The sight of the new Harrell’s building in Lakewood recalls my introduction to Surrealism from Lollie Tompkins and Geraldine England, art teachers at Woodrow in the ‘70s.
That introduction was Salvador Dali’s “The Persistence of Memory.” I recently saw the work at the Metropolitan Museum and its accompanying description of the melting clocks: “A metaphor for the ephemeral nature of time.”
Thanks to Marlene Mallewick’s Friday vocabulary tests, I can tell you what that means.
The old Harrell’s, almost the age of a man’s life expectancy, lasted but a tick-tock in time.
Now the burned-down institution has been recreated.
One who has been absent from the Lakewood Shopping Center for a few years might not notice any difference at a cursory glance. But a close-up examination reveals different brick on that famous west wall where Lakewood Rat wanna-bes would act out “Watching All the Girls Go By,” a popular ditty by Johnny Ray in the ‘50s.
There is no counter for under-the-counter items such as New York Arts writer Harry Haun ’58 and others requested, (“What size?” was Doc’s reposte.) No kitchen or booths to savor what one Woodrow alum call the “world’s greatest french fries.”
No school supplies, no magazine racks on the right.
The office upstairs where Doc Harrell tabulated tablets and Wildcat football ticket receipts is not in perspective. And the windows on the world of Woodrow’s wellspring of social life are simplified. Semi-surreal-post-modern perhaps? Arch architectural artifice?
The former pharmacy was the first store in the Lakewood Shopping Center – the mainspring for the retail development of our area. The center spawned the Wyatt’s Cafeteria chain and the second and currently the oldest of the El Chico chain. The Minyard’s chain, started by Woodrow’s Buddy and Henry Minyard on Lindsley, has come home for a flagship location in Lakewood.
Now Harrell’s is the newest store in the center.
Unleashed, it is a blank canvas for the future of our area.
Kudos to Texas Commercial Properties, owner of the property, for going against the Dallas development dogma of destruction to transplant a new heart for Lakewood.
The Bryan Phillips Memorial Scholarship Fund
Classes ’48 and ’49 have established the Bryan Phillips Memorial Scholarship Fund in honor of their classmates who passed away. This year the classes awarded $1,000 scholarship to four students: Roxanne Arambula, Joshua Mezger, Leonel Moreno and Allison Queal.
Funding for the scholarships was possible through many generous contributions and the sale of T-shirts, sleep shirts and watercolor prints of Woodrow.
Bill Brollier ’48 arranged for the mementos for sale. He has them available to anyone wanting to buy into this great cause. He can be reached at 941-7722.
