| Larry Powell: A hair-raising odyssey from 1991 to 2001 01/01/2001 By / The Dallas Morning News Good morning. Today begins 2001. Hopefully, the Soviet space station Mir won't decide to plumb the depths of irony and plummet to Earth just as author Arthur C. Clarke's majestic year arrives. Ah, yes, 2001: A Space Odyssey – how it overestimated man!
Now, as we cautiously eye the sky, let's look back 10 years to The Dallas Morning News of Tuesday, Jan. 1, 1991:
• FRONT-PAGE NEWS – In Saudi Arabia, Vice President Dan Quayle told U.S. Marines that it was time to quit using economic sanctions against Iraqi President Saddam Hussein and to start using force. (Aside: Operation Desert Storm, which did that, began on Jan. 16, 1991.) ... In Dallas, more than 4,000 University of Texas and University of Miami fans attended a West End pep rally. Experts anticipated a close game between the No. 3 Longhorns and the No. 4 Hurricanes in the Cotton Bowl on New Year's Day. (Aside: Miami won, 46-3.)
• INSIDE NEWS – A poll of 1,500 Canadians showed 51 percent wanted French-speaking Quebec to secede. ... Texas House Speaker Gib Lewis of Fort Worth was booked in Travis County on two misdemeanor ethics charges. (Aside: After he announced he wouldn't seek re-election, he was allowed to enter guilty pleas and was fined $1,000 on each charge.)
• COMMERCIAL BREAK – The Mr. Micro ad read, "The Macintosh portable just got affordable" – with one megabyte of memory and a 16-megahertz processor, the bulky portable computer cost $3,295. ... Arthur Murray Dance Studios advertised, "Dancing together is back in style" and offered the $75 course for $24.95. ... Dancing alone at Caligula XXI, the exotic star L.A. Bust. ... Jobs: A nonsmoking secretary/receptionist in North Garland could make $1,000 a month; the Pecan Deluxe Candy Co. sought a secretary for $300 per week. ... 1991 cars: Chrysler New Yorker Fifth Avenue Texan, $18,985; Mitsubishi Montero, $15,988; Plymouth Colt, $7,304. ... For sale: 1.15-acre lot in "prime area near Midlothian, Super Collider and Joe Pool Lake ... $23.9K" (Aside: Midlothian and the lake survive – Congress killed the multibillion-dollar Superconducting Super Collider in 1993.); in Mesquite, a four-bedroom home with pool was priced in the "mid-$70s." Also for sale, a tri-plex on Glenwick Lane. That University Park price? $179,000.
• THAT'S ENTERTAINMENT – When New Orleans quarterback Steve Walsh led the Saints to a 20-17 defeat of the Los Angeles Rams, it kept Coach Jimmy Johnson's Dallas Cowboys out of the playoffs. ... At the multiplexes: The Godfather, Part III (with an oddly coiffed Al Pacino) and The Bonfire of the Vanities (with Tom Hanks). Also showing, two hits: Edward Scissorhands with Johnny Depp and Home Alone with Macauley Culkin. ... On CBS-TV, Ken Kercheval and Andrea Joyce hosted the hourlong Cotton Bowl Parade (it drew 150,000 spectators into downtown Dallas). On KXAS (NBC, Channel 5), The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson was followed first by The Love Connection, then by David Letterman.
• TEXAS HAIR – As Ann Richards prepared to become governor, a News reporter asked her hairdresser, Gail Huitt, "How does her hair stay up?" And Ms. Huitt, who'd done Ms. Richards' hair for 17 years, replied, "I rat the tar out of it. I spray the hell out of it. We get it up there. We defy gravity." It'll probably stay up longer than the Mir.
Larry Powell can be reached at 214-977-8487; P.O. Box 655237, Dallas, TX 75265; fax 214-977-8319; and at
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