I miss writing about the Trinity tollroad. Since Mayor Park Cities’ departure, it has hardly come up. But, bless his heart, Mayor Rawlings has decided to feed my jones. Today, he will announce that we desperately need the toll road or Dallas will collapse into a pit of mediocrity.

Or something like that. When it comes to the tollroad, these guys lose all sense of reason. How else to explain their thinking? The tollroad isn’t safe, there isn’t any money to build it, and there may well be a good chance that we don’t even need it any more. Gasoline consumption has dropped five percent in the U.S. over the past four years, and it looks like we’re in the middle of a profound change in driving habits, as we shift to a society not centered around the car.

None of this makes any difference to the bosses downtown, of course, who still think it’s 1999 — big lakes of federal money, a booming housing market, and all the other stuff that helped them make such crummy policy decisions over the past 10 years. Doubt that? Then look forward to my June East Dallas magazine column, in which I crunched the numbers and discovered that our propery tax rate has exceeded the rate of inflation over the past decade, while city spending mostly hasn’t.

Now I just need to think of a good nickname for Rawlings.

In a perfect world, Americans would drink dry chenin blanc the way we drink Coke and Pepsi. Until then, we’ll have to settle for the Pine Ridge ($10, purchased, widely available). Which, actually, is not a bad thing at all.

This wine has long been one of my favorites, dating to the time I tasted it with some of Pine Ridge’s more famous and expensive reds. No one has to guess which wine I liked best, do they?

This year’s version of the Pine Ridge is about three-quarters chenin, and tastes drier than previous vintages, some of which tended toward sweet. In fact, the 2011 has a pleasing edge that I haven’t tasted before — perhaps the handiwork of winemaker Michael Beaulac, who made some very zippy white wines when he was at St. Supery. Look for more grapefruit up front than in years’ past, but with a very soft and delightful finish that shows off the viognier’s apricot.

Chill this, and drink it by itself as the temperatures get warmer (like today). Or pair it with spicy food, fresh summer salads, and even delicate fish. Highly recommended, and a candidate for the 2013 $10 Hall of Fame.

Construction is coming along on the new Starbucks and Chipotle at the southwest corner of Coit and Belt Line. Brewer Development bought the 28,000 square foot tract of vacant land in December. The new dig is scheduled to open in late July or early August.

Consequently, the Starbucks in Dal Rich Village across the street will close. The new location will have a drive-thru and a larger patio. It also will be more convenient to southbound morning commuters.

Time will tell what all this means for Dal Rich, which also will lose Whole Foods as its anchor next year.

We’ve always known that the Frankford Church and Cemetery site was once a rest stop for Native Americans traveling along the Shawnee Trail (which we now know as Preston Road) because it had everlasting springs that provided fresh water. But until today, we never knew the source of those springs.

On a hunch, Kathy Power, board president of the Frankford Cemetery Association, got a crew to uncover a large, round rock lying in White Rock Creek, which runs along the north side of the site. A closer look revealed that it wasn’t a rock – it was a very old piece of cement used to cap off the springs.

“We thought that if we could find the original source of the springs, we would really complete the story,” Power says.

The theory was confirmed when workers lifted up the cap, and cloudy water began gushing out into the creek.

In 2010, the association finished a complete restoration of Frankford Church, a precious remnant of the pioneer community founded by the McKamy family in 1852. It was a bustling campsite for early settlers moving west and eventually, it became the Town of Frankford. But as other cities developed around it, the town sort of dissolved. The church and the cemetery nearby are the only pieces left. They are nestled on the southeast corner of the Dallas North Tollway and Frankford Road.

Rosa Finsley, the landscape architect for the preservation project, was surprised at how the alive the spring was after the crew uncovered it today – some hundred years later. That’s the power of preservation, she says.

“Most places have pipelines running through them, or developers have come in and built over it, making it hard for the springs to continue to flourish.”

Power says the board is going to let the spring continue to run and see what happens.

So, why were the springs capped off? J.C. Foster, a lifelong North Dallas resident and former FCA board member, has a theory.

