I’ve passed this daily since the start of last month. Before: Resist We Much! Presently: Now We Heal Can.

I suppose it’s a meaningless coincidence that the street dead-ends at the Lakewood Cemetery gates about eight blocks later. Technically, all the residents are healed.

This site is designed with a program that’s been around for a long time: Dreamweaver. Oh, you say, that explains a lot.

But it’s been updated! Works with the newest version of MacOS. But frequently through the day, at two minutes after the hour, it gives me this:

Okay great thanks for the heads up. Maybe you can just close now, like any good notification window? No: one has to do something. You have to save the log, or close the window. The “hide” option is aways greyed out and never works. In other words, it presents the most useful option, then denies it,

I saved the log and opened it up, keen to see what this thing was doing, beavering away behind the scenes.

Started: 12/2/20 8:02 PM

File activity complete.

Finished: 12/2/20 8:02 PM

Wow, really important stuff here. Let’s google around and see if we can find a solution . . . hmm. Like all Adobe products, there’s lots of posts complaining about something, then complaining about how Adobe does nothing about it, and just politely shuts the door in everyone’s face without saying a word. Well, there’s this:

My first and foremost complaint is that Dreamweaver has this new annoying pop up windows that pops up each and every time you Alt-Tab to go to another program or you click on a another program in your task bar. The pop up window says, "Background File Activity." Ok so why in the heck does this keep popping up? If it's background file activity shouldn't it be running in the background where you can't see it? Why does it have to announce that it's doing something in the background? I've looked in the preferences and I can't see a way to get rid if it for the life of me.

Let's look at the post title:

Uh

There are more modern complaints as well. No one can figure out how to turn it off, so everyone incorporates the rote dismissal into their hourly workflow, because that's now the Normal thing to do. Why, it's like a stream that rises -

Sorry, right, sorry.

I bring this up because I am fixing every page on the site. Do you know how many pages this site contains? I don’t. Any guesses?

The overhaul is a daunting task and it makes me hate my tools. Yes yes a poor craftsman blames his tools but man, you have no idea the suffering I endure with Dreamweaver. And you can stop right here, telling me to do everything in Coda or Markup or Blue Pegasus or whatever; I’m locked in, I know the ropes, I need a wizzy-wigger, but GAH

Every page has a minimum of five links. Four on the navigation bar below, as in lileks.com > Subsite, and then Back :: Next. The graphic on the page is usually, 99% of the time, a link to the next page. So that’s five. Three have to be altered for every page.

If you enter the value - say, 31.html - in the properties box, and hit return, it usually saves. Usually. Not always. Because why would it? If you hit command-S to save, as I have done every seven seconds with every open document since I started using computers, because I trust nothing and expect everything to crash at any moment, it doesn’t always save.  You have to click on the page on which you’re working for command-S to save.

GREAT INTERFACE GUYS LOVING IT LOTS

ESPECIALLY SINCE YOU WENT TO THE SUBSCRIPTION MODEL

Anyway, thank you for letting me vent. I am still devoted to providing a Quality Internet Experience five times a week, as well as building up an idiosyncratic account of the 20th century's pop culture. I just finished the Matchbook updates for 2023 - hope I'm around to put them up. Back in March I thought “if I go from Wuhan Flu, I want this damned thing to function, because no one else will fix it,” so I set about revising and rechecking every page in the site.

It is a mixture of zen and regret and nostalgia and bittersweetness and relief.

 
 

 

 

 

 
 
 

“So, where you from?”

“Frazer Buttermilk Altus Leger.”

“Nice town, I hear.”

Wikipedia:

The town that would later be named Altus was founded in 1886. The community was originally called "Frazer", a settlement of about 50 people on Bitter Creek that served as a trading post on the Great Western Cattle Trail. Cowboys driving herds northward often stopped to buy buttermilk from John McClearan. Thus, the town was known locally as "Buttermilk Station".

A flash flood nearly destroyed Frazer on June 4, 1891. The residents moved to higher ground 2.5 miles east of the original site. W. R. Baucum suggested renaming the town "Altus", a Latin word meaning "high". This name stuck, although the town was also known as "Leger" from July 10, 1901, to May 14, 1904.

What can we glean from this?

Urban renewal, or downtown beautification. Sidewalks or parking turned to vegetation. A fairly recent storefront renovation. Interesting angle on the corner; seems too small for an entrance.

It was the opera house.

Adjacent: Looks like they stripped off the modernizing part but didn’t bother touching up the damage.

McMAHAN:

From an obit:

When Hatton McMahan, age 84, passed away on Friday, March 15, 2013, at the Tamarack Assisted Living Center, Altus lost an excellent banker, a civic-minded citizen, and a wonderful man. McMahan was born in Altus, Oklahoma, on October 11, 1928, to Hatton and Adella (Minor) McMahan. He was a third generation native of Altus, the descendant of pioneers J. R. McMahan and Fredrick W. Minor.

And there's also FOWLER, the other investor:

He was a doctor. His house is now a B&B.

 

 

Yhis place was full of proud developers:

 

J. M. Julian. He was a grocer, so I assume that’s what this building was.

I don’t know what Howell did to deserve jail time.

That's so awful. The only thing that makes it even worse is the suspicion that the architect was pleased with it.

Nowadays we’d just assume they had riots:

Off-the-shelf ornamentation, but a nice touch.

Surely it was a hotel? Yes:

Along Main Street in Altus sits the Towers Apartments, previously known as The New Orient Hotel, which longtime resident Debra Borders says was a hot spot for visitors from all of the surrounding towns.

"They had different shops in the lower floor. They had several different shops. There was an Altus floral and they also did bridal registries there. They also had a children’s store there. I remember coming in under that portico and you would come in and go to the right and see the children’s clothing,” Borders said.

 

Unfortunate:

WOW HAGEN WOW

 

Strikingly modern, as people say when they want to sound more complimentary than they actually feel:

Nice letters.

The NBC bank building. Gave people a nice sense of town prosperity when it went up.

I guess we know which type of brick cost more.

Looks as if the Google car happened to catch it between removal of the old facade and its imminent renovation.

Not so. It’s been like this for years. Interesting how you can read the remnants of the pediment over the door; no doubt a bank.

Previously: cruelty.

 

When your three-year-old names the building:

“He said Boadway and that’s what he meant and that’s what you’ll put on the wall!”

We all know what this was, don’t we.

 

 

OUMB:

 

KIRBY:

Stout lady in a tutu.

 

"Church" being the last role before rehabbing:

Says a cinema treasures contributor:

Circling the Altus Town Square were once four theatres, one on each side. Among these the Plaza Theatre is the only remaining theatre. Originally designed in plain Spanish Colonial styling, it was later redecorated inside/out in dull Streamline Moderne style.

It has faded comedy-tragedy masks.

I’m interested in those other three theaters. What must it have been like to head downtown on a Saturday night in the summer? I know where I’d end up after the show.

 

That'll do; almost done with the week! Friday awaits. But first, Motels. Four this week, as I try to get them all in before the end of the year. As if there's some schedule or law I have to follow.

But there is.

 

 

 

 

 
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