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To work inside a county hospital like Parkland, you have to keep a steady gait while the ground shifts beneath your feet. That’s what Katie Mapula loves about her job as the nursing director over all five intensive care units and burn center operations. You think you know what the day will look like, and then—boom—there’s an urgent rush to make order of fresh chaos. 

On the morning of September 29, 2021, Mapula was making order of yet another exhausting COVID surge. The swath the Delta variant cut through Dallas had filled every bed in the ICU and then some. She had already converted 12 more beds on the Medical Surgery floor to handle the growing demand when—boom—a startling notification rang in. 

Once there was a city called Frisco, and she loved a little boy. Every day the boy would come and play in her fields and creeks. He would pretend to be Roger Staubach slaying a fire-breathing dragon, or he would pretend to be Bob Lee Swagger, Mark Wahlberg’s character in the movie Shooter, taking into account humidity, temperature, wind, and the Coriolis effect before sending his lead downrange. 

And when the boy was tired after playing in the fields and creeks, he would sleep in the shade of the city’s trees. And the boy loved Frisco. And the city was happy.

But time went by. And the boy grew older. Then one day the boy came to the city, and Frisco said, “Come, boy, come and pretend to nail headshots from more than a mile away while you are inexplicably on a snow-covered mountain ridge where two helicopters have just landed, and be happy.”

“I am too big for that nonsense,” said the boy. “I want to buy things and have fun.”

And so the city gave her fields and creeks to Jerry Jones, who built The Star in Frisco, a 91-acre campus that included the Ford Center and Tostitos Championship Plaza and a Dallas Cowboys Pro Shop and a Mi Cocina and a Wahlburgers, as it turns out. 

I was only a few steps into Deep Vellum before I bumped into a table with one of my favorite author’s latest books on it.

I had not read it but had been meaning to; after I finished perusing the store, I picked it up to purchase. As I opened the pages to thumb through the colorful hardback, I saw it was a signed copy. What were the chances? 

Finding a signed copy from one of my favorite authors was a serendipitous moment. But behind the scenes, Deep Vellum and its CEO Will Evans have been working for years to make these moments happen. The independent publishing house and bookstore is in Deep Ellum, an area known for its embrace of the arts since the days of Blind Lemon Jefferson. The shop is busy, compact, and full of energy—much like Evans himself. For nearly a decade, he has been grinding to create something from nothing. Along the way, he is doing more; he is sparking a literary movement in Dallas.   

Wally Marshall, aka Mr. Crappie, puts about 90,000 miles on his truck every year, crisscrossing the country from his home in Anna, Texas, to share the good word about his favorite fish. He also hosts the annual Crappie Expo, which features the $300,000 Mr. Crappie Invitational Tournament, the world’s largest crappie fry, and a three-day consumer show. Field & Stream has called him an “American icon.” And this year, in recognition of all his philanthropic work and for revolutionizing the sport of crappie fishing, Marshall will be inducted into the Texas Freshwater Fishing Hall of Fame.

In the March issue, we asked him to reflect on all this.

Laray Polk is one of the more interesting people I know. I met her about 15 years ago, after she’d sent a series of emails to the magazine that were more literate than much of the correspondence we receive. I would come to learn that Laray is a writer. In 2013, she co-authored a book with Noam Chomsky that bears the cheerful title Nuclear War and Environmental Catastrophe. More recently, her writing has focused on a remote South Pacific island called Olohega, which was stolen from its inhabitants in 1860 by a U.S. sea captain who appears to have claimed ownership without even the common courtesy of having paid the place a visit. Laray’s original research may yet change the history of the island.

She’s also an artist. Here’s a text I got from her late last year, about a multi-media show she was mounting at two SMU galleries: “This week is the install. I will be moving 600 lbs of White Rock to one gallery and bags of Bolivar Peninsula sediments to the other.”

