Saturday, September 17, 2016

My First Car

 As I wrote earlier, I was working full-time at Belk, after getting out of college, so that I could get a car and afford my graduate school.  I know that some people get their first car while in high school, but my parents could not handle that financially.  I had to wait. 
 My Mother let me drive her car.  At first, it was a 1956 Dodge.  It was black and white with fins.  I learned to drive with that car.  It had push buttons on the dash, and the steering wheel was as big as a bus.  She then got a 1967 Plymouth Valiant, which would be her car for the rest of her driving life.  It was a good car.  Years later, she would get offers from mechanics to buy the car from her, as it had become an antique. 
 I worked hard to be able to afford my first real car.  My father and I went shopping for my car at Dick Smith Datsun, and I found the perfect car.  It was a 1973 Ford Maverick with low miles.  It was an olive green.  I remember my father asking the salesman if he would let his son or daughter drive this car to Texas and back.  He said yes, so I bought it.  It cost $2000 used.  It had bench seats, automatic transmission (a must), and a radio.  It was a two-door sedan.  I loved it.  I had a friend who had a Maverick, and she liked hers, so I knew this was the car for me.  I had that car for the time I was out in Texas.  I will talk about that more later.  Needless to say, I didn't have to borrow my Mother's car anymore, which was a good thing.

Tuesday, September 13, 2016

Bootlegs

 I was walking downtown during my lunch hour in the Spring of 1976 and happened on a record store across from USC.  It was just a hole in the wall, and it was easy to miss.  I went inside and my life changed again.
 As I have written before, I love music.  Especially The Beatles.  I love going to concerts.  By this time, I had seen Elton John, The Carpenters, Canned Heat, Goose Creek Symphony, Climax, Lester Flatt, Atlanta Rhythm Section, Mountain, Gene Cotton, and more.  For me, live music was the best.  Most of the songs were longer than were on record.  So, when I walked into this record store called Tunes and Things.  I found a new avenue to enjoy live shows--bootlegs.
 I really didn't know what bootlegs were.  They were secret recordings of shows or unauthorized releases.  I bought two records that day.  One was a concert by Elton John, and the other was BBC radio songs of The Beatles.  The quality wasn't the best, but it was something not everyone had. 
 This discovery started me on a quest to find more of these rare albums.  I bought a bunch.  I had a huge selection of bootleg Beatles, Rolling Stones, Elton John, Bob Dylan, and many more.  I also found that there were collectors from around the world who had stuff too, so I began trading cassette and videotapes with them.  At one point, I had the second largest Beatle video collection in the world.  It was documented as such.  Years later, Desmond Morris found out that I had a TV show featuring him and John Lennon.  He wanted a copy.  I sent it to him in London, and he sent me several of his books, which he autographed for me. 
 Record Collecting became a serious hobby for me.  At one point, my records alone were valued over $100,000.  I have since sold a lot of them, but I still have a few things.  Check out eBay for "wdurst".  You may find something there.  I branched out to other collectibles including books, posters, autographs, and memorabilia.  I always have wanted to open a store in town, but have never been able to for financial reasons.  Maybe one day.  If Oprah would send me the $50,000 I asked for several years ago...  And just to be clear, I don't sell bootlegs.  That would be illegal.

Tuesday, September 6, 2016

Job Offer

 One day, as I was working at Belk, an old friend of mine from Bankers Trust came into the store.  He asked me to come to see him during my lunch hour.  His office was only three blocks up Main Street.  When I got to his office, he laid out a job proposal to me.  Their operations office was out on Rivermont Rd. near the zoo.  They wanted me to oversee the computer operations for the bank.  In 1975, computers were very big and took up an entire floor.  He told me that he knew I was very smart and could do the job easily.  I asked him what floor housed the computer, and he said it was in the basement.  Strange as it may seem, I wanted to have a job where there was a window, so that I could see outside.  The basement had no windows.  I turned down his offer.  In looking back on this decision, I would have been on the ground floor (no pun intended) of computers, and I would probably be a millionaire now had I taken the job.  One of those regrets in life that I really don't regret.

