Halcyon Days

Well, if I was going to be stuck at home for a weekend while my car was in a local garage for repairs, this July 4 weekend was the one.

Thanks to the Sci Fi Channel and the creative wonder of a man who once walked this earth by the name of Rod Serling, I didn’t need wheels and a gasoline-powered engine to go to the place I have loved since my childhood.  You know it from the hypnotic first notes of the introductory theme music.

“You’re traveling through another dimension, a dimension not only of sight and sound, but of mind…”

More than 35 years after I saw an episode for the first time, the name still brings an immeasurable sense of joy to my eyes and ears.

The Twilight Zone.

The stories, the characters, Serling’s insightful narration — these were all the elements that bound together to form one of the most unique television series to ever air.  Fifty years after it was first introduced to an unsuspecting American television audience, episodes of The Twilight Zone still seem as relevant as ever to the world around us in 2009.

It is that timeless quality to so many of the stories and the grains of knowledge that can be found within that I find so endearing, over and over again, every time I watch an episode and regardles of how many times I’ve seen it.  The stories still speak to me today as strongly as ever because, as Serling himself put it, The Twilight Zone “lies between the pit of man’s fears and the summit of his knowledge.”

I could have done without the car breaking down earlier in the week, but as a friend and newspaper colleague of mine noted on my Facebook page, being cooped up with Sci Fi Channel’s Twilight Zone marathon during the holiday weekend was “a pretty good consolation prize.”

I didn’t stay up all night, as it were, but saw most of the episodes even the most casual Twilight Zone fan knows, the ones that might be called the “classics.”  Most every fan of the show has an absolute favorite and I am no exception.

If you’re thinking that is “The Monsters Are Due On Maple Street,” that would be an incorrect guess.  Great, great episode illustrating the destructive power of fear, but not my fave.

“Time Enough At Last”?  Again, great story, but that’s not it, either.  “Eye Of The Beholder”?  As shocking a story twist as you’ll ever find, but still not the top of my list.

No, the episode that stirs me without fail is one, surprisingly, that Serling did not write.  It is “I Sing The Body Electric,” an adaptation of a Ray Bradbury story about a robotic-but-lifelike grandmother that must win the hearts of three children of a widower to whom she has been assigned.

To understand why the story touches so deeply is to go the Twilight Zone itself, or rather to consider the time it first appeared.  That was the time of infinite possibilities, for better or worse, and the latter end of what many consider the golden age of science fiction.  It was before a man had set foot on the surface of the moon and long before the term “personal computer” was on anyone’s lips, much less one sitting on anyone’s desk.

But in The Twilight Zone, infinite possibilities become reality and that includes robotic grandmothers who will love you for eternity.

For me, though, it goes beyond that to a perhaps unintended metaphysical analogy.  When the children are grown and about to start college, the robotic grandmother says she must leave them to allow them to make their own lives.  She tells them she might go to another family to look after the children, but she might be dismantled.

The children-now-young-adults are worried it will mean the end for her, but she assures them by explaining that if she is dismantled, her “heart and soul” will go to a big room of voices — those of other robotic grandmothers — where everyone shares what they learned from the families they looked after.

Could there have been something more human about the robot grandmother’s existence than just her appearance, her ability to teach and learn, and her ability to love?

Again, I’ll quote from Serling:  “Fable, sure — but who’s to say?”

Author’s Note: Fortunately, you don’t have to wait until the next Fourth of July holiday to take a vacation in The Twilight Zone.  Thanks to online video, many episodes of the show can be seen for free at CBS.com and on various video compilation sites like Veoh and Fancast.

Earlier this past week, a report was released that should have made every person in this country — especially those in the “Deep South” — think twice before piling on more of anything on his or her dinner plate.

However, I doubt the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation’s newest findings on the ongoing rise of obesity in the USA scared anybody off any beer, hot dogs, fried chicken and chocolate layer cake over the Fourth of July weekend.  I doubt there were any cookouts canceled due to concern about all the calories, fat, and cholesterol that would be running through the ol’ digestive tract and into the bloodstream.

