February 1987 only had 28 days, but Houston Chronicle photographers found plenty to photograph that month. Here's a look at some of what they caught.

* For all anyone at the courthouse knew, this had never happened before.

Duke, a 4-year-old German shepherd, took the stand on Feb. 11, to "testify" in an attempted capital murder case. The dog had helped apprehend a suspect who reportedly fired at a Houston police officer.

From reporter Stephen Johnson's article:

After [partner Bobby] Lott's testimony, he commanded Duke to "watch him," indicating a bailiff. The demonstration was to show jurors and visiting state District Judge Don Emerson how Duke helped subdue [suspect Ralph] Pond.

Duke growled, bared his sizable teeth and lunged for the bailiff, who maintained a weak grin. With another low command, Duke relaxed and followed Lott out of the courtroom.

As they waited for an elevator, Duke's ears pointed down and he glanced nervously around the busy hallway.

"I think," said Lott, "he's scared of the elevators."

* The hottest band in rock -- Bon Jovi -- took the stage at the Summit early that month. At that point they had the No. 1 album in the nation, "Slippery When Wet."

Marty Racine was there for the sold-out concert:

So what's all the fuss about? At first Saturday night, it was difficult to fathom. The concert started normally enough, with all the cliches in the book. The lights went down, keyboardist David Bryan introduced a swelling synthesizer riff, jets of fireworks shot up from behind the drum riser, a few loud flash pots (like cherry bombs) detonated, and the band cranked up one of their simple anthems, "Raise Your Hands".

The crowd, of course, went nuts.

But following "Breakout", the reasons for all the hubbub became clear. They begin and end with leader and founder Jon Bon Jovi. Unlike 90 percent of the frontmen in heavy metal who lose it when they open their mouth to utter anything more than "Howya doin' Houston!" the charismatic Jon Bon Jovi has real style at the microphone. The guy can lay out the dialogue.

He eased into a 10-minute rap: The new album (their third) was delayed in a Vancouver studio because he found himself a new girlfriend. He took his baby to live with him back in Jersey. He bought her a genuine artificial diamond ring for $10.95. He was in love and in lust with his new baby and they were going to get married.

One day he came home, said, "Baby I'm home." She replied, "So what?" A man came out the bathroom. It was, it was... Bon Jovi's guitarist, Richie Sambora. A mock fight ensued onstage, and the band launched into "You Give Love a Bad Name".

At that point, Bon Jovi, the man and the band, had the 17,000 all to themselves.

Also in contrast to most heavy metalists, who draw a high percentage of young males, Bon Jovi is a girl's band. Naturally, Jon is cute. It's no great mystery. You get the girls on your side in rock 'n' roll, and success is guaranteed.

Then, another surprise. For all those seated in the back of The Summit who hadn't the "sense to buy tickets early so they could join the rest of the crowd and the band up front," Jon Bon Jovi grabbed two straps attached to an overhanging rail and was literally carried about 10 feet over The Summit floor to a small riser in back near the sound board. A handler gave him an acoustic guitar, and with the band back on the stage, they went into a rather touching ballad, "Silent Night".

The straps returned him to the stage, and the band opened the throttle on "Livin' on a Prayer", the best song of the night.

That was succeeded by "Let It Rock", turned into a 15-minute boogie during which Jon Bon Jovi played with the audience. In a stroke of complete crowd control, Jon Bon Jovi chose half of the building for "his" side. Sambora took the other half. As drummer Tico Torres and bassist Alec John Such laid down a percolating boogie, Bon Jovi and Sambora wagered as to whose side could yell and respond the loudest.

It was a tie, natch, although I'd say Sambora's side won, but not after Jon threatened to replace Torres with a drum machine for siding with the guitarist.

It was all good fun, but in arena rock, when excitement overflows at the beginning, there can only be a subsequent letdown. In the break prior to the last song (before encore), "Runaway", there was ol' Jon again, chiding the crowd for tiring out on him.