Friday, September 2, 2016

Belk FT

 When I graduated from college, I was going to go to graduate school to get my Master's so that I could teach Theatre in a Christian school.  I had been promised that I could come back to Anderson College to teach.  The Academic Dean had made that promise to me.  He said that all I needed to do was to get a graduate degree, so that was my goal.  I decided to go to Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Ft. Worth, TX to get that degree.  It was the same school where my father and mother had gone, which would make me a legacy, but I needed a car to get there, as well as money to live there, so I took a job at Belk.
 The Belk Department Store was in downtown Columbia on Main St.  It had been there since the 1930's.  Everyone knew Belk.  In the 1990's, it was torn down and the Columbia Art Museum and a bank sit there now.  When Belk was there, they had big display windows, and three floors of merchandise.  I got a full-time job there selling Books and Luggage.  I loved books, but I didn't know much about luggage, except for what I owned.  So, I began to learn about the subject.
 Selling the books was easy.  I learned that Romance Novels sold the best to women.  They just ate that stuff up.  I also learned that I had a knack for displaying books.  One of the books that we got was one by Billy Graham.  Our display person wanted us to show it as a mountain with a peak at the top.  I thought differently.  After having the mountain, and it wasn't selling, I changed the display by making the books to form a cross on the table.  It sold like hotcakes.  It was all about how to present it, and the display people let me do my thing after that.
 Luggage was a little different.  You had to display that by size (big to small).  So, I got the bright idea to put the most colorful luggage on the front to attract attention.  It worked. 
 There were a few perks to working in that area.  About every month, we had a recall of some books by the manufacturers.  Mostly paperbacks.  You didn't have to return the whole book, but rather tear off the covers and send them back for credit.  We were supposed to throw away the books, after we tore off the covers, but I kept a few for myself.  At one point, about a third of the books in my collection were missing covers.  Of course, some of my co-workers got what they wanted, mostly Romance Novels.  Another perk was that my supervisor gave me the opportunity to work with vendors about what to buy for my department, especially Luggage.
 We had two stockrooms that used to be window displays that had been sealed up.  They weren't very big.  I really didn't have much of a concept as to how big Luggage boxes would be.  American Tourister and Samsonite each had big sales twice a year.  I talked to the rep and ordered 200 assorted pieces of each.  When the boxes came, I had to put them into the stockrooms.  It was quite a challenge.  But, we sold all of the bags, and I found I had a knack for selling Luggage.  That came in handy later in life.  American Tourister had a color they called "Plum", but it was really purple.  It was hideous, but that color was our best seller.  Belk and an independent luggage store were the only two stores that really had any selection in Luggage.  We blew them out of the water. 
 I also learned a lot about customers.  One man came in the store one Saturday who looked like Jed Clampett.  He was dirty.  He told me that he wanted something nice for his wife.  I went to the cheap stuff, and he pulled out a wad of cash and bought the most expensive piece we had.  It turned out that he was a farmer and had been to the market and sold all of his produce.  I learned never to judge one by what they were wearing.  Another man came in one day and picked up an attache case and started walking toward the door without paying.  I stopped him in the Men's Department and asked him what he was doing.  He looked at me, and asked what I was talking about.  I pointed to the bag, and he gave it back to me.  It turned out he had dementia, and didn't know what he was doing.  I also had interesting customers.  One man came in and told me that he was Elvis Presley's sergeant in Germany, and he showed me pictures of the two of them. 
 I had two girls, who worked with me part-time.  Their names were Gail and BJ.  They were both high school students.  Gail was a very hard worker.  BJ wasn't as much, but I began a friendship with BJ that lasted 20 years.  I will write about her more later.
 I stayed with Belk for a year, until it was time to move to Ft. Worth.  They were sorry to see me go, because I had created a lot of sales for them, but it was time.

