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A D V E R T I S E M E N T
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A D V E R T I S E M E N T
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Well Connected
Static so likes to see its colleagues succeed — especially when Fort Worth Weekly helped give them a little push along the road. The colleague in this case is freelance writer Wendy Lyons Sunshine, who in 2007 co-authored a book called The Connected Child. Inspired in part by a cover story Sunshine did for the Weekly two years earlier, the book, written with TCU researchers Dr. David Cross and Dr. Karyn Purvis, helps families deal with troubled adopted children. (Cross and Purvis’ groundbreaking work on brain chemistry and therapy techniques deals with deeply disturbed, often violent children.)
Latest word is that Connected Child has won a national award from the American Society of Journalists and Authors, in the category of self-help books, to be presented next month in New York City. It’s doing great in the bookstores, too — and there may be a second book on similar topics down the road.
Purvis, Cross, Sunshine, and others associated with their project are some of the hardest-working people around. Of course, good things happening to good people somewhat shatters Static’s cynical worldview, but worse things have happened. And will — mark my words.
Bend, Don’t Break
With all the construction going on in the Cultural District these days, Static was wondering what happened to the “poles.” No, not a Polish community that was displaced by all the construction, but the steel billboard supports that got twisted by the tornado that tore up the West Side and downtown Fort Worth in 2000. The four one-foot-wide I-beams were bent at almost 90-degree angles, and in the years since the twister, they served as a mark of nature’s power, a sort of sculpture by a higher force that reminded us of where we rank in the cosmos.
Several months ago, the Museum Place developers started building a new post office at the intersection of Bailey Avenue and University Drive, and the poles were removed. But never fear — within a few months, they’ll be back, planted in a plaza near the entrance. Though not in exactly their original spot, the poles will retain their wind-wrought character.
The new post office will have a weather theme as well. A mural depicting the West Texas sky will cover one outside wall, and the postal carrier mantra about snow and rain and gloom of night will be printed on the exterior glass walls as a backdrop to the pole sculpture.
It’s great that the developers and architects didn’t take the easy, cheap way out by tossing the billboard beams in the garbage. Because we all need to be reminded that the swift completion of our appointed rounds sometimes has to be done when the wind is trying to blow us over. Static, bent into a veritable pretzel by years of fighting the prevailing winds in this burg, approves.
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