Now that 1985 is behind us, let's take a look at the first month of 1986 through the lens of Houston Chronicle photographers.

Now, those of you who know your history will know that this week marks the 30th anniversary of a tragic historical event with local ties. More on that later this week.

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Across Houston, many people champion causes near and dear to their hearts. Some tackle disease, some rail against red-light cameras and some take up historic preservation.

Shirley Rubenstein just wanted to sell hot dogs from a cart on city sidewalks.

Dubbed a "hot dog crusader" and "accused trafficker of illegal hot dogs," Rubenstein and her husband, both of New York, waged a fierce battle against City Hall for a permit to sell them.

As Jim Barlow wrote in the Jan. 25, 1986, Chronicle:

Dr. James Haughton used to work in New York, too. He was that city's first deputy health services administrator. Now as Houston health director, he has opposed hot dogs on the street.

"The problem in New York is that a pushcart vendor might be in Greenwich Village one day and Times Square or Central Park the next. Someone buys their food and gets sick, and you can't find them," he said in an earlier interview.

Rubenstein said her dog wagon is cleaner than a restaurant. The problem, she adds, is with the Health Department.

"They have several people there who never got through junior high," she said. "They have to bring some one with them to read."

On Jan. 24, Rubenstein took her protest to the street and sold hot dogs at the corner of Main and Texas, permit be damned. She even chained herself to her hot dog cart in defiance.

Sure enough, city health officials showed up. And, as expected, Rubenstein received a citation for not having a license to operate.

For the rest of 1986, she apparently fought a valiant, yet unsuccessful, battle to dish out the dogs.

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In late 1985, two white Bengal tigers made their debut at the Houston Zoo. Sankara and Indiana Jones were siblings brought over from the Cincinnati Zoo.

Sadly, Indiana Jones would die of kidney-related issues in 1987. Zoo officials said Sankara died in 1997.

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Inside Hedwig Village, Mary Blazey ruled over Chowning Road the way a municipal official should. If a streetlight needed fixing, you didn't call town officials, you called Blazey.

How did that come to pass? Reporter Beverly Harris went out to Chowning Road for the story:

Chowning is the most peaceful stretch of road you can imagine, with its curvy brick path that meanders down a wooded esplanade. Bright red berries drip from ornamental bushes; winter-shy azaleas wait their turn; raccoons, the little devils, are hiding somewhere after their night of mischief; pine trees thrust their greenery high into the chilly blue sky.

Once upon a time the area was a game preserve, and the original hunting lodge, now expanded forward, remains as evidence of a long-gone era. Wild ducks ignore the changes, too, landing by some ancient instinct in the same places that their ancestors favored. No matter that their old field is now a chlorinated swimming pool. Last February [Mary] Blazey used her skimmer to rescue several mallard ducklings.

Rescuing is Blazey's business, and has been ever since all the neighbors met at a cocktail party last year and elected her mayor. The block needs a mayor.

"Every property line goes to the middle of the esplanade," Blazey explained. The city has no authority to build a street on private property, so residents have created their own. They do have connections to the municipal water and sewer supply now, and trash pickup, but their original well is still used for watering lawns or filling pools. Streetlights are privately owned; landscaping is a common concern; benches in the park-like setting belong to all.

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Finally, photographer John Van Beekum went out to TDCJ's Mountain View Unit in Gatesville, home to the women of death row, to catch up with convicted killer Karla Faye Tucker.

Reporter Christy Drennan interviewed her for a March 28, 1986, article:

Tucker, now 26, says she's changed in the 2 1/2 years since she was sentenced to die for the pickax murders of a Houston man and woman.

She says she's different now. She's off drugs. She's found God and has a new enthusiasm for life and for learning.

Her words have that familiar ring of others condemned to death.

But there's a major difference: Many of those who have come to know Tucker since her arrest - even the detective who arrested her and the prosecutor who sent her to death row - agree she has made a dramatic turnaround.

Some say she's caring, with a tremendous ability to love. They talk about the sparkle in her eyes, her softness, her drive, her growth as a person. They - defense attorneys, prosecutors, a police officer, even the U.S. attorney here - really don't want her to die.

Tucker was executed in 1998.