The numbers are that scary, though.  Mississippi, after becoming the nation’s first state with an adult obesity rate of more than 30 percent, still tops that infamous list but now has company in Alabama, Tennessee, and West Virginia above the 30 percent bar.  More than one in four adults are obese in 31 states.  Worse yet are the statistics on the number of overweight and obese children.  Mississippi’s rate is 44.4 percent.  That is just a bit less than every other child in that state being either overweight or clinically obese.

But, lo and behold, what was among the “sports” headlines this weekend? Some guy set a new record in a hot dog speed eating contest.  Forgive me if I fail to rouse up the appropriate level of awe.

Speed eating and the gluttonous kooks who make it their quest for glory are just more reminders of how callous an attitude we as a nation have adopted toward food in general.  If we can’t have more of something, it’s a crying shame, and God forbid if we actuallly have to take time to chew, taste, and savor.  Sex isn’t the only arena of modern living where the mantra of “Size matters” is taken to heart.

Not everyone overweight or obese is in that situation due to overeating or the constant consumption of junk food.  Many are and our habits and atittudes toward food apparently are not changing, which could explain why no state had a significant decline in its obesity rate from a year ago.

In the midst of all this, however, we celebrate a new king of hot dog swallowing.  It is a ludicrous spectacle, speed eating competitions, in light of what more and faster is doing to so many people and doing to an already inadequate and inaccessible health care system.  It is shameful when posted next to some of the words and images revealed by my friend and former newspaper colleague Philip Holsinger, who sees many adults and children in Nicaragua for whom one hot dog would be a unprecedented feast.

Still, I don’t expect to hear much better news when the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation’s report for 2010 comes out.  I don’t expect a decline in hot dog-eating contests, pizza-eating championships, and sushi-eating smackdowns, either.

Last night, while enjoying Sci Fi channel’s Twilight Zone marathon, I couldn’t help but appreciate the irony that can be found in the final scene of “To Serve Man” in which a Kanamit urges the spaceship passenger-soon-to-be-dinner Michael Chambers to eat.  “We wouldn’t want you to lose any weight,” the Kanamit chides.

The Kanamits would not have trouble finding choice morsels these days.

Every now and again, something takes place that squarely falls under the heading “Things you were sure you’d never live to see.”

Such an event took place last weekend in the East Texas county I call home (for the second time). For decades, anyone in Van Zandt County who wanted to buy beer or a couple of bottles of wine had to travel at least 20 to 30 miles westward to find the nearest “wet” town.

Not anymore.

By a rather resounding margin of 188 votes, citizens of Wills Point, Texas, made local history by being the first place in the county to pass a local option election to allow beer and wine sales for off-premise consumption.

There had been only two local option elections inside the county before that, both in the neighboring town of Edgewood and both rejected by a majority of voters. A petition drive four years ago in another Van Zandt town, Van, never made it off the ground.

So why Wills Point and why now? Well, to put it bluntly, the proponents of alcohol sales in this latest election had something on their side the previous hopefuls did not: A truly ragged economic scene.

The moral argument about allowing local alcohol sales is unmovable. In other words, those who believe sipping adult beverages is wrong will never have their minds sway and those who believe it is not wrong will stand their ground as firmly. The only real debate in a wet/dry election is an economic one.

That said, it seems it was easier for cities and towns in Texas to say “No, thanks,” to local alcoholic beverage sales in years past, when the economic picture was considerably brighter or at least on stable ground. It has been a different playing field completely in the past 12 months. Suddenly, an extra $20,000 or more per year in the town’s general fund from alcohol sales tax revenue looks absolutely lovely.

Apparently, a lot more cities and communities in Texas are feeling this way. Of 38 total alcohol sales propositions on May 9 ballots statewide, 31 passed and that included a number of cities going wet for the first time. In the state’s current fiscal year that began in September 2008, there have been 66 alcohol sales proposition passages, only 15 failures.

The alcohol deserts that used to cut wide swaths throughout parts of Texas are quickly disappearing. Cities of all sizes are finally getting warm to the notion of keeping local money local, even if not everyone in town is keen on seeing neon Budweiser signs in the corner convenience store.

