm, no one ever sees the tattoos — especially his clients. “I try to cover this up because I’m sitting here asking a guy for a couple million dollars, and I always want to come across as a clean-cut, presentable guy,” he says. The only place Peterson makes it a point to wear flip-flops is to church. “One of the stereotypes in the Christian community is it’s khakis and nice polo shirt with your hair combed just right, and if you love Jesus, this is what you’re like,” he says. “There’s so much more to it.” Peterson admits that he flashes his flame tattoos around church because he believes in diversity and wants to buck the system a bit, but he insists that the art on his feet doesn’t define him — it simply complements the way he lives. “My goals are to love my wife and my family well, work hard and work well, and love others well,” Peterson says. “If I can spark a conservation with somebody that most people wouldn’t, and it allows me to share a story of grace, then it’s a good day.”

Now that many of the bars in Deep Ellum have closed, has the party scene shifted to Lower Greenville? How is that affecting crime in our neighborhood? While some bars have closed in Deep Ellum, others have opened, and Deep Ellum continues to attract significant crowds. In fact our most dramatic crime reductions last year were in Deep Ellum. There are differences in all our entertainment districts. Each of those districts has unique characteristics; for example, there are no late hours permits or dance hall licenses granted for Lower Greenville. The folks who enjoy the Deep Ellum nightlife probably won’t gravitate to Lower Greenville just because some of the Deep Ellum bars have closed. Additionally, this year we are using extra officers to patrol the neighborhoods in and around Lower Greenville to help us reduce neighborhood crime while continuing to have a presence in the entertainment portion to maintain a safe environment for all patrons. We do not see any increases in crime in Lower Greenville attributable to the changes that Deep Ellum has experienced, and expect crime reductions in the Lower Greenville area this year. Are there any new laws on the books that we should be aware of? The most notable is the Verified Alarm Response Ordinance that was passed by the Dallas City Council. This is actually an amendment to Article I, Chapter 15 of the Dallas City Code and takes effect February 1, 2006. I know this issue has generated much discussion. I have attended crime watch meetings where the passion on both sides was evident. The change enacted alters only the Dallas Police response to commercial alarm permitted locations. It does not alter our response to panic, duress or holdup alarms at those locations, and in no way changes anything regarding our response to residential alarm sites. I would like this to be an opportunity for everyone to visit our website, dallaspolice.net, to read the actual amendment. I also hope you have the time to explore other pages on the site and take advantage of the information we have provided. Please contact us with any suggestions for improving the site.

Passport theft THE VICTIM: Patricia Derry DATE: Sunday, Dec. 29 TIME: 3:30 p.m. PLACE: 6100 block of Hudson For weeks, contractors had been working on Patricia Derry’s duplex, replacing the roof, then the siding, and finally the windows. Derry was preparing to travel for a few days to get away from the whole mess, but the day before she left for Peru — “to see the rainforest before it disappears,” she says — her passport disappeared from her purse. Derry’s friends helped her search high and low to no avail. She had no evidence that anyone in particular took it, and says she didn’t want to point any fingers, but she suspected that a few of the contractors were illegal immigrants. “And passports go for quite a bit of money on the black market,” she says. When her landlord threatened to call immigration officials, one of the contractors “mysteriously found” Derry’s passport, she says, saying it was found under her bed. “We looked there three times. We crawled under there. We turned the house upside down,” Derry insists. “We even looked through kitty litter looking for that stupid thing.” Even more bizarre was her experience two days later when Derry came home early in the morning after attending a New Year’s Eve celebration. She went straight upstairs to bed, and when she came downstairs the next morning, she found a woman’s “slinky black skirt” and “tacky tank top,” describing it as an apparent “token” of an illicit rendezvous in her living room. Derry couldn’t find any evidence of breaking and entering, so she assumed that whoever was in her home had a key to her duplex. Even worse, she found the clothes draped over her purse, which she had set down on her way in the night before. “So they were here while I was here, and I didn’t know they were in the house,” she says. “I feel so violated.” Luckily, nothing of value was missing, but Derry suspects the woman probably took some of her clothes. “I’m sure she didn’t walk out of here in her underwear,” she says. Contractors should have access to the inside of your house only if they are doing interior work, says Officer Keith Allen of the Central Division. “If they’re doing siding or roofing or a shed, you never want to give them access to the house, and certainly not unsupervised access,” he says. “Always make sure someone is there.” Allen recommends checking with the Better Business Bureau before hiring contractors, and always obtaining a list of references. If they say they’ve done work in your neighborhood, get your neighbors’ feedback. And never pay someone up front for any work. He also suggests changing all locks and even garage door opener codes after the work is completed. “If it’s a nice day, and you come home and leave your car windows open, it’s easy for someone to take your garage door opener and obtain the code,” Allen says. “Anything that would secure your house you never want to leave accessible.” Derry, who finally did get to travel to Peru, changed her locks soon after the New Year’s escapade. “Hopefully we will not have any more unexpected contractors,” she says.

