Lights

  I was up in Charlotte for a Belk meeting and stayed overnight.  They usually gave us a company car to drive, when we went up there.  I didn't have anything to do that night, so I took the car to an adult bookstore to see what I could see.  

 I didn't buy anything, and I headed back to the motel.  The streetlights were very bright along the way.  There were cars flashing their headlights at me, so I thought they were thinking that I was blinding them by my headlights.  I just ignored them.  When I got back to the motel, I found that I hadn't turned on my headlights all the way back from the bookstore.  The street was so bright that I hadn't noticed.  I felt kind of stupid and relieved that a policeman didn't see my faux pas.  I blamed it on two things, because I could never blame myself.

 First, that the streetlights were very bright.  Second, that I was driving an unfamiliar car.  Maybe this is sacrilegious after visiting an adult bookstore, but I thanked God for protecting me that night.  It could have been a lot worse.   

Speed

  I used to have a lead foot.  What that meant was that I liked to drive fast.  It was a lot easier on highways than city streets, but I did my best to drive over the posted speed limit when I could.  If I was driving through a small town, I would slow down below their speed limit, since many of those towns depended on drivers going fast for their economy.  

 Twice, I drove to or from Charlotte, NC in an hour and fifteen minutes.  Normally, it would take at least about fifteen minutes longer than my time.  Both times, I was either in the Belk company car or van.  The first time, I was driving from Charlotte to Columbia with my store manager in the car.  He went to sleep.  When we reached our exit, I put on the brakes for him to wake up.  He looked at this watch and asked me how fast I was going.  I told him that I was going fast enough.  He told me never to do that again.  Ironically, one day he told me to drive up to Charlotte to get our store's payroll to the Belk corporate headquarters.  I had to be there by noon, and I left the store at 10:30.  I got there with 20 minutes to spare.  I even passed a state trooper on the highway doing a traffic stop on another driver.

 One route I wanted to take to see how fast I could go from one place to another was from Batesburg, SC to Columbia Mall which was 41 miles.  I was driving at night in our store's company car.  I drove the backroads, because I thought most officers would be at home having dinner.  I was right.  I drove that route in 35 minutes, despite having to slow down for traffic the closer I got to Columbia.  That may be a record.  It was just fun.

 I was driving back from Laurens, SC one day, and I wanted to do an experiment.  I got on the interstate and drove the speed limit just to see how many cars would pass me.  I lost count after 80 cars and honking drivers.  They were like me on a normal day.  

Gwen

  When I was a buyer for Belk, my departments included Housewares, Stationery, Luggage, Records, Toys, Candy, and a few other things.  At first, they also included Bedding, Draperies, and Rugs.  It was just way too much, especially my expertise didn't include those last three things, so my supervisor hired a woman to buy those items.  Her name was Gwen.  She had an eye for style that I never had.

 Gwen and I became good friends.  We would sit out in Columbia Mall and watch the people walk by.  We would make up stories about them.  One day, I saw a good-looking woman walking with a plain looking man.  I asked Gwen why that was, and she explained that the woman looked better next to the main, and the man was proud to be next to the woman.  It made sense.  Gwen was the better looking of us two.  We would go out to lunch at nice restaurants, and we would alternate giving the tip to the waitress.  It was always $1.  Keep in mind that this was in the late 1980's, when food cost a lot less.

 One day, she asked me to go with her to a rug store downtown to see about buying some of his goods for our store.  The owner was Iranian.  She knew about his culture, but she was insulted that he talked to me the entire time, despite her asking questions to him about his rugs.  She was so mad that she didn't buy any of his rugs, even though they were a good price.  She also asked me to go to Batesburg with her to check out the Belk store there.  She had bought some Linens for the store and wanted to see how they were doing.  I drove the company car to Batesburg and parked right out front of the store.  As we were leaving, I went out to open the car door for her.  Out of the corner of my eye, I saw a man, with a mad look on his face, walking fast towards us down the sidewalk.  Gwen yelled at me to get in the car.  The man stopped and stood at the front of our car with his hands on his hips. We guessed he was mad, because I had opened the car door for a black woman.  We were glad he didn't have a gun.

 Gwen and I were in a discount store one day checking prices of similar items to ours.  As buyers, we were told to go to stores and see what they were selling their stuff for, so we could undercut their prices.  We saw a middle-aged woman walking down the aisle by herself towards us.  As she got closer, Gwen picked up a random item off of a shelf and said in a voice loud enough for the woman to hear that this would look great on our mantle in the living room.  She just wanted to see the look on the woman's face.  We laughed at the woman's shocked expression.  I did the same thing later with another customer.  Sometimes, you just have to have fun with total strangers.  

Batesburg

  Belk Columbia had a small store in Batesburg, SC.  The buyers in Columbia would put in small amounts of merchandise for that store.  Much of what they brought into the store was used as a test market to see what would sell.  It was primarily a clothing store for men, women and children.  They had very little Home goods.  What they did have consisted of was a little bit of Housewares items.

 I was working in Accounts Payable, and we got an invoice from Samsonite for 23 pieces of Luggage that was bought for the Batesburg store.  We had no paperwork from Batesburg that they had received the Samsonite.  I checked with the buyer to see if she had bought luggage for Batesburg.  She said she had to test if the customers would purchase the luggage.  I then called the store and asked the manager if they had gotten any luggage.  He told me that they hadn't.  I read off the invoice to him and said that the luggage had supposedly been sent to East Main Street in Batesburg.  He told me that his store was on West Main Street.  The manager drove out to the address on East Main and found that it was a house owned by a man.  He found the man in his garage with a bunch of boxes of Samsonite Luggage.  The manager told the man that those boxes belonged to Belk and had the store's name on them.  The man said that they had his address on them, and he was keeping them.