“Some of us who have been around here for a while said maybe this vein of water running through here is the same vein that went into and supplied Keller Springs,” Foster says.

He says during the Great Depression, the Keller Springs (for which Keller Springs Road is named) kept the community alive. People from five miles out would travel to the springs with buckets to transport water.

“It was a lifesaver for this area because all the wells were dried up. People used it not only for cooking and drinking but for their cattle. Maybe they capped off [the Frankford Springs] to increase the flow into Keller Springs. Whether that’s true or not, I don’t know.”

However the cap got there, the live springs are another piece of history that most people wouldn’t expect to find up here in the North Dallas sprawl.

At 8:50 a.m. Sunday morning, a security guard patrolling an office building near Prestonwood and Belt Line noticed a stranger tie a canister to a tree in a nearby parking lot. When the guard approached, the person jumped into his car and sped off, according to the Dallas Fire Rescue report.

Next thing you know, the bomb squad is surrounding the area to investigate the mysterious canister that someone obviously didn’t want anyone else to know was there.

As it turns out, the canister did not contain any explosive material, and no one technically broke any laws. It was all part of the online scavenger hunt known as geocaching in which participants use GPS coordinates to find a hidden cache, which contains a list of other people who have found it. There are more than 5 million players worldwide. It’s like a treasure hunt – just pick your location.

It could have remained an innocent game if the person had gotten permission from the building owners first, which is one of the official rules of geocaching. Or, the guy could have just explained the game to the security guard before fleeing. Lesson learned.

May is National Hamburger Month, and Social House will celebrate with its $10 Burgers and Brew special beginning Tuesday and lasting all month long. It includes a burger, fries and a domestic draft beer.

The three burger choices at this supper pub are: the smoky barbecue burger, topped with apple wood smoked bacon, homemade barbecue sauce and smoked provolone; the basic cheeseburger with lettuce, tomato and red onion; and the turkey burger with chipotle mayonnaise, lettuce, tomato, red onion and avocado.

Social House is in the Village on the Parkway at Belt Line and Montfort. If you go during happy hour (4-7 p.m. Monday-Friday), you can also get half off select appetizers, all pizzas, specialty cocktails and $1 off your next beer.

A new gym will open off the Dallas North Tollway with an approach similar to that of TV’s “Biggest Loser.” Downsize Fitness offers facilities and special training for people who have more than 50 pounds to lose.

Professional trainers show members how to sustain a healthy exercise routine involving free weights, the medicine ball and cardio while eating less. The team-oriented environment helps eliminate self-consciousness.

Downsize Fitness is scheduled to open in late summer. It expanded from its two other locations in Chicago and Las Vegas. The owner, Francis Wisniewski, started the business after losing 60 pounds himself.

The gym has a special program for teens and their families called Downsize for Life, aimed at helping overweight youth. The goal is to empower 200 teens across all three cities to lose 10,000 pounds by 2015.

Downsize Fitness is at Inwood and Simonton in the northwest quadrant of the Tollway and LBJ.

Far North Dallas resident Leah Prager has been raising money for muscular dystrophy since age 7 by hosting backyard carnivals for her friends. And, it’s the real deal – clowns, games, train rides and musical performances all donated by professionals in the community.

We featured Leah, 12, in our December 2010 issue after the Association of Fundraising Professionals’ Greater Dallas Chapter named her Outstanding Youth in Philanthropy. By that time, she had raised about $85,000 for the Muscular Dystrophy Association.

Now, the Dallas Morning News reports that she has raked in more than $100,000 and is headed to Washington D.C. in May to accept the Prudential Spirit of Community Award.

But first, she’ll host her eighth annual backyard carnival 2-5 p.m. this Sunday at her home, 6632 Crestland. The event includes a raffle and silent auction. Donate to play games; there are separate fees for food. Funds also benefit Jewish Family Service food pantry.

The Friends of the Richardson Public Library hosts a huge book sale 10 a.m.-5:30 p.m. Friday and Saturday and 2-5:30 p.m. Sunday at the Richardson Civic Center. The sale features tens of thousands books, DVDs and CDs. On Sunday, you can buy books by the bagful.