Expect the “wetlands” movement in Texas to grow even more in the coming 12-24 months. Wills Point is the first community in Van Zandt County to say goodbye to its dry days, but it will not be the only one.

Legalized alcohol sales alone will not become a magic wand powerful enough to completely reverse a city’s economic fortunes. It could, however, be the factor that keeps property owners from facing another tax rate increase or that keeps water and sewer rates from going up considerably.

It could also be the factor that keeps some stores open for business (and in the areas that allow it in restaurants, keep those businesses going), keeping people employed and with money to spend. The businesses it preserves could, in turn, create a scene that attracts new stores and businesses, even ones that have nothing to do with selling beer and wine.

For Wills Point, that would be a stark change of direction compared to the last 20-plus years. If in the next several months after beer and wine sales begin, the business growth and prosperity in Wills Point are unmistakable, I can see the other major towns in the county gearing up for their own local option election — and sooner than later.

Since starting this blog a year ago, I’ve discovered one very key fact: Maintaining a blog can easily turn into a full-time job.

The problem is that I’ve already got a full-time job (something for which I’ve gained a whole new level of appreciation lately) and the urge to go home and write diminishes when you’re spending most of every week….you guessed it…writing.

I opted to start my own little corner of WordPress.com as a depository for columns, some on current events and some slice-of-life pieces. While I’ve enjoyed providing those for readers’ mental digestion, posting one on a regular basis tends to slide down the priority list when the local news coverage duties increase, errands have to be run and housework demands attention.

But not wanting to suspend the blog indefinitely, I’ve decided instead to change its focus a bit. Basically, I’m going to turn toward shorter posts, mostly on two subjects that are personal passions of mine – personal technology and music. You can read the first of these on the blog now, a review of one of the best new albums I’ve heard in a long time, Quiet Company’s “Everyone You Love Will Be Happy Soon.”

There will be more music news and notes to come, as well as my takes and basic info on technology news and new product releases of note. I’ll include links in most, if not all, posts to help direct to more information.

And occasionally, a new column will find its way out through my fingertips and onto this blog. Sometimes, a writer just has to write, regardless of how bare the fridge is or how many dishes are in the sink.

Thanks to all who visit. Enjoy.

Dear Santa:

I won’t be offended if you have a little trouble remembering me. After all, it has been more than 30 years since the last time I wrote to you before Christmas.

That letter was when I had just turned 12 a couple of months prior. Odd to think, but back then kids were allowed to be kids a little longer than they are now. These days, you’re out of “childhood” the moment you hit 8 years old and get whisked into the “pre-teen consumer market” category.

Anyway, what happened after my last letter to you is simple to tell and difficult to explain. About two years after that Christmas, I suddenly became a professional journalist – sportswriter, to be exact – and that was at the same time I reached high school. I started growing up, thinking I’d go along an expected path of higher education, finding a girlfriend who would become a wife, and starting a family, including kids who would take their turn writing to you every Christmas season.

But somehow, it never quite worked out that way, though for years on end, I really, really tried.

Oh, I managed to be married just long enough to bring one child into the world, a very awesome kid who has grown into an even more awesome young man. Despite my best efforts, though, the wife/home/2.5 kids/2 cars/dog has never materialized. Now I’m 43, my son is finishing high school, I really have no one to care for, no girlfriend or wife, and not so much a career as “Gee, I’m really fortunate to be employed.”

And I don’t think I’ve been this happy and content at Christmas since….well, since I was 12.

Then I thought to myself, “Why not treat this Christmas like I AM 12 again?” So, bizarre as it might strike you and everyone else at the North Pole, I hope you might indulge me in a small but significant wish list of things I would really like this Christmas.

First, I’d really like a new bicycle. It doesn’t have to be a 25-speed, super lightweight aluminum competition model; I live in Canton, Texas, not Calais, France, or some similar place where bicyclists are not considered speed bumps for pickup truck drivers. It can be a simple, no-frills 10-speed bike. The point behind this request is realizing how important exercise is now that I’m older. I also miss all the fun I had a long time ago riding my old all-terrain bicycle around the neighborhood. I bet it could be just as much fun again now.

