Kepler's Compass for Creatives

Cowboys Hats or Fedoras

In long ago, by-gone times,
Dallas was still cooled
By Toastmaster and Limit electric fans

Before Bob Wills’ Ranch House was
Renamed the Longhorn Ballroom
Back when “Sam” Zamudio became
The Sham and formed the Pharaohs

Gordon McLendon’s KLIF
Was the mighty 1190 and top 40 was all it played
With Irving Harrigan in the morning
Before he moved to Highland Park
Becoming Ron, not Ralph Chapman

When theater row stretched
For several blocks along Elm Street with
The Melba, Tower, Palace, Rialto, Capitol,
Telenews with its newsreels and short subjects,
Fox with the live burlesque, Strand, and
The Majestic was still the grandest of them all.

Back when Lou (aka Lou Lazer) and Ann Bovis owned
The landmark Dallas nightclub Louann’s
At southeast corner of Greenville and Lovers Lane
It was that special place
Where all the teenagers had to go

Unless they stopped at the filling station
To buy with a quarter what they hoped to use in the big back seat
At the Astro or Gemini Drive-in where they steamed up the windows
Never doing what they claimed they did

Dandy Don quarterbacked Coach Landry’s Cowboys, no longer SMU
While Dr. W.A. Criswell was our conscious
At the historic First Baptist Church

We wished Friday, November 22nd never happened back in 1963
It was a time when nearly all men wore cowboys hats or fedoras.

© 2012 Jimmie A. Kepler