Denton

Denton is a college town about 35 miles north of Dallas and Forth Worth. The town is centered around the two schools, the University of North Texas and Texas Woman's University, with student bodies of around 30,000 and 12,000 respectively.

(back in the early 90s TWU became officially co-educational,in part because of fear of legal action by male applicants citing their status as a state supported school. A certain portion of the student body was upset with this, as many felt that TWU had a unique educational mission as the only state supported all-women's school in the country. At one point somebody stole the “W” and the “O” from the pedestrian bridge that connects the two sides of the campus across Bell Avenue, and for many months the side of the bridge said “Texas Man's University”, because the administration refused to put more letters up and insisted they'd investigate and find the perpetrators. Eventually the W and the O were returned, anonymously.)

I've lived in Denton for a little over 20 years, having come up here to go to school. When I got here in the mid-eighties the population was about fifty thousand, and today it's double that. The schools are still an important part of the town culture, but it's gradually become somewhat less of a college town and something more of a bedroom community for people commuting to jobs in North Dallas, which is something of a pity, although the center of town retains most of the sleepy character of older Denton.

When I got here in '86 The Denton Record Chronicle was one of the last locally-owned daily papers in the country, and now it's owned by a media conglomerate. Likewise Morrison Milling was an independent company and now an out-of-town corporation owns them. The large neon sign above their grain silo is still there, although they've stopped running it at night. It used to say,

“BIS-KITS”
then
“PAN-KITS”
then
“CORN-KITS”,

then “MORRISON'S”(which would flash on and off)

If you sat in the lounge area of the 2nd floor of the Willis Library you could see the Morrison's sign across town and read, which was very relaxing, waiting for dark and for them to turn the sign on. But no more. Once many years ago I ran into a truly plastered drunk at a bar in Denton who told me a joke about Denton that involved to American P.O.Ws in Vietnam who ended up in the same cell and who found out they were both from Denton and started to quiz each other about the order in which the Morrison's sign flashed the names, because they both thought the other was a spy, and because neither could remember for sure they drove each other crazy. It was more surreal than funny, but needless to say memorable-- except I can't remember exactly how it went.