Grooves

  I've worked thirty years in retail stores.  During my tenure in retail, I learned a lot about how to be successful.  I learned how to display merchandise that would make the customer want to buy it.  For example, when I worked in Books at Belk, there was a new book by Billy Graham.  I built a cross with those books on a table.  We sold out of the books.  Creativity was the key to displaying items for sale.  I also learned what people wanted to buy.  When I was a buyer for Belk, I brought in a Tummy Toner knock-off as seen on TV.  We sold 10,000 units within a six-week period.  When I worked at Rich's/Macy's, I had the number one Lamp department in the Rich's company in sales and the number five Luggage department in all of Macy's stores.  Why?  I knew how to sell.

 My unfulfilled dream has been to have a store of my own selling books, records, posters, autographs, memorabilia, magazines, videos, and other stuff.  For a long time, I have been selling much of this stuff on eBay and Amazon, but I wanted to have a store of my own.  I have had some of my stuff in a couple of other stores, but I had no real control over the sales.  

 When I thought I could do a store, I put in a lot of study into what other stores did that were similar to what I wanted to do.  In my business model, I picked a few things from record or memorabilia stores, but I found that no one in the Southeast was doing what I wanted to do.  So then, the preparation began.  

 I had a very large collection of VHS tapes with music on them.  I took those tapes and recorded them on 8-hour tapes.  I created tapes with a lot of genres from rock to pop to country to classical to jazz and more that would appeal to customers. In order to break up the music, I also added movie or comedy clips to add to the videos.  I made sure that everything would be suitable for any customer that came into the store. The idea was to play these tapes in the store on a big-screen TV and maybe have a sofa so that customers could sit and watch them. I had over 130 video tapes to show in store.   When DVD's came out, I transferred much of the material to discs.  I had over 180 discs, since I couldn't get any more than six hours to a disc.

 The store was going to be called Grooves and Such. My advertising would use the tagline "Grooves and Such, it's a Gas, Gas, Gas" using the first initials in the store's name and borrowing a line from "Jumpin' Jack Flash" by The Rolling Stones.  I thought it was catchy. I needed cork boards to display the autographs and posters; three glass cases to show the small stuff; a few tables with boxes to use for the records and videos; and other fixtures for the books and magazines.  The store itself would be no more than 1200 square feet.  I figured that $175,000 would be needed to get the store going and allow it to be profitable within a year.  The location would have to be in an area with free parking and easy to get to, like a traffic light nearby.  I scouted several locations and found a few that could work.

 My dream never materialized.  The closest I got was in 2015, when I was working with a friend who would supply the financial needs.  Unfortunately, he was killed.  One blessing was that the store probably would have failed during Covid.  Maybe one day.  

 

Hurt

  The Cobbwebs was a band that I was a part of.  I wrote the lyrics to several of the songs.  We billed ourselves as "original 60's rock and roll".  Del and Chris did all of the music.  We were based out of the Irmo, SC area, where they lived.  

 There was a local company that produced a various artists tape called "The Burning of Columbia" in the mid-1990's, and we were picked to be on that tape.  We went into a recording studio to cut our song.  The tape was released, and we got some radio airplay.  

 Things were looking up for us.  A local band was getting some major airplay during this same time.  They were called "Hootie and the Blowfish".  We knew some of the people with that band, or we knew people who knew people with that band.  At any rate, we knew we were good and tried to shop our music around to artists and labels.  We would send them a tape of our music along with the sheet music for the enclosed songs.  The companies would return the tapes but keep the sheet music. We listened to the radio to see if a band would steal our copyrighted songs, and then we would sue them and make millions.  

 Due to a lawsuit many years before regarding George Harrison and "My Sweet Lord", it was determined that a song would have to have eight bars in a row the same in order for the music to be copied.  We heard one rather famous band use our music, but it was only six bars, so there was nothing we could do.

 We were getting a lot of buzz around town for our music, especially on local late-night FM radio.   We were going to be the next Hootie that was going to come out of Columbia.  One Saturday, the three of us went to Augusta, GA for a record convention.  We liked to go there to look for rarities to add to our collection.  As we were going from table to table, I overheard Chris and Del talking to a dealer.  They were telling him about their upcoming move to Nashville, TN to make it big up there.  This was the first I had heard about a move.  They were going to leave Columbia and me.  We had a three-way partnership with The Cobbwebs.  All decisions had to be put to a vote.  I wasn't consulted about their moving to Nashville.  I was shocked and deeply hurt.  Of course, it was a good move for them and the music.  They just never told me they were moving.  I couldn't go with them because of my job.

 The last time we were together, before their move, was at The Rolling Stones concert in Columbia in 1995.  It was a great show.  I had to resign myself in knowing that the music would be better in Nashville.  It was, and we got noticed.  We never achieved "Hootie" status.  We were in the top ten for indie releases in several European countries in 2002.  That was something.

Drag

  When I was in the youth group at Kilbourne Park Baptist Church, some kids wanted to do a mock wedding where the boys would dress like girls, and the girls would dress like boys.  I really didn't see anything wrong with it, because most of the parents approved.  It was going to be like a stage production in Columbia.  Since I was doing theatre at the time at Columbia College, I was getting comfortable on the stage.  The director cast me as a bridesmaid.  

 I asked my mother if I could borrow one of her dresses and her high heels.  She asked why, and I told her about the fake wedding we were going to do.  She didn't seem too keen on the idea, but she knew that back in Shakespeare's time the men took women's parts since women were not allowed on stage.  She said I could do it, if my father approved.  