And Laray once owned a golf course. Or her husband did. He is Jack Mims, also an artist, and his family for many years operated Sunset Golf Club in Grand Prairie, likely the first integrated course in North Texas. That’s the conclusion we came to in 2019, when we published a story about the wild characters who once held court in its clubhouse. 

Oh, one more thing: the other day Laray told me that her neighbors have given over their backyard to a llama. She lives in a part of southern Dallas, not far from the Trinity River levees, where such things happen.

All of which is why she was the perfect person to write about an important anniversary for the river. Fifty years ago this month, the citizens of Dallas went to the polls and made it plain: they did not want to pay taxes so that a small group of Dallas industrialists, aided by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, could straighten and dredge the river, turning it into a canal to Galveston Bay. Can you imagine how Dallas might look today if we had razed the Trinity Forest and turned that land into a basin for barges to dock? Laray set out, partly, to answer that question in our March issue. Her story is online today.

In 2009, KERA produced a documentary titled Living With the Trinity that centered on a man named Ned Fritz and a ragtag group who helped win that vote five decades ago. At just under 60 minutes, the film is a fascinating look at our city’s history. It will screen at the Dallas Angelika on April 6, with a panel discussion following. Details were still being locked down as we went to press with this issue. Ned Fritz Legacy has partnered with KERA to present the Living With the Trinity documentary. Reserve your spot at this link. I hope to see you there.  

But for the spread of cheese and crackers and a light insistence on my acceptance of a glass of sweet tea, the table inside Norma Minnis’ East Dallas home could have been arranged for an interrogation. Minnis, 78, and two of her neighbors, Olive Talley and Greg Estell, look at me skeptically, eager to learn my intentions. 

Things have become tense on their block. A dozen yards have red signs that read “Homes Not Hotels” and “Neighborhoods Are For Neighbors.” Talley lives four houses down from an Airbnb; she and the property owner have traded code complaints. Another Airbnb owner sent a cease-and-​desist letter to a neighbor to get that person to stop filing noise complaints on the rental. 

The three at Minnis’ table want me to know: they are not NIMBYs. Some among their ranks might have gray hair, but they are not gray hairs. They think this quiet area on the edge of Lakewood is under attack, just like most other neighborhoods across the city. 

Dallas has quietly allowed Airbnbs and VRBOs to operate in residential neighborhoods, and Minnis and her ilk have spent the past three years consolidating their opposition. A zoning vote that would kill short-term rentals in single-family neighborhoods is expected to come before the City Council prior to the May council elections. (Five council members recently sent the city manager a memo demanding that the vote be placed on the April 11 agenda.)

Minnis and her allies say that short-term rentals—defined by the city as a dwelling rented out for 30 days or fewer—are commercial businesses that operate illegally in residential neighborhoods and should be zoned out. They are not subject to city inspection, because they don’t have to be registered with the city’s rental home registration program. The Department of Code Compliance doesn’t work after dark or on Saturdays and Sundays, and the Dallas Police Department doesn’t have the bodies to prioritize breaking up a house party. 

Minnis and her crew have more anecdotes demonstrating the problem than they probably need. In Lake Highlands, two men were caught on camera sauntering down an alley holding rifles after a neighbor knocked on the door of their short-term rental. In West Oak Cliff, there was a drive-by shooting on New Year’s Eve. In Winnetka Heights, a Parkland doctor was forced to move his family because of constant disruptions from his ever-changing neighbors. In Plano, a brothel. Practically everywhere, party buses. 

Minnis stands a few inches over 5 feet tall and has a tidy white ’do that sits above her ears. But do not underestimate her. She is one of this city’s most effective organizers and has been for more than four decades. And she couldn’t be more clear about the crux of the conflict. “We own the water,” she says of her desirable neighborhood, “and everybody else wants it.” 

Albania, the small Balkan nation just across the Adriatic Sea from Italy, is a powerhouse on the Texas pizza scene. If you’ve gotten takeout around town, you’ve probably tasted the Albanian touch. One Fort Worth restaurant even offers Albanian Pizza, with artichokes, sun-dried tomatoes, spinach, and peppers.