Campbell Green Recreation Center hosts a community garage sale 8 a.m.-1 p.m. Saturday.

Children can meet and have brunch with the cast of “Once Upon a Mattress” at 10:30 a.m. Saturday at Repertory Company Theatre. It’s ideal for ages 4-12. Tickets are $10 in advance and $12 at the door. Call 972.690.5029.

Make your own jewelry during a jewelry-making open house noon-5 p.m. Sunday at Kittrell Riffkind Glass Art in Addison. Professionals will lead demonstrations and help guests create original pieces.

In our May issue, which is hitting doorknobs and newsstands now, we profiled Alesha Cooper, a straight-A senior at Richardson High School. Why? Because she’s one of those rare students who overcame great odds to achieve academic success. “You can’t just sit around and talk about it,” she told me, “you have to do something about it.” Read the online version here.

Since the story went to print, we’ve learned that Cooper has received the Gates Millenium Scholarship, awarded to 1,000 students across the country each year. She is RHS’ first AVID student to ever receive the scholarship, which provides free tuition through graduation at a college of her choice.

Cooper plans to attend the University of Virginia and major in math in hopes of becoming a teacher one day. She also wants to establish her own foundation to help disadvantaged students realize their opportunities.

In the photo above, which appeared in the RHS newsletter, Cooper celebrates with her physics teacher Mrs. Fisher, AVID coach Elizabeth Brown and counselor Colleen Monier.

I like Mayor Mike Rawlings personally, because he seems to be a guy who talks first and then considers the political implications of what he’s saying. I’m sure that’s probably not precisely true, because he is, after all, a politician to the extent that he’s our mayor, but at least he seems sincere when his mouth is open.

So that brings me to an interesting claim Mayor Rawlings made to the DMN’s Rudy Bush Wednesday: The city’s ethics code “clearly states I’m not prohibited from using my name as long as I don’t use the title of mayor. I just personally feel when I became mayor I didn’t stop being a citizen.”

The City of Dallas code in question — Section 12A-10/Political Activity, subsection (f) — “Elections. A city employee shall not use the prestige of his or her position with the city on behalf of any candidate, political party, or political committee.”

Rawlings is answering ethics complaint questions because he endorsed three candidates for DISD school board. Not surprisingly, one of the spurned candidates believes that regardless of Rawlings’ good intentions, he’s using his “mayor” title to support an opponent.

It’s hard to argue with the gist of that complaint, since it’s not possible for Rawlings to say anything these days without being identified as “Dallas Mayor Mike Rawlings”.

After all, who cares what he has to say if he’s not mayor? Then he’s just another well-to-do guy with no particular access to a public podium or TV broadcast, which makes his endorsement (sans any cash donation to a candidate) not worth a whole lot.

True, he said during his campaign he wants to become involved in helping DISD improve — I admire him for trying to become involved, too. But the bottom line is that the guy is the mayor first, and just good old Mike second.

Until he’s no longer mayor, he needs to own the title and quit trying to play both sides of the fence.

One day, perhaps, I’ll figure out how the multi-national wine companies make brand decisions. For example, why would the company that owns Chateau Ste. Michelle also own two grocery store brands, Columbia-Crest and 14 Hands, that make the same kind of Washington state wine that sell for about the same price?

Until then, I will appreciate the value and quality that these wines offer. The 14 Hands ($12, sample, widely available) was just as pleasantly surprising as the Columbia-Crest cabernet was, making it yet another example of the first rule of wine writing — taste the wine before you decide whether it’s worth writing about.

Look for lots of cherry fruit in the 14 Hands, though the fruit is not as sweet as in similarly-priced California cabernets. It also has some heft and the appropriate tannins, and people who are determined to notice chocolate in cabernet will probably pick up a little of that, too. In this, the wine reflects Washington state’s style and terroir, which doesn’t happen much in $12 wine. Though it’s not as big a wine as its corporate sibling, the 14 Hands is definitely cabernet and not cabernet lite.

Call it a safety wine — something you can buy or order when you’re stuck somewhere and the wine selection is decidedly limited. It will pair with most red meat dinners, as well as a very gooey sausage pizza.