Great news for the 'hood

Happened to notice this sign a couple of days ago at a small strip mall on the southeast corner of Abrams and Royal Lane and got all excited. Could this really be a direct offshoot of the Henderson's Chicken I loved when it was in the old State-Thomas area before that neighborhood was gentrified? Man, I remember many a night standing in line at that Henderson's, across the street from a closed movie theater that looked like it belonged in a Larry McMurtry novel. No drive-thru, no place to sit down in the joint. You stood in a line that circled the small restaurant's back wall (sometimes going out the door) until you reached the counter and made your order, which would then be stuffed in a soon-to-be-grease-stained white bag which you took to wherever you planned to eat it. Man, there was simply nothing better than Henderson's chicken.

When that location was forced to move, it opened what was for Henderson's, a state-of-the-art restaurant (it had a drive-thru) on the corner of Gaston and Fitzhugh, where Henderson's imitator Brothers is now located. I remember a bunch of us hopping in the car one New Year's Eve and heading down to Henderson's with the clock striking midnight just as I pulled up to the window. "Happy New Year!" I said to the woman at the window. Her reply: "That will be $14.80."

On Oct. 17, 1989 I was waiting on line at the Henderson's drive thru listening to the pre-game broadcast of World Series Game 3 between the San Francisco Giants and the Oakland A's, when suddenly the radio went quiet. Dammit, I thought, I wanted to hear this game. I naturally figured there was something wrong with the car radio, but when I switched to another station it worked perfectly. I switched back to the station, carrying the game -- nothing. Finally, about 15 minutes later, the station was back on the air and only then did I learn what happened. An earthquake had struck.

One night my son and I decided to attend a U2 concert at Reunion Arena. We didn't have tickets, but figured scalpers would be selling them at reduced prices once the show started. Our strategy was to go by Henderson's, pick up a couple orders of chicken and have our own pre-show picnic. We were sitting on a curb outside Reunion enjoying our chicken when two Dallas police officers approached us to tell us -- I just know it -- that we couldn't sit on the curb and eat. But as they approached one of them said: "Is that Henderson's you're eating." When we told them it was, they joined us on the curb swapping Henderson's story.

So today I'm driving down to Abrams and decided to stop by and have a look. As I peered inside the shaded windows of the storefront I saw someone inside and he saw me. He opened the door so I had to ask him if he was part of this Henderson's. He said that he was and he confirmed that, yes, indeed, this was to be a direct descendant of the original Henderson's. When I asked when it would open, he replied "Give us three weeks."

As I write this, I am unemployed, desperately looking for a legitimate (or at least semi-legitimate) way to make a living. The economy is going to hell all around me. I'm terribly afraid of what's going to happen to my beloved Longhorns tomorrow in the Cotton Bowl. But I've got two reasons to be optimistic about the near future. My granddaughter comes home Sunday and Henderson's is going to be opening in my neighborhood in three weeks.