Officer Dale Hackbarth , 46, has been sharing the media spotlight with the rest of his DPD co-workers ever since A&E’s newest documentary series, Dallas SWAT , aired Jan. 5. The show follows some of Dallas’ finest as they extract barricaded suspects, serve warrants and negotiate the release of hostages in volatile and dangerous environments. Hackbarth’s home life is pretty ordinary. He lives in Lakewood with his wife, Martha, and three kids: son Tyler, 14, stepson Eric Godat, 16, and stepdaughter, Rachel Godat, 13. But his job is anything but ordinary, as a recent episode of Dallas SWAT illustrated. The show featured Hackbarth’s squad, the 880s, as they stormed a motel while their negotiator did his best to secure the surrender of a murder suspect. What do you think about all this media attention? When did you realize the magnitude of a national TV show about Dallas SWAT? It’s been kind of wild. We didn’t think about how big it was until the first show was coming up. They were with us for a year. They were just like one of us. The A&E crew was practically living with us. We didn’t think anything of it, but when the show started approaching and we saw the first ad, we thought, ‘ This is big .’ The first ad I saw was on the side of a DART bus. Then I saw a billboard on I-30. Then my mom called me. What has the reaction been like? I had friends and family members sending us advertisements from magazines saying, “What is this? Are you a part of this?” Then they see what’s going on and say “whoa.” I don't share the details with them [my family] and try very hard to keep my work life separate from my home life. So what they see is me hanging out with a bunch of guys, working out and drinking coffee. But they have been watching Dallas SWAT . And that has raised a few questions. How long have you been with the DPD? I’ve been with the DPD coming up on 20 years. I saw a DPD advertisement on TV when I was working in a factory in Wisconsin. My brother was already a patrol officer with DPD and was always telling me how much he loved it, but unbeknownst to him after seeing the commercial I took my diplomas and transcripts and got in line like everyone else. What’s it been like working with your brother? It’s been an amazing opportunity to be in the same city and with the same employer. My mom was excited that the family was staying somewhat together. I spent the first five years of my career on deep nights from midnight to 8 a.m. in South Dallas while my brother was working the same shift in Oak Cliff. It was the best time of my life. What drew you to the SWAT team? I was interested in SWAT because of the ongoing training, teamwork, the intense calls and the camaraderie. I’ve spent 15 years over there, and it’s been great. The show in which your squad made the hazardous entry to extract the barricaded person was an incredibly dangerous mission. Do you ever get scared? There are times when you are a little apprehensive — when you say, “This is it.” But that’s when you resort to your training, and you remember that you have the rest of your squad there. But every now and then, you feel the hair on the back of your neck sticking up.

