By Tom Dodge, KERA 90.1 commentator
Dallas, TX – Fifteen years ago, when three Midlothian schoolboys lured an undercover narcotics officer into the woods south of town and executed him, the city leaders feared that the town's name was ruined and nobody would ever want to move here. Many image-conscious townspeople disapproved when I wrote about it in "U.S. News and World Report."
My opinion was that if they had faced the serious drug activity in the town and talked openly about it, maybe the murder would not have happened. If the town newspaper reporters had written about the number of kids congregating in town each night, planning to smoke marijuana, smoking marijuana, and hitching rides to Polk Street in Dallas to get more marijuana, then maybe it might not have happened. Instead, the newspaper was filled each week with ball scores, church events, and other innocuous trivialities.
Well, what they didn't fear, happened. And what they feared did not. The town's name was not ruined, and people are moving here in caravans of SUVs. "D" Magazine ranked it among the top twenty-five most popular suburbs. When the murder happened in 1987, the town's population was less than five thousand. Now, the school population is more than that. Then, there was one doctor, one grocery store, two traffic lights, three places to get gas, two hamburger joints, and one main street connecting U.S. Highways 67 and 287. Now, there are four new schools, a clinic filled with doctors and a new clinic opening in July.
There is a new Toyota assembly plant. Hamburger-lovers have their choice not only of Dairy Queen and Dee-Tee's but Sonic, Whataburger, McDonald's - oh my, I can't go on. There are fast-food places everywhere. There are several good restaurants, including a new Chinese take-out downtown. There is even an ice cream parlor. There is a new Brookshire's grocery store, many convenience stores, each with gas pumps, and five new traffic lights. There are strip malls, truck stops, and a new bypass loop under construction. This latter project is designed to ameliorate downtown's terrible traffic congestion. Ninth Street, the town's only street traversing the middle of town, is clogged each morning and evening with commuters. Three railroads meet here and sometimes all three crossings are blocked. Highway 287 is a major U.S thoroughfare and ten thousand trucks pass through the town on it each day.
Air pollution and noise have increased with the population. What hasn't increased, I believe, is drug abuse. I have no statistics to back up this optimistic view, but when it was widespread in 1987, I knew it by keeping my eyes open. By the same method, I see school children - beginning in elementary school - now busily occupied with their obsessive drive for good grades in order to qualify for scholarships. I see children of all ages riveted to their computers. More teenagers have part-time jobs after school now at local new businesses and at those in nearby Cedar Hill and Waxahachie. Young kids play soccer, and go to dance, music, and karate classes. Most of this was unavailable in 1987.
But while some things are better, others are not. The traffic on a street system that was designed for one thousand people is a nightmare. The newspaper still chirps out innocuous trivialities.
And the townspeople still disapprove of what I write.
Tom Dodge is unrepentant writer living in Midlothian.