For as long as I can remember I have been going to eat with my family in downtown Dallas at the original Spaghetti Warehouse.  When I was very little it was practically the only thing there.  My Grandfather owned the drugstore in Ferris and was a pharmacist.  Mama said long before it was a restaurant she would go with her father to that old warehouse when it was McKesson and Robbins pharmaceuticals.  She said they would get dressed up and go into town to buy all kinds of things for the store in addition to medicine, like candy, cosmetics, and Christmas displays.  Perhaps the most notable oddity in the restaurant is an old trolley car where one can eat, hear the creaking of floor boards, and dangle elbows out of rolled down windows.  Dallas has had streetcars beginning with the old mule-drawn system since 1872.  By 1886 they were running on steam and just two years later electric cars came into place, remaining functional all the way until 1956.  Both my parents used them and so we would always request to eat in the trolley.  In the forties at just 10 years old Mama said she would ride by herself barefoot from Oak Cliff to Fair Park where she took art lessons.  I grew up dining in that streetcar and listening to their stories.  Some of my best memories are of eating warm sourdough bread with exquisitely chived butter while my folks would recollect.  There used to be all sorts of outdated equipment around and Daddy would explain what each one was for and how they worked.  He recognized every old oil sign and Mama knew all the French Art Deco pieces.  It was always good food and a great hodgepodge of real, authentic history.  Last night my husband and I decided to go there on a date.  Although the food remains the same, I felt I had lost yet another piece of my family.  They have kept the old hanging Tiffany lamp shades but the rest feels barren and generic.  Mama particularly loved the Chinese Foo Dogs that guarded the arcade entrance.  Now those statues have been haphazardly placed upstairs along with a smattering of signs still remaining and a few other pieces of memorabilia scattered about.  For decades before waiting to be seated we would always stop at the old wooden Indian pictured above.  He has been relegated upstairs now as well, abandoned and forgotten.  Gone are the pieces of old machinery, the now politically incorrect alcohol and cigarette advertisements, and the Joan of Arc poster I loved saying women could contribute to the war effort.  The manager, a fellow history lover, was gracious enough to allow me upstairs where I had only been maybe twice since 1972.  I had never seen the old victrola and he kindly let me take pictures of the few things that had not been stripped and sold.  The carpet was still the same and I recognized the old wooden sign saying “Please Use Spitoon.”  It was so impossibly sad; I could feel the whispers of time gone by all around me.  Every Italian chain I can think of has black and white pictures of people whom I neither recognize nor care about.  In an era of sameness this place stood out.  Coco Chanel said, “In order to be irreplaceable one must always be different.”  For more than 40 years this place was unique and special.  With the world full of Kardashians, Spaghetti Warehouse was a Lucille Ball:  quirky, timeless and grand.  Personally, I love Lucy.