Some of my newspaper colleagues and I recently had a conversation about how sad it is you don’t see kids playing outside anymore, generally because they can’t (due to safety concerns) or they won’t (because TV, Internet and video games rule). Maybe if a few of them can look out their window and see a 40-something guy having the time of his life pedaling two wheels, they will be encouraged to follow suit.

Second, I’d like a full-sized soccer ball. In a perfect world about 20 years ago, I would have been competing for a place on the roster at Liverpool or FC Barcelona. Alas, I was born on the other side of the Atlantic Ocean and we didn’t even have a soccer program when I was in public school. There was a brief fling about 10 years ago with a local men’s rec league that had started up, but it (the league) didn’t last long and I’ve had to be content with just covering high school or college soccer games for newspapers.

But the one thing I’ve never lost in all the time that has passed is imagination, something that will keep you inspired and content even in the worst of times. I live down the street from a city park with soccer fields, so if I had a new soccer ball, I could go down there on a Sunday afternoon and at least pretend I’m scoring the winning goal in the Champions League final.

I’d also like a few new “old” video games for my Genesis and Dreamcast, names familiar to anybody between the ages of 20-30 but a head-scratcher to anyone under 10. Despite what I wrote a few paragraphs above, I can’t deny enjoying the pursuit of a high score or completing a level. I think it all started with that Video Pong system you delivered the last time I wrote you. I still have fond memories of all the afternoons bouncing a digital ball back and forth across the TV screen.

From there, I graduated to an Atari system a couple of years later and occasionally spending some of my earnings in quarters at the local arcade, and a classic gamer was born. Despite the years, that has never faded away. The systems I have now are considered “classics” (another way of saying old and inferior). What I have come to appreciate, though, is just because something (or someone) grows old doesn’t mean it is useless and incapable of delivering happiness.

I imagine you have several warehouses at the North Pole and you can probably find a few game titles among the overstock/discontinued stuff. I’ll be quite happy to take them off your hands and free up a little space.

Then there are clothes. Now, normally this is a subject of indifferent boredom when compared to toys and games, but as time has passed, I’ve realized it doesn’t have to be that way. It’s just a question of injecting a little fun and personality into the particular piece of clothing.

In my case, I’ve got a couple of suggestions you can use as examples. For instance, maybe the elfin seamstresses can whip up a T-shirt (I wear a large) with the wording “I’m not a real reporter, but I play one in the newspapers” or “Careful, or you’ll wind up on my front page”. My son is considering the University of New Mexico for college, so maybe I could get a lightweight jacket with a cool wolf on the back. Better yet, it could be printed with “El papa del Lobo,” which I’m sure would be an instant conversation piece among the Hispanic men I see at the coin-op laundry every weekend.

Well, that about covers it, Santa. Gosh, I feel so much better after having taken the big step of reconnecting with you after so long. I know you’ve got a very busy day coming up soon and a lot of children’s requests to fill, but I hope you’ll take time to read this, maybe for a good laugh during your next tea break, if nothing else. Besides, things might change a lot for me by this time next year.

Then again, I almost hope they don’t.

Terry Britt doesn’t have a chimney in his apartment, but will be leaving milk and cookies by the Christmas tree anyway. You can reach him at terrybritt@hotmail.com.

It is somewhat ironic that, on the eve of Election Day 2008, both the Republican and Democratic candidates for President of the United States talked it up about how they will implement “change” in the country.

Their respective campaigns have been rather lacking in that quality.

Thus, I went to the early voting line last week exhibiting all the enthusiasm of someone about to have a wisdom tooth extracted, and somewhat relieved to know the wait to the ballot room would be made slightly more tolerable with the golf game loaded on my cell phone.

I’m sure a lot of people would strongly disagree, but I can’t escape one basic feeling about this supposed all-important presidential election: John McCain and Barack Obama, as a choice of main candidates, have utterly failed to convince me that the next four years are going to be “change for the better.”