More crowd manipulation. Give us a break. In the end, the show brought out the best and worst aspects of arena rock. But who's counting? Jon Bon Jovi is that likable and that good. The group deserves its place at the top.

* When you talk about the history of comedy in Houston, you have to talk about the Outlaw Comics. Who were they? Reporter Michael Spies went to find out.

The date when the Outlaw Comics of Houston first went bad may be debated, but Steve Epstein thinks a good place to start might be the day Sam Kinison broke Steve Moore's leg.

That was in 1980, shortly before Kinison was expelled from the Comedy Workshop and went on to fame, fortune and just the sort of notoriety the Outlaw Comics have courted on their home turf.

It may have been Kinison's return and reconciliation with the local comic constabulary in November that freed the Outlaw Comics to move ahead, but other recent developments in the news have helped them to get organized enough to put on their theme shows on topics such as religion and politics and (coming soon) drugs.

"Until Reagan screwed up, we couldn't do politics, and until Oral Roberts made his statement, we couldn't do religion. But it looks like audiences may be ready, and from what we can tell, they wanted to hear this stuff.

"The topics we were most interested in were taboo, and we had to avoid controversial topics in clubs. I think we all believe that unless you're outside, you're not doing your job," said Epstein, who acts as producer for the group's shows and sometimes as unofficial spokesman.

Besides Kinison and Epstein, the original "Comics on the Lam" group included Bill Hicks and Carl LeBeau, but the Outlaw Comics of today are a more free-form bunch, not anchored to a single club or community. The core still includes Hicks and Epstein, as well as Ron Shock, all of whom will be part of the religion show tonight at the Comedy Workshop.

But the band of outsiders has grown much larger. Two television shows done for Ch. 2 here last year spotlighted others such as Ron Crick, Andy Huggins, John Farnetti and Jimmy Pineapple, while the live shows bring out the outlaw sympathizers in force (and at least one woman - Dee Macaluso). KTRU has also been an outlet.

These shows push at the boundaries of taste - in a recent one, Pineapple and Moore argued about which one could insult Meryl Streep more - but it's all in the name of getting comedy to have more substance (without substance abuse).

"The major outlaw theme is freedom," said Epstein.

The shows are not theater pieces but no-holds-barred stand-up attempts to cover the theme. At tonight's show, Moore will "channel" three suspicious characters with definite opinions on religion, while Riley Barber as "the world's greatest critic" (complete with outrageously phony French accent) will make prophetic pronouncements.

Anyone else who wants to testify on the topic will come after the scheduled disruptions.

"Leave when you feel like leaving," said Epstein.

Fortunately, most of the city's best comedians have not felt like leaving, even as the economy has refused to cooperate.

"We've got the pool of talent here for a Second City or a Monty Python troupe. Everyone notices the camaraderie," said Epstein.

They obviously have had mixed feelings about greater exposure - Hicks is the only one to have appeared on "Late Night With David Letterman", the goal for all young comedians right now - but they may have used the last six or seven years to season themselves in a way that is now ready to be taken on the road. Epstein hopes so.

"Houston has been a great womb, but we're real overdue children. We're ready to burst from the womb - huge 16- to 20-pounders. Houston is about to give birth to a monster. Little by little, we're starting to see how we work best with each other.

"As a group, there's not a tighter-knit group of comedians in the country - no doubt of it. Maybe Boston, but I doubt it. We all like each other and push each other. In these shows, though, we're saying that this is what we want to be, forget TV, forget the money," said Epstein.

* What's with teenagers and rock 'n' roll these days? University of Houston sociologist Joseph Kotarba and student Laura Wells set out to see how music shapes the adolescent experience. As such, the two went to where the teenagers were: the mall and clubs, in this case, Cardi's.

Reporter Bob Tutt dropped in on the southwest Houston spot one night:

On a recent evening a rock'n'roll band called Equinox fired the opening salvos of its music, sending teen-agers assembled at Cardi's club into a frenzy.