Saturday, August 13, 2016

Graduation

 When I graduated from Anderson College, I was all-everything.  I had gotten several awards and honors.  It wasn't quite the same at PC.  Yes, I was quite successful in the Theatre area.  Yes, I was quite known in the student government area.  Yes, I was quite read with my columns in the school newspaper.  But, not everything was quite good.
 As I wrote before, I had to change faculty advisors between my junior and senior year, because my first advisor went on sabbatical, and my second advisor was just not really interested in that role.  I guess I trusted him too much, because I didn't keep up with the hours I needed to graduate.  I was too busy partying to keep up with such things.
 About a week before graduation, I got a message to come see the registrar.  She had been going over my file and found that I was three hours short from the needed hours to graduate.  I needed a class in Art.  I had already taken Sculpture, which I thought was enough, but apparently I needed something like Art History, too.  The Registrar told me that the Administration didn't want me to hang around for another semester, so she gave me a paper to sign.  PC would let me graduate 3 hours short, if I didn't tell anyone.  So, I signed the paper, and the Registrar signed the paper.  She gave me a copy, and she kept a copy.  I could graduate.
 So, what did I do as my final dig at the Administration?  I walked over to the student newspaper office, and told my friend, the editor, what had just transpired.  The last issue of the paper came out with the headline:  "Registrar Makes Deal With Student".  The Administration hated me for this jab, but there was nothing they could do.  They had signed the paper. 
 When graduation day came, I was waiting to file into the auditorium and standing next to the newspaper editor.  My best friend.  We had gotten a copy of the program and were looking for our names.  We didn't see them.  Panic set in.  Did the Administration decide not to honor their deal?  Was the editor being punished for publishing the deal in the paper?  What were we going to do?  How would I explain it to my parents and grandmother who had come to the graduation?  There were several minutes of various emotions, and then we realized that we were looking at the Bachelor of Science page, and we were both graduation with a Bachelor of Arts degree.  One more page over, and there were our names.  How do you spell relief?  G-R-A-D-U-A-T-E. 
 I think the speaker that day was the Secretary of Commerce, who had been a PC graduate several years before.  I have no idea what he spoke about, but I guess it had something to do with going out and making a name for yourself.  Either that or good luck.
 I never told my parents or grandmother about my near-death experience that morning.  We just went to the park to have my picture taken with my sculpture (The Monster).  I was a college graduate.  The world was my oyster.

Monday, August 8, 2016

The Lost Weekend

 If you have read any of my previous posts, you will see that I loved to make phony phone calls.  You also have to remember that these were before Caller ID, so the person on the other end might have to accept that the call was legit. 
 There were a few dorm rooms that had phones.  These phones were paid for by those who lived in the rooms, so not everybody had a phone.  On the weekend after the final exams and before graduation, most of the guys in the dorms had left for the weekend.  Nothing was going on at campus.  Everything was pretty much shut down.  About the only things opened were the dorms and the library.  So, what do you get when you mix liquor, 4 guys, 3 days, and a phone?  Trouble.
 We went looking for a room, which was unlocked and had a phone.  We found one.  The occupants had gone home for the weekend.  So, Friday night was when we started.  It ended on Sunday.  We went on constantly calling everywhere.  While 2 guys were calling, 2 other guys were sleeping.  One of our group spoke fluent French, and he called the Sorbonne in Paris to register for classes.  We called China to ask to speak to the Leader of the Country.  We didn't get through, but we did talk to some folks in Vietnam.  In my British accent, I called the Israeli Embassy and told them that the British government didn't like their citizens being mistreated in Israel, and if they didn't stop, that meant war between Great Britain and Israel.  I got as far as the ambassador's secretary, before I hung up.  We also did some domestic pranks.  We found that if you call the local numbers for hotels, instead of the 800 numbers, that they will believe you more.  So, we called hotels in Honolulu to book their ballrooms for wedding receptions. 
 Now, I should say here that I do not condone our actions, nor do I suggest how one can make phony phone calls.  This is just a story what we did in 1975. 
 There are many calls that we made, which I don't remember, because I was drunk.  We even went to the school library and got pages out of phone books to call them.  I do remember just calling people at random and to ask them what the weather was like where they were. 
 While one of the pranksters and I were standing in line for graduation practice the following weekend, the guy whose phone we used came up to us in a panic.  He said that the school wasn't going to let him graduate until he paid his phone bill.  He said the bill was $1500, and it came in a box.  We looked shocked, and didn't tell him it was us.  We just told him that if he could prove he wasn't at school, when these calls were made, then he wouldn't have to pay them.  He said his father was going to kill him.  He kept rambling about not knowing anyone in Paris or Vietnam.  I hope his father didn't kill him.  Sorry, guy.  Oh, and thankfully Britain and Israel didn't go to war.  But, one of our guys did get registered for the Sorbonne, but he never made it to class.