Neither has said anything that captured my imagination (or my heartfelt backing).  With the economy in the toilet and a finger on the flusher, the quagmire in Iraq continuing and a multitude of job layoffs, business closures and the like, what I’ve heard for the past four months is….

….the same old tired election year rhetoric.

I guess the pivotal nature of the current times here in the U.S. and worldwide had me hoping for better.  The only thing that looks to fall into that category is the voter turnout; at least I won’t have to hear about (or worse, have to write news articles about) voter apathy.  Having said that, I’m already wondering how soon a voter remorse news story will be appropriate – regardless of who wins.

But that’s politics, as the saying goes, and couldn’t be more true than at the federal level, a behemoth so dissociated from low-income and middle-income citizens it makes Mount Everest seem a 30-minute drive from downtown Dallas.

Maybe it’s unfair to expect much out of a presidential candidate anymore, regardless of what that candidate plans, projects or promises in the effort to get your vote.  The bewildering (and probably irreversible) debt this country is in did not happen overnight or during any one four-year term, and it will not go away in the same span of time.  The only cleanup job of this magnitude I’ve ever read about is Hercules and the livestock stalls of King Augeas.

Try as they might and with the most sincere of intentions, neither John McCain nor Barack Obama is going to turn into another Hercules.

Then again, maybe it won’t matter.  Turning to the tales of another anicent civilization, consider this: According to the Mayans, none of us have got more than the next four years ahead of us anyway.

Personally, I would take that as a possible cue to just enjoy the upcoming new Washington D.C. scene as much as possible.  It should be interesting, if nothing else.  In the meantime, find personal happiness and fulfillment in yourself and the ones you love.  You’ll be amazed at how much bad news and bad times you can weather, whether or not your candidate wound up sitting in the Oval Office.

And if the whole world does come crashing to an end in 2012, you might see me taking a guitar and a couple of bottles of wine and riding a bicycle up to the nearest scenic hillside.  I’ll strum a few songs, make a toast and sip long from memories for the last moments.

Anyone who wants to join me is welcome.

When it comes to power, Terry Britt thinks most politicians are like newborn babies: An enormous appetite on one end and no sense of responsibility on the other.  You can reach him at terrybritt@hotmail.com.

When you’ve been gone from a place for six years, you expect some things to be different upon your return.

I knew that would be the case when I came back to Van Zandt County, Texas, last November.  I expected to find changes in several components of the “scene” here — different people in some local governement positions, new school buildings, new stores and restaurants, that sort.  What I never expected to find, though, is not one but three dining establishments in the county that had licenses to serve alcoholic beverages.

Van Zandt County, you see, is that fortress of conservative living more commonly known as a dry county.  It has been for over a hundred years, as I found out from a local historian, ever since the state government declared the entire state dry in 1904 and then put it on individual county governments whether to allow the sale of “adult beverages” (the days of federal Prohibition, of course, superseded local law for a time).

So to suddenly find three oases in this desert, as it applies to anyone who enjoys the taste of something stronger than sweet iced tea, was fascinating.  In fact, it was intriguing enough that I decided it had to be examined via an extensive news feature, specially handcrafted by yours truly.

The result is in the Oct. 12 Van Zandt News and is entitled “Semi-Dry” (my headline).  It probably could have been made into a two-part or three-part series if I had been writing for a publication where my reporting duty was far more streamlined.  Still, I conducted interviews over a three-week period hoping to get at the jist of a societal and economic transformation that has been resisted for so long here.

What I found is that the local opposition to alcholic beverage sales is as strong as ever, but now so are the denizens who would like to have it available on the menu, maybe even in a grocery store cooler.  It’s a reflection of the changing residency demographic itself, the “old guard” suddenly being rivaled in number and voice by the “move-ins” from Dallas, Houston and other urban/suburban locales.  To paraphrase one of my interview subjects, if they had the option of buying a glass of beer or wine with their dinner somewhere there, they are bound to want the same option here.

But it’s more complicated a matter than just providing options.