 Well, my father said absolutely not!  He didn't want his son wearing women's clothes.  My mother tried to talk him out of his decision, but he put his foot down.  I couldn't do it.  I had to tell the others I couldn't be in the "wedding".  A lot of the kids didn't understand, but the director did.  The production went on as planned, but I wasn't allowed to go.  

 This event was before dressing in drag became a thing.  It was church sponsored.  I thought my father should have loosened up a little, but he was a Baptist minister who believed that this event wasn't Biblical.  I bet the other kids had fun, though.

Ice

  One thing I liked to do growing up was going roller skating.  I wasn't very good and had a hard time stopping, but it was fun.  We had a couple of rinks near where I lived.  It was only natural to see if I could ice skate.

 Our youth group from Kilbourne Park Baptist Church went to the Rockbridge Country Club.  They had an ice rink.  It wasn't very big, but it was cool on a hot day.  There were one or two kids who could skate on ice.  I was very good at slipping and falling.  It got to the point where I just hugged the railing and pretended to skate.  My ankles weren't strong enough to balance on a thin blade.  That was the only time I have ever skated on ice on purpose.  I have done that, when the sidewalk or road was iced over, and usually that resulted in bruises like I got on the rink.  

 The last time I roller skated was with our Singles group from First Baptist Church.  I was much better by then.  It was a fun time with a group of friends I adored.  The cool thing about that roller rink was they had padding along the side of the rink, so you didn't have to fall on a hard surface.  Falling was easy.  Getting up was hard.  Just like life.

Connections

 Over the course of my life, I have made a lot of connections with people who some would consider famous.  Or, I have made connections with people who had a connection with someone famous.  I have tried to guard both kinds of connections, because even famous people should have their privacy.  

 For example, when I got Yoko Ono's home address and phone number, I didn't share it with anyone.  There was no reason to.  We could correspond back and forth, but the whole world didn't need that information from me.  When I knew what hotel Dennis Hopper was staying at while filming "Chattahoochee", there was no reason for me to share that information with others.  He just wanted his privacy off of the set.  Respect goes a long way when dealing with famous people.  

 One connection I made was with someone who worked for George Harrison, as he was dying from cancer.  For example, I knew that the house he was in was in Los Angeles, and that Paul McCartney had offered the house for George.  I also knew that the house was protected from curious fans.  When George died, I knew about it six hours before it was released to the press.  I didn't run around and tell people guess what I knew?  There was no reason to.  I was just able to grieve by myself before the world did.  

 Some people reading this, who knew me from work, would find this strange.  After all, I enjoyed store gossip.  I liked to spread gossip.  Sometimes just for fun to see how different it would be, when it got back to me.  I didn't really want to hurt anyone with gossip, but sometimes I did.  I lost friends because of gossip, and I regret that.  

 There are stories about others (and me) that I will take to my grave.  For those connections, trust is everything.  

Master

  When I was a kid, there was a tradition that adult men were called "Mister", and boys were called "Master".  I never liked that designation.  My name was "Walter".  I didn't like being called "Master Walter".  It just seemed kind of stupid to me.  I would be introduced in formal settings with my parents as "Master".  That word also had other connotations to me as being the one in charge of things, and I certainly wasn't in charge of anything.  

 As time went on, I cringed at being called by that word.  Either introduce me by my first name or not at all.  So, one day, my father and I were in Georgetown, SC.  He was down there to preach in a church one Sunday, and I tagged along.  I was about 12.  That Saturday, he took me to a barber shop to get a haircut.  When we walked into the shop, the barber immediately knew we weren't his regular customers.  My father introduced me as his son Walter.  The barber said, "Have a seat, Mister Walter."  That was the first time anyone had called me "Mister".  I was so excited, that I strutted up to the barber chair.  I was no longer a master.  The barber also used a straight razor on my face, even though I had nothing there except peach fuzz.  That was a little scary, since nobody had done that before either.  One wrong move, and there would be blood.  I held still basking in the happiness that I was a "Mister".  

 After my father finished his preaching, we headed back to Columbia.  On that trip back, he told me the facts of life.  I already knew about the birds and the bees before his lecture in the car.  After all, I was now a Mister.  I let him go through the story, though.  That's what polite misters do.

Basketball

  Since I seemed to have a knack for basketball, as exhibited at Trenholm Park, my father thought it would be a good idea to put a basketball goal in our backyard.  He got a sheet of plywood and nailed it to a tree for a backboard.  He also got a basketball goal and net and attached it to the plywood.  The tree was at the end of our dirt driveway near our backdoor.

 I invited some friends over to play.  It was fun at first, even though there was a major problem.  The basketball wouldn't go through the net.  It would just get caught up at the bottom and not go through.  To remedy this problem, my mother gave us an old mop to poke the ball out of the net.  Because of this problem, we couldn't play a game.  Anytime that someone got a goal, someone would have to get the mop to get the ball out of the net.  

 Another problem was the plywood.  It got wet in the rain and started to peel apart.  It got to the point, where my father had to take the backboard down which just left the goal nailed to the tree.  Because the net wasn't working right, he took it down, so we just had a hoop.  I gave up on basketball, but the hoop stayed up.  Eventually, the birds and squirrels used it as a perch, so it was put to good use by them.  

 I could have been another Pistol Pete, if the plywood hadn't come off.