Showing Off for the G.O.P.

The Big D has come of age, but the funkiness is gone

All the good old stories have been worn down worse than river rocks. The oilman who re-created an entire Neiman-Marcus window display—gowns, gems, furs and all—in his living room one Christmas morn because his wife had said she had seen something in the window she wanted. The fellow who told LIFE magazine that he bought a Rolls-Royce because its powder-blue paint job matched his wife's favorite hat. Then there was H.L. Hunt, who, a Dallas editor once said, "would be the most dangerous...