Some of the locals are already bemoaning the end of an era, when Van Zandt County was somehow safer and more enticing a place to raise a family because you didn’t have to deal with beer, wine, and liquor being visible and readily available.  The problem is, just like the whole Ozzie-and-Harriet American family mythos of the 1950s, no such time or state of being ever existed.  Alcoholic beverages and their consumption have never slammed on some proverbial air brake at the Van Zandt County line.

In fact, the county line has been less a gateway to the good, clean life and more a neon exit sign for local spending.  One way to create an instant bout of nausea in any local official from Wills Point, Edgewood or Canton is simply to ask him or her for a rough estimate of how much local money goes over to Kaufman County and the coffers of Terrell, Kaufman and Gun Barrel City.  No sooner have you got the question out of your mouth than you get that reluctant answer face in return, possibly while downing a spoon or two of Pepto-Bismol.

Trust me, the package store owners in Kaufman County know it.  They — and I suspect the officials as well, privately — probably hope Van Zandt County and its municipalities never have a successful local option vote for alcoholic beverage sales.  They may soon be disappointed, as there is a petition drive now in Wills Point to get an election for beer and wine sales on the May ballot.

If it comes to fruition, and if it somehow beats what I’m sure will be howling opposition from some, get ready for a domino effect faster than a good bartender at happy hour.  If Wills Point goes wet, the last thing any of the other cities are going to tolerate is their citizens beefing up some other city’s sales tax revenue.

And if that did happen, it just might not be the end of the world as Van Zandt County has known it.

The morality argument aside, what this county has acquired in just the last two years are three very classy restaurants.  I’ve been a fairly constant face at Savannah Winery and Bistro in Canton since my return and I’ve dined a few times at Papadale’s Grill in Grand Saline, too.  I haven’t yet made it for dinner at the upscale Four Winds, but I’ve talked to a lot of people who have and who gush over the food, the atmosphere, and, yes in some cases, the wine list.

With careful construction of ordinances, the county and cities here can have classy beverage stores as well, not to mention the sales tax revenue boost supermarkets like Brookshire’s and Wal-Mart Supercenter would add with beer and wine sales.  The financial situation we are now in may have the biggest sway in this issue.  Wills Point and Edgewood struggle to keep city streets that aren’t a frontal attack on your vehicle’s suspension system, but they could probably rebuild every one of them with the annual revenue that goes west on Highway 80 to Terrell.  Canton has long had First Monday Trade Days to fall back on, but even a golden goose can’t lay eggs forever.

Regardless of what happens in the months to come, I know one thing that will remain the same in Van Zandt County: There will be drinking going on.  There always has been and always will be.

Only now, maybe the toasts and fine dining will bring about more changes — the positive kind — to the county.

Terry Britt would like it known that no package store clerks were harmed in the making of this column.  You can reach him at terrybritt@hotmail.com.

The center of downtown Sweetwater, TN, along Main Street.  Where department, clothing and specialty stores once ruled the scene, it is now dominated by antiques dealers.  As I arrived in the afternoon, I had just missed a classic car and truck show.

I spent last weekend in eastern Tennessee and my hometown of Sweetwater, the first time I had been anywhere in the area in 15 years.  I was there to go to my high school class reunion – or the private dinner that wound up as a stand-in for said reunion.

Out of a graduating class one member placed at 86 in the spring of 1983, we had 11 come by for beer, margaritas and Tex-Mex.  Oh, conversation, too, and probably more than one unspoken musing as to just where the heck everyone else was.  This was only reunion year No. 25, just five years removed from what was a well-attended 20th reunion (albeit one I didn’t get to attend due to work obligations) and not that far down the timestream from the first official get-together in 1993.

Granted, I know of more than a handful for whom the travel was too cost prohibitive, a couple of others who had to be out of the area that weekend and, sadly, a few class members who are no longer around.  Then again, I knew not to expect much of a turnout after two previous attempts at more formal reunion events this year drew a response of 13 and 8, respectively.

