The dinosaurs would win the Feats of Strength

Loyal Scaiaholics will recall I look forward to a visit to Arlington's Interlochen neighborhood every year before Christmas. This weekend the Lights at Interlochen opened for their 50th year.

Those dinosaurs couldn't look more excited to see you! Although the bird thinks you look suspicious.

Ralph Sobel invites me over to this house every year at the start. He says the lights can attract positivity and, at the risk of editorializing, I would meander slowly through the neighborhood even if the power was out if it meant going an hour without hearing someone argue about politics.

You can hear him describe on the ScaiPod how several professors at UT Arlington live nearby. They use the Interlochen Lights to introduce international students to American customs and give them a place to go if they may not be able to get back to family during the holiday break.

Of course, we've also spent a lot of time discussing the legacy of UT Arlington's Allan Saxe. He was a booster of the Interlochen Lights, and his wife was able to come last year after Saxe passed away.

And Interlochen isn't only a Christmas display. Sobel's house does include a Christmas display but also Hanukkah and non-denominational holiday decorations (maybe the stegosaurus is more about scripture and the religious aspects while the brontosaurus is just excited to see extended family).

That makes Sobel's Festivus pole even more significant. In that link at the top, you can see him setting it out. This year, he had forgotten until I mentioned it, so he made a note to get it out of the garage.

The lights started out 50 years ago with just a few homes in a sparsely populated part of the Metroplex putting out their lights. Now, Arlington is bigger than Cincinnati. Interlochen is so popular, Police even sent media a map and the best route to see the lights.

But seven families who lived in Interlochen when the lights first started are still there, so Sobel says they'll each get a sign to mark the anniversary.

He says there are no rules for how you have to decorate the house. Some of those couples are just a bit older than they were 50 years ago, so neighbors help them. I'm a hip, young millennial, but I already don't care to climb out on my roof, so my display is two strands of lights that I can hang without going more than three steps up on my ladder.

Sobel puts out a lot of inflatables, but he and his wife are from New York City. They decorate their windows similar to stores they'd see in New York. In the year we shall not discuss, the Arlington Symphony had to cancel performances, but they did put cardboard cut-outs of donors in the seats, so you can see in the window on the right how Sobel has turned that into an inviting look at their family... except it's possible I am not a professional photographer, so I'm just now realizing his wife is behind a post.

"Oy vey" is right, polar bear. "Oy vey."

While I was talking with the Sobels, some early visitors passed by in a tour bus. A family of three generations hired the bus for a first look. The driver and I learned we live in the same neighborhood. One of the dads asked how long I spend putting out my two strands of Christmas lights.

"About an hour," I said.

"That's about how long yours took, right?" he then asked Sobel.

He had been working on his slightly longer, saying his collection has now grown to more than 50 inflatables.

Now that the light display has been going 50 years, some of the visitors came as kids and are now bringing their own kids. Interlochen can show us even though DFW now has more than eight million people, we're all still neighbors... regardless of whether we're Christian, Jewish, Muslim, a mammal or extinct reptile.