To find out why the influence of immigrants from one small country is so huge, we talked to Maggie and Tony Hajro, two of the original founders of Dallas’ Albanian pizza empire. Tony opened his first pizza place in 1984, in Lewisville. For the last 17 years, his wife and sons have operated Tony’s Pizza & Pasta in The Colony while he enjoys semiretirement.

February is the month that contains Valentine’s Day, which makes it theoretically the month of romance, which makes it perhaps an appropriate time to announce that, while I have not exactly given up on the idea of romance altogether, I have given up on the idea of finding it on “the apps.” Tinder, Bumble, Raya, Venmo, SNKRS. Whatever. It’s not going to happen, and I have made my peace with that. I’ve been trying to use my phone less, anyway.

I did try, on and off for maybe two years, switching from one app to another, polishing and repolishing my bio, updating my photos, widening my parameters here, narrowing them there, looking up tips, taking advice. I made a connection or two and at least a few lifelong enemies. I learned I appeal to a very particular type that I won’t share here. Anyway, like I said, I tried. It’s like my man James Ingram once sang: “I did my best, but I guess my best wasn’t good enough.” That’s the way the cookie bounces sometimes.

But Zac, what are you going to do for companionship if you have sworn off dating apps? Great question, and one I’ve put a bit of thought into.

Yodit Tewolde’s family is from Eritrea and immigrated to Dallas when she was an infant. She went on to graduate from W.T. White High School, earn a law degree, and prosecute cases for the Dallas County District Attorney’s Office. She made the jump from the courtroom to the greenroom and got her own show on Court TV before serving as a legal analyst for the reboot of America’s Most Wanted.

The rainbow crosswalks were sun-faded. Cameron was vaguely surprised, remembering the headline on Instagram, the vibrant photos of fresh paint. How long ago was that? What is time? The signal at Oak Lawn and Cedar Springs finally clicked to Walk, and Cameron took a long exhale, approaching the Legacy of Love Monument that towered into the glow of the evening sky. It was hotter than she expected for November, and a single bead of sweat slicked down her sternum. 

She tried to remember the last time she was here: Stevie’s bachelorette party at Sue’s. Stevie’s asshole friends thought it would be funny to make her wear one of those sparkly straight-girl sashes. Cameron remembered pulling Stevie onto the patio, handing her a cigarette, and tying the stupid sash into a double Windsor. Cameron’s last clear memory of the night was straightening the collar of Stevie’s preppy sky-blue polo and kissing her cheek, asking, “Is that better, handsome?” before Stevie slipped back into the pulsing lights of the dance floor. 

That seemed like a lifetime ago, another world. Cameron couldn’t imagine stepping on a dance floor now. She remembered the thrill of being packed shoulder to shoulder with so many other queer folks, but now the thought made her throat tight. The pandemic had spawned nightmares of crowded indoor places with no escape. She had told herself it would feel good to be back in the neighborhood, and, besides, where else would she want to meet up with Devin after all this time? 

First thing I did was make the coyotes carry around at all times for my personal use a tin of dip, a bottle opener, cigarettes, and a lighter. And the lighter had to be blue. That was important. When all the stores in Dallas ran out of blue lighters, the coyotes had to go to Garland to find them. If the coyotes are going to say that was inhumane, then maybe they should learn to avoid this human. That’s all I’ll say about that.

Then I made the coyotes drink milk. Lots and lots of milk. I know that’s old school, but I don’t mind being labeled old school.

Did I make the coyotes do an elephant walk? Do I even know what an elephant walk is? We can let the courts sort this out, if that’s the direction you want to go. Let’s just say the Ringling Bros. got nothing on me. 

You know what happens when you put 20 coyotes in a darkened room and then light that room with only a strobe and force the coyotes to sort 3 pounds of ice cream sprinkles by color? Ask the coyotes.