I still had a fun time, though, especially paired with another reunion over the weekend with my youngest brother’s family in Chattanooga.  They were happy to give me a place to stay, saving me quite a bit of money and giving me a chance to spend some time with my niece and nephew, both in high school now, for the first time in nearly four years.  Still, the sparse turnout at the class reunion dinner prompted one thought I’d like to present here: Are class reunions joining a growing list of vanishing staples of everyday life?

Residential geography certainly plays a part, but I wonder if communications technology doesn’t play a bigger one.  Twenty years ago, if you wanted to keep in touch with a friend from high school who wasn’t going to the same college as you, it took some effort to compose a letter and pop it in the mail, or save up for what might be a rather expensive item on your next long distance phone bill.  As for getting together in person, well, there was the urgency attached to the class reunion when the time came.

Compare that to our current keeping-in-touch buffet of e-mail, IM, SMS and Classmates.com, just to name a few, and maybe the mystery of “I wonder what so-and-so is up to these days?” has diminished sharply, or at least enough to knock the wind out of the idea to make a road trip and plop down $50 for a night of dinner and dancing.

Regardless, I’m glad I made the very long road trip from East Texas to get away for a weekend, see a few people who once were faces I saw nearly every Monday through Friday, and check out the changed and the unchanged in the place that will always be the place where I grew up.

As a newspaper journalist for 25 years, Terry Britt knows something about vanishing staples of everyday life.  You can reach him at terrybritt@hotmail.com.

Anyone with a hand on the pulse of working class economics should have seen this coming.

Lo and behold, $4 per gallon gasoline has actually brought some benefits to this country, among them the realization that $10-$20 for mediocre food and crappy service at a “casual dining” chain is no longer trendy, fun or anything approaching palatable. So it was with little shock and surprise on my part to learn Tuesday that Plano, Texas-based Bennigan’s had gathered up all its corporate-owned locations and somberly walked away from the hostess station. The parent company also shuttered its Steak and Ale and The Tavern locations nationwide.

Take a look at the public comments posted here and you will get the impression that the decline of Bennigan’s is representative of a food business sector that desperately needs to reinvent itself many years after its collective heyday in the 1980s. Back then, the idea of presenting an Americanized version of the European “local pub” concept caught on rapidly, giving birth not only to Bennigan’s but TGI Friday’s, Chili’s, Applebee’s and a host of other national or regional chains.

Eventually, other cuisine-specific restaurant chains – Olive Garden, On the Border, Black-Eyed Pea, to name a few – sprang up with essentially the same framework. They were all places that could appeal to middle class families looking to have a “nice meal out,” white-collar office workers seeking a good place to gather for lunch, and young singles scoping out a potential hot date in a casual bar setting.

Everything seemed to be cruising along profitably until the last few years, and suddenly a lot of these chains were found to be hurting worse than a waitress who sprained her wrist picking up an oversized burger platter.

What has transpired in the American economy in the past four years was bound to take a bite out of the casual dining chains’ happy existence, but they have no one to blame but themselves in a couple of other areas. In many cases (and certainly with Bennigan’s as the aforementioned comment posts indicate), changes were made to menus so often that one never knew if the entrée so loved would still be around six months later. There seems to have been a corresponding slide in overall food quality and service as well, and this became a liability as the casual dining chain scene grew ever more crowded during the 1990s.

The thing that may not be quite as obvious is how little the actual restaurants have changed, or a better way to put it might be “evolved,” with the passing years. Frankly, the Bennigan’s restaurants, what few times I had visited one in recent years, looked basically the same as they did 20 years ago. The same statement holds true for most of its casual chain brethren.

One step in the right direction might lie within the realm of entertainment technology, and, no, I’m not talking about the big game displayed on a 50-inch flatscreen. The Cozymel’s Mexican restaurant in Grapevine, Texas, earlier this year installed devices that let you pay electronically at the table, as well as providing new movie trailers and local showtime listings, games for the kids and updated sports scores.

And just why, for a business sector that has long depended on the patronage of the nearby office worker, free WiFi is not commonplace in their locations is nothing short of bewildering.

Maybe the managers would rather not see tables tied up for long periods with people on laptops. The way things are going for casual dining chains, they may not have to worry about it much longer.

