Do yourself a favor: Like Eric Celeste, I also recently canceled my subscription to The Dallas Morning News ("Say Goodbye," July 26) in favor of the daily Wall Street Journal and the Sunday New York Times, and I urge everyone out there to do the same. I remember the days way back when (about four years ago) when I would curl up on Sunday morning with my News and a cup of coffee. That gave way in recent months to chucking seven-eighths of the paper in the recycle bin before I even got my first cup started. I get enough junk mail for free, I figured, why pay for the privilege of a 10-pound sack of ads thrown on my front lawn Sunday mornings?
Do yourself a favor--pick up the Sunday Times and relish the fact that you can read it cover to cover. The New York Times Magazine is the best part of my week.
P.S.--I also canceled my Texas Monthly subscription awhile back. What is going on with journalism in Texas?
Anne Bentley
Dallas
Empty Filler: Let me get this straight: Eric Celeste, your media critic, has sworn off reading The Dallas Morning News. Isn't that like Roger Ebert swearing off movies or Robert Wilonsky swearing off comic books? This should make for some great reading in future editions of Filler. I can't wait to read his scathing critiques of Park Cities People, The Link and the East Dallas/Lakewood Advocate.
Dan Koller
Dallas
Stanley spongers: Congratulations on one of the least well-researched articles it has been my misfortune to read ("Rich Man, Poor Man," August 2).
I understand the Meletios not wanting to comment as they are in litigation. However, did you bother to find anybody to talk to besides the immediate family that is suing them? Anybody at all--besides the ex-governess who was let go more than 30 years ago? No? Well, believe me, it shows!
I have known everyone involved in this article for about 25 years. What is really being perpetrated against the Meletios is just another chapter of the Stanleys with their hands out (once again) thinking that they are "entitled." After all, it's somebody else's duty to take care of them, now, isn't it? They are, after all, Stanleys.
Most of the "antique furniture" alluded to was pretty much (in my opinion) junk. The few good things they had were gotten rid of to pay debts and legal bills. The Meletios also provided Tom and Lillian Stanley with a car (a white Cadillac) and living expenses when they had none.
Yes, Jill did ask how much money was in the family's account--after the family had asked them, yet again, for money.
No, Jill didn't have much to do with her family for a couple of years before Tom died. She was seriously ill, and her family never bothered to ask about her or see how she was doing except when they wanted money.
They never had much to do with their granddaughter either. I would go over to the Stanley house to pick up the Meletios' daughter, and she would be sleeping on the floor. Apparently in that whole house with all those bedrooms, there wasn't one room that the child could have slept in.
Yes, Larry is a businessman--as well as one of the finest musicians around with a couple of former Top Ten records under his belt. Did you research that one? "Sometime musician" indeed!
Jill is right. This article is "extremely unfair and harmful" to their "due process" rights.
Lila Goodrich
Via e-mail
Editor's note: Mark Donald interviewed numerous sources outside the Stanley family.
Meletios will be vindicated: I know Jill and Larry Meletio. I think your article did a wonderful job portraying Mr. Stanley's life. However, I think it a bit unfair that you do an article during the trial. Did it even strike you as odd that the people who were anxious to talk to you for this article--Lillian, Mamie, Hutch, Lillian's attorney--are the very ones that have the least to lose (and the most to gain) from you publishing this prior to the trial's conclusion?
Jill and Larry Meletio don't have a dollar of the Stanley estate. They never received money from Mr. Stanley during his life. They have started their lives on their own and have fought and struggled just like Mr. Stanley to make a living and prosper.
If you do nothing else, please do a follow-up article on this trial at its conclusion and ensure it's of the same high-profile nature as your previous one. I believe the vindication of the Meletio family will be warranted.
Ryan Berube
Via e-mail
Wrong Carolina: In his article on Dallas architect Tom Stanley, Mark Donald reports that Stanley was raised poor in South Carolina but used his savings ($198) to study architecture at Clemson College in North Carolina.
Clemson, the land grant college of South Carolina, had the cheap tuition that helped Stanley and many other rural South Carolinians afford higher education.
A small correction, but one worth making.
Denis Paz
Denton
Editor's note: We regret the error.