Thursday, August 4, 2016

Going to the Movies

 As you probably know by now, I love the movies.  From an early age, I have had a love for the movies.  Now, you have to keep in mind that videos didn't come out until I was in my 20's, so I had to go to a theatre to see a movie back in the day.
 When I was in Anderson, they had at least three movie theatres in town, not to mention drive-ins.  I saw just about every movie that came to town.  I even went to a drive-in a couple of times.  I saw all kinds of movies, but my favorites were the ones with action and people getting shot or beat up.  So, when I went to PC, I found that Clinton only had one movie theatre, which wasn't going to be enough for my movie fix.  Besides, the theatre in Clinton showed only G and PG films.  They liked to pride themselves on being the only theatre in the Southeast to not show R rated films.  Most of those films had people getting shot or beat up.
 Laurens was only 8 miles away from Clinton, and they had two movie theatres.  The downtown one showed a lot of movies to my liking, including karate movies.  So, I would take the bus over to Laurens to go to the movies.  The other theatre there showed more eclectic movies, so they were a nice change to the "B" movies that were in the downtown theatre.  One night, I had gone to see a karate movie, which got out late, and I missed the last bus back to Clinton.  So, I decided to walk back to school.  It was only 8 miles.  It was dark, and I got to an intersection that I thought would take me toward Clinton.  I kept walking a couple of miles and saw a sign to Greenwood.  I was going in the wrong direction.  8 miles was turning into 12 miles, because I had to double back.  When I finally got on the right road, I was trying to avoid cars hitting me.  Now, it was close to midnight.  I was about a mile out of town, when a car stopped and asked if I wanted a ride.  I said yes and got into this souped-up car.  He took me back to school.  My feet ached for days.
 I got the bright idea of borrowing a bicycle to ride to Laurens, since I didn't want to miss another bus.  I also got a map of the county to look for a back road to Laurens.  I found this farm road that was a straight shot, so I set out on that road.  I had gotten a little ways down it through farmland, when some wild dogs attacked me.  I tried to shoo them away, but they were more interested in me.  I turned around and went back to Clinton, and they gave up chasing me, so I never got to bike to Laurens.
 Greenville and Spartanburg were about 40 miles away, and they had lots more theatres.  There was a girl in school named Susan, and she had a car.  I told her that I had a doctor's appointment in Greenville for my bad knees, so she let me borrow her car.  I drove to Greenville and went to the movies.  I didn't have a doctor's appointment.  In fact, I didn't know any doctors in Greenville.  She was kind of gullible.  I then found excuses to go to drive-ins up there, because the appointment ran long, and it got dark, so I would return her car later.  She finally caught on to my ruse, and she cut off the car from me.  So, I went back to the movies in Clinton.  G and PG.  Very little killing and getting beat up.  Ugh.