Thunderously amplified by two sets of big speakers, the throb of the music administered a shock treatment to the kids massed in the dim light before the stage.

The beat, beat, beat of the music seemed to awaken primal instincts, inciting many of the youngsters to thrash about wildly. In rhythm with the music, some appeared to bang their heads on the edge of the stage.

A youth began climbing on the stage and leaping into the crowd.

Each time, he landed unharmed because spectators caught him. Finally, one of Cardi's bouncers decided enough was enough and banished the leaper.

An off-duty Houston police officer working as a security guard for the club calmly watched this chaotic action. As the officer well understood, he had no riot to quell. No one was spilling blood; no one was getting hurt.

It was all simply theatrics that go along with performances of so-called heavy metal bands such as Equinox and the headlining rock group that followed, Nasty Savage.

The lyrics they sang evoked dark images of death, destruction and violence. Even if the young audience managed to make out the words above the din of the music - a matter of considerable uncertainty - the words seemed not to call for action, but to dramatize dreams of youthful rebellion.

For teen-agers, Cardi's provides a safe place to live out their fantasies and have a good time. For sociologist Joseph Kotarba of the University of Houston it is a place to study human behavior, social patterns - and the phenomenon of rock'n'roll.

* Decades of serving up heaping helpings of food to patrons came to an end this month when the San Jacinto Inn closed its doors. You can't put the blame on a single issue, the manager said, but the economy was one factor.

Lynwood Abram had the story about the restaurant falling on hard times.

J. Frank Bobo, for 19 years manager of the famous seafood and chicken house that stands opposite the Battleship Texas at San Jacinto Battleground in eastern Harris County, said Thursday that Sunday will be the last day of operation.

"We wanted to let our old customers know, so they could come down, if they wish, for one last time," Bobo said.

The decision to close the restaurant, which has been losing money for about two years, came two weeks ago, Bobo said.

Bobo gave the bad news to about 35 employees after the restaurant closed Thursday night.

It is possible that the inn will reopen if the local economy revives, he said.

In the meantime, he said, the owners are unable to sustain continuing heavy losses.

During the past two years, Bobo said, the restaurant has done only about a third of the business that it enjoyed during its peak years, from 1970 to 1980.

He attributed the red ink to a combination of factors: the poor state of the local economy, the distance of the res taurant from the city, the changing eating habits of the dining public and the proliferation of restaurants on Houston's affluent west side.

"People are more diet conscious, eating lighter foods than in the old days," Bobo said.

In truth the inn has been a relic of and a monument to the era of gourmandising of the 19th and early 20th centuries, a period when restaurant patrons demanded multicourse meals of rich food and plenty of it.

The San Jacinto Inn evolved from a small lunch counter founded in 1916 by Jack and Bertha Sanders near the Lynchburg Ferry landing on the Houston Ship Channel.

The couple caught the seafood they served, baked their own biscuits and made the preserves they served with them.

As the popularity of the restaurant grew, the owners moved their place to its present location about 1917. It was housed in an old dance hall near the San Jacinto Park.

Dining at the inn became a tradition in many Houston families.

During the 1930s and early 1940s, a dance orchestra performed at the restaurant. During World War II, however, the dance floor and the band area were closed to accommodate additional tables.

During the 1930s, Jack and Bertha Sanders were divorced. Jack Sanders thereafter opened the Pier 21 restau rant in Houston, and Bertha Sanders continued to run the inn until her death.

Bertha Sanders' niece, Gladys Poe, operated the inn until 1967. In that year, the present owners, the Battleground Corp., headed by John T. Jones Jr. and Bobo, acquired the restaurant.

In 1926, fire destroyed the original structure. The replacement withstood the ravages of time and hurricanes until 1977, when land subsidence in the area compelled its demolition.

The new structure that rose about 100 yards from the site of the old place was such a faithful reproduction of the destroyed building that many customers believed the old place had been spruced up by a paint job.