old dam perspectives

A few miles outside of Cisco, Texas rests a behemoth. Separating scenic Cisco lake from a lower series of valleys and hills nested in sparse mesquite brush, rocky soil, and small farms and ranches is the old dam. Old dam's history must be as daunting as its effect on the imagination of those of us who once stood for the first time at its tapered bottom, staring with dread at the curved concrete rising hundreds of feet above our heads and stretching as many feet left and right. And in the course of this account I will return to the history.

But old dam, to those of us who grew up with her (I didn't realize until I began to write this that she is feminine), is a mentor of the imagination - not so much a historical or archaeological phenomenon. Old dam rises from the bucolic central Texas rock, cactus, and dirt and makes the place special and inspiring. To the magnificence of natural wonder is added an equally magical essence of humanity doing what it does best and being rewarded with the attention of the world.

To be sure, old dam is now only a condemned dying shell. Her roads are barricaded. The massive sweeping swimming pool extending from the base of the old dam several hundred feet outward, in which us Cisco kids splashed, swam and dived, is filled with weeds, cracked, and still spouting graffiti at visitors drawn from around the world.

Old dam is still there in person(a), but to me and many of us who have moved away she is now primarily mentor and icon of imagination, wonder, and awe. She represents the best of what a single person can conceive and what a bunch of likeminded people can accomplish.

I am truly a plankholder in old Cisco dam. Like any good mom she has become a lot of different things to a lot of different people. You know, every Cisco kid feels like she or he is the special child.

For me the old dam has become a music record company, a human performance consulting group, an icon trademark name for exploring ideas and possibilities, and now - well - this journal.

So welcome to the old dam blog. Please join me with your perspectives and historical notes about this magical Texas muse and thanks in advance for indulging me my coffee-buzzed, inspirational meanderings about this quirky world we find ourselves in.

In other places I strive to be more scholarly and exact with my facts and interpretations. My old dam perspectives, on the other hand, are pretty much a case of "I don't know much, but it seems to me that..." In other words, it’s just my old dam perspectives. Please take and distribute them as such - "only this and nothing more."