Remembering Miss Dallas

Remembering Miss Dallas
Bulverde Community Newspaper
http://www.clickitsa.com/content/view/15262/335/
Thursday, 18 October 2007
By Winter D. Prosapio

Recently I learned that we lost someone very special in Bulverde. Miss Dallas.

It's been some time since she left us, but I thought I'd share my story of the brief time I knew her.

Dallas was, in many ways, bigger than Dallas, as the saying goes. She was the storyteller at the library for years. Miss Dallas was the Meryl Streep, well, maybe more Lucille Ball, of story time.

She bounded across the room, often in costume, engaging every child in stories about everything from Fiesta to civil rights. She had this really cool gold maraca with streamers that she would shake with a magic incantation that started with "Swish, Swish, Swish."

She had everyone, parents included, focused. She had rhymes, songs, dances, all related to the day's story and something to take home afterwards. It wasn't just story time – it was story time on overdrive with Evel Knievel at the wheel.

As such, Miss Dallas had quite a fan base. In fact if there were a Miss Dallas fan club, my youngest would have been president.

My daughter could be in the middle of an absolutely fascinating game of hungry hippo and if she heard it was time to go see Miss Dallas for story time, she'd stop, run to the car, jump in her car seat and strap herself in. Thank goodness she couldn't reach the pedals or she might have driven over there herself.

This was what I was up against every time I opened a book at home. The specter of Miss Dallas and her superstar story time.

I tried to over compensate by providing quantity. We'd read six books at a sitting. But it wasn't working. My young-est daughter would give me a little pat on my hand after a particularly engaging read of "Are You My Mother?" and I knew she was just throwing me a bone.

Once Miss Dallas and I teamed up to do a puppet show at the Library. It involved a dog, a ship and a Pterodactyl. I got a glimpse of what it took to do story time the Miss Dallas way. We rehearsed and re-hearsed and worked on costumes. All of this for a 30-minute show with an audience of preschoolers.

And she did this every single week for years.

Miss Dallas, we miss you. May the angels be enjoying your stories as much as we did.