of seafood and bureaucrats

HayJax and I lunched at Remington's in Addison today; I had the trout almandine which was cooked to perfection, and chowed down on the steamed broccoli (but passed on the apple pie). Ah, seafood bliss. I read on the web that Adam Remington has taken over management from his father, and that the restaurant was called Oyster's until about 10 years ago.

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Tuesday, I went to the Dallas County Clerk's Office - in the Records Building (next to Old Red - the landmark courthouse built in 1890 and recently refurbished) to get a copy of my Deed Restrictions from the Dallas County Clerk's office.

The Records Building was easy to navigate; before going, I heard that the County Clerk's office was on the second floor, so I took the elevator (never could find a stairway!) and asked someone at the long counter where to go. They sent me to the far left where the real estate stuff is kept in microfilm canisters (none of this stuff is online), and a clerk quickly located the 4-page record I sought. She then instructed me to look in their database for any updates/addendums/whatever (there were none) and then charged me $1 per page and sent me on my way. While there, I marvelled at the amount of paper they use : truly unbelievable.

My neighborhood was built in the early 1960's in two large waves of 500 or so homes each. As such, there are two primary sets of deed restrictions, although there are several instances of deviations. There are only a few "teardowns" (and subsequent rebuilds) so far, but these will certainly increase over time. The new ones tend to stretch the deed restrictions to the limit: 6500 square feet homes on a half-acre lot leaves little room for error .. and they look very out of place.

Some Deed Restrictions have eleven sections, others have more .. but they all begin the same way: Section I says the homeowner cannot sell to non-whites (this was struck down by the courts in the mid-1960s). Now, such wording looks quaint and laughable.