TGI Friday’s, Chili’s and all the rest had better take heed, though. If you’re going to continue to sell $7 hamburgers, you better have something more to offer than a trip back to the ’80s.

Terry Britt greatly prefers to go out to a real pub – chips, Guinness and Trivia Night. You can reach him at terrybritt@hotmail.com.

I had gotten word there was trouble on the tracks about 4:30 p.m. Monday.

Eight miles east of the office, near downtown Edgewood, Texas, an Amtrak train had just suddenly lost all power and rolled to a stop. I took off in that direction, camera in hand, to get what would probably be a front page story for one of our weeklies.

As I approached the area of the track where the train was sitting, I could see they were unloading the passengers and waving them along to a waiting school bus. I got out and snapped a few photos of people walking along the edge of the track, then started looking around for somebody who looked like an Amtrak official to find out what had happened.

But then I saw something that told me it was time to stop being a reporter and start being a kind volunteer.

It was a woman lugging a suitcase that nearly reached her stomach in height, obviously in some discomfort from the nearly 100-degree heat outside and the slight incline she had to navigate toward the bus.

So I pulled my camera to my side and asked if I could carry her bag. The grateful smile was all the answer I needed. Along with her husband and another man who was ambling toward the school bus, we all found a small bit of shade on the other side of the street and talked for a few minutes about what had happened.

When the engines lost power, everything – including the air conditioning in the coach cars – was gone as well, leaving the passengers stranded in what must have started to feel like a pre-heating oven.

And then I found out I was standing with just three of 208 passengers who were suddenly stranded, trying to make their way from the tracks and hoping it wouldn’t be long before they could climb into something air conditioned on wheels again.

That’s when I really forgot about the camera hanging from my neck and the notepad and pen in my left hand.

For the next 45 minutes, I got immersed in carrying luggage, helping people down a steep and potentially treacherous rock grade and asking if medical assistance was needed. On the other side of the tracks, Edgewood police officers and volunteer firefighters were doing the same.

Vans from two churches in Mineola, about 25 miles away, pulled up to the scene with volunteer drivers helping some of the passengers get to the local high school, where an emergency shelter and triage was being set up. I spoke briefly to a young woman, a college student, as she made her way to one of these vans after I helped her down off the railroad grade.

She said she was a journalism student at Northwestern (La.) State.

“God bless ya, or should I say God help ya?” I asked.

She just smiled and replied, “Yeah, I know.”

I went back onto the grade to help others with luggage or footing until I finally saw most of the people had departed to the high school or were being taken care of by others on the scene. They did get the power back online in the train and moved it a little further down the track, but Amtrak officials had already made arrangements to get the passengers to the Dallas station by coach buses.

All told, it might not have been rated a dramatic and traumatic scene, but it could have been very quickly. As the chief of police put it in our conversation a bit later in the evening, “We did all right for local boys.”

They did more than all right. They were brilliant and inspiring in their teamwork and dedication in keeping the scene under control and the passengers as safe as possible. Of the 208 out there on a murderously hot afternoon, only two required immediate medical attention, one for a minor foot injury and the other for heat exhaustion complicated by diabetes.

By 7:15 p.m., they were all on air-conditioned coach buses, feeling better after water, Gatorade and snacks brought to them by the American Red Cross, and finally heading west again.

Of all the mysterious reasons as to why I continue to work in newspaper journalism, I suppose it’s the Errol Flynn-style adventures that occasionally crop up, never knowing one day to the next what situation I’m going to find myself in with nothing but my trusty blade – uh, I mean camera – to get me through.

In this instance, I don’t have any dramatic photos to publish, and the story I’ll write probably won’t win any Texas Press Association awards.

I don’t think anyone will notice – not me, anyway, and certainly not any of the people Monday afternoon near downtown Edgewood who were just glad to have a hand to hold onto or to take their bag for them.

Immediately after this latest adventure, the swashbuckling Terry Britt rode off to cover back-to-back school board meetings in two different cities. You can reach him at terrybritt@hotmail.com.