Denton Meanderings

Before leaving town on Sunday, Lone Star Pa wanted to poke around Denton a bit, so we did, getting back to Corpus very late indeed that night. Lone Star Pa was born in Denton and we both attended the University of North Texas there, where we met. Fry Street was, at that time, the main place where we college kids went to hang out and carouse around. It was walking distance from the university and had on it a place called the Flying Tomato where you could get individual slices of pizza with just about anything you wanted on them (zuchini! spinach!)...and beer. I used to belong to lots of organizations at school and we spent lots of time at the Flying Tomato planning the revolution and all. We found out over breakfast that the Fry Street businesses are being demolished for some sort of development, so we went to take one last look. The Flying Tomato, name long-changed to just The Tomato, was already gutted and people hung around taking pictures. It was pretty sad. Several other spots we tried to look for were also all re-developed - ick.

Not everything was gone, though. A comic book store run by Lone Star Pa's childhood friend was still there, but closed on Sunday. The Cupboard natural foods store was still there, if much fancier, and Recycled Books and Records was still there, if somewhat renovated (and lavendar - I don't remember it being lavendar). Recycled Books and Records is sort of like a Half-Price Books store, but bigger and independently owned and groovier by far. I attended my first Quaker Meetings in the basement of that store and one of the little boys we used to take turns minding during Meeting when he was a toddler is now working there - wow. It was good to see the place. Good to look around Denton some - college was a pretty special time.