Peering into the lives of the tattooed. Years ago, I interviewed someone for a job who looked at first glance like the perfect candidate. She said all of the right things, acted appropriately interested in the job, and wore the requisite interview clothing. But as she sat down in our conference room, I noticed that tucked between her hairline and her collar was a tattoo. And not just any tattoo, but what looked to be a two-inch-by-four-inch bar code. I didn’t ask her about the bar code (somehow, that didn’t seem like an appropriate interview question), but I was curious. There was a story attached to that tattoo, and I wanted to know what it was. But we didn’t reconnect, so I didn’t have another chance to ask her about it. Then not too long ago, a co-worker and I were talking about a TV documentary she saw outlining the stories behind peoples’ tattoos. She’s not a tattoo person herself (not that I know of anyway), but she enjoyed learning the reasons why these people permanently decorated their bodies. Her reaction to the documentary led to a discussion, and that discussion led to another: What about our neighbors’ tattoos? Surely, there are more tattoos lurking on ankles and shoulders than we might suspect, and there must be a story behind each one. The result is this month’s cover story. Finding neighbors to talk about their tattoos wasn’t overly difficult, although we encountered resistance from a few people who said they didn’t want to read about tattoos in their neighborhood magazine. And there was a fair amount of trepidation when it came to identifying neighbors with tattoos or even volunteering themselves — some weren’t so sure they wanted their neighbors to know they had decorated their bodies, regardless of the reason. This story isn’t an attempt to glorify tattoos or encourage people to get one (or two or three…). Nor are we trying to scare people away from tattoos. Neither decision is any of our business. But we think it’s interesting to know there’s a story behind every tattoo, and we thought you would be interested in hearing some of our neighbors’ stories. To this day, I still wonder about that job applicant’s bar code tattoo and the story behind it. Given another chance, I would ask about it. Since most of us can’t or won’t ask someone about their tattoo, this story is our chance to pull back a collar or pull up a pants leg and find out a little something about a neighbor.

Losing the Mariano’s at Old Town was definitely an event to mourn, but the Tex-Mex restaurant has been resurrected less than two miles from its original spot, and it hasn’t made any changes to its most famous menu item, the frozen margarita. The first frozen margarita machine, which Mariano invented in 1971 after a 7-Eleven Slurpee machine inspired him, is now on display in the Smithsonian National Museum of American History. So people who order frozen margaritas at Mariano’s can “drink like they’re a part of history,” says general manager Jeff Lowery. If a little tequila goes a long way for you, try soaking it up with the “whole enchilada” — a 20-inch platter comprised of Tex-Mex favorites. Other specialties include the cilantro snapper and the chicken verde, and brisket tacos will make their menu debut this month. Mariano’s Hacienda 6300 Skillman 214-691-3888 HOURS: Sun-Thurs, 11 a.m.-10 p.m.; Fri-Sat, 11 a.m.-11p.m. $-$$, FB, OD

02.2006 Archives - Lakewood/East Dallas

Repainting the Town

By Keri Mitchell|2011-03-09T15:06:45-06:00March 1st, 2006|News|

0

Sweet Something

By Jeff Siegel|2011-03-09T14:35:32-06:00February 1st, 2006|News|

0

What About Wine?

By Jeff Siegel|2011-03-09T14:33:51-06:00February 1st, 2006|News|

0

Happy Birthday, Mozart

By Keri Mitchell|2011-03-09T14:28:47-06:00February 1st, 2006|News|

0

On The Attack

By Kris Scott|2011-03-09T14:26:35-06:00February 1st, 2006|News|

0

King of Aces

By Keri Mitchell|2011-03-09T14:23:35-06:00February 1st, 2006|News|

0

Tat Tales

By Keri Mitchell|2011-03-09T14:21:06-06:00February 1st, 2006|News|

0

Ask A Cop

By Advocate Staff|2011-03-09T14:17:46-06:00February 1st, 2006|News|

0

True Crime

By Advocate Staff|2011-03-09T14:15:55-06:00February 1st, 2006|News|

0

Dale Hackbarth Q&A

By Advocate Staff|2011-03-09T14:13:13-06:00February 1st, 2006|News|

0

Anecdotal Ink

By Rick Wamre|2011-03-09T14:08:43-06:00February 1st, 2006|News|

0

Mariano’s Hacienda

By Advocate Staff|2011-01-09T18:15:18-06:00February 1st, 2006|Delicious, Food and Drink, Restaurants|

0