 The manager called back to our office to report on what had happened.  I called the Lexington County Sheriff's Department and reported that a man had stolen a lot of luggage from Belk, and that he had it in his garage.  They sent a car out to the man's house to confirm that the boxes were in his garage.  The deputy explained to the man that he had essentially stolen the luggage from Belk, and that he was to return it to the store.  The man told the deputy that he thought he had won a sweepstakes that he hadn't entered and got the luggage for free.  He also told the deputy that he had given one piece away to his neighbor.  Upon urging from the deputy, the man returned the luggage, minus one piece, to the store.  

 We paid the invoice in full, despite not getting it all in the store. I hope the woman who got the free Beauty Case enjoyed it.

Records

  Whenever I went to a town, I looked for a record store.  I loved shopping for records.  You never know what you might find that might be underpriced and rare.  Unfortunately, there were folks in some stores that felt they could overprice records, even if they weren't rare.  Stores in Atlanta, Nashville and Charlotte were usually overpriced, but sometimes you could find a bargain.  I liked to go to smaller towns to find the real bargains.  When I was working at record conventions, it was important for me to cut the price of my records by a couple of dollars, so I would sell them.  You could price something top dollar for what it was worth, but you would probably never sell them.

 There were two stores in Charlotte that I liked to go to.  One specialized in cd's, and the other one had lots of records and memorabilia.  Just like in adult bookstores, it was important not to make eye contact with other customers.  There was really no need to share any expertise you might have in whether or not an item might be a good deal or not.  

 One day, I was in the store that had a lot of cd's.  I was wearing my Rolling Stones concert t-shirt that my brother had bought for me in 1988, when he went to their show in Clemson.  I liked the shirt.  A guy came up to me in the store and asked me if I liked the Stones.  Well, of course I did.  Why else would I be wearing that shirt?  I replied that I did.  He said he liked the Stones, too.  That was nice.  He then asked me if I wanted to come back to his place to listen to his music.  I politely said no, but I was also realizing that this guy was trying to pick me up.  I have nothing against gay people, but I don't go that way.  I decided it was time to leave the store without buying anything.  I never wore that shirt again, when I went to Charlotte.

Wandering

  There are a lot of techniques to acting.  Some actors will totally immerse themselves into a character, and they will be that character even at home. I don't like to do that.  I will develop a character, but it remains onstage.  I loved doing accents.  I worked for three months developing an English accent for a play at Anderson College.  I listened to records and speeches to hone the accent.  It turned out okay.  I used the accent in other places besides the stage just for fun.  I had to do an old Jewish man's accent for another play.  It was all about the cadence.  I did a northern American accent for another play.  I can also do a backwoods Southern accent on demand.  Accents allowed me to delve deep into the character and make it more believable.

 As I have said before, I have had to deal with terrible stage fright.  Even though concentrating on my lines and blocking out the audience helps with being afraid, I found one technique that helps with the fright that works the best for me.  I don't know if anyone else uses this technique, or maybe I am the only one, but it has to do with wandering.

 I know my lines (usually).  I know who my character is (always).  I know where I need to stand on the stage (mostly).  So, if I have all of that down, I like my mind to wander.  I think about other things.  Sometimes, I will look out into the audience and make eye contact with someone.  Just for a moment.  Sometimes, I will see someone in the audience who is not paying attention.  Just for a moment.  Sometimes, I will think about other things like what am I going to do when the play is over.  Sometimes, my mind will just take over, and I think about random things.  It is almost like my stage presence, and my mind are in two different places. This is how I have learned to relax on stage.  It isn't like I am in a dream world, or a drug-induced trip.  It's like I am looking down on myself doing my work.  It is very calming.

 I don't recommend this technique for everyone.  If something goes wrong in a play, as it often does, you have to be able to adapt to the moment.  If that happens, it is best to come back to the reality of your concentration to fix it, so that the audience never knows.  Most of the time, they never do. 

Yoga

  If one goes to a play, all they will see are actors portraying characters.  They will see a nice stage presentation.  They won't see the preparation.  I wasn't very good in building sets.  There are people that do it for a living and are great at it.  I admire them.  Just like when I took shop in junior high, I was always off 1/16th of an inch.  Actors generally don't have to build sets.  That is a blessing.

 Actors need to exercise before coming out on stage. I learned many techniques to relax my muscles, as well as to get my adrenaline up before a performance.  Despite my great stage fright, I found that exercise helps ease the doubt of doing good on stage. 

 Two of the techniques I have used involved rolling my shoulders and shaking my hands. One was for releasing tension, while the other was for releasing nervousness.  Another technique I learned through meditation.  Tense muscles and then relax them.  Start at your feet and work your way up to your neck.  It takes a while to go through that process, but it is good to prepare your body for what comes next.  Sometimes, I would jump up and down to get my blood flowing and build up my energy.  It may look strange to some, but it helped me get ready, especially if I had to do something physical on stage.  In one play, I was playing a thief being chased by a policeman.  The chase was offstage, so we both ran around backstage until we were out of breath.  Then, we came onstage to make the chase look believable.

 When I was a senior at Presbyterian College, the wife of my drama teacher was into yoga.  She taught us relaxation techniques to loosen our muscles and joints.  I hadn't done yoga before, but I found it very helpful in preparing for the physicality of acting. Much of it was an add-on to my meditation work.  

 The last thing I would do, before going on stage, would be to find a dark room backstage away from everyone else.  I would sit in there for a few minutes and think about what I needed to do.  Then, I would say a prayer.  God gave me my talent for acting.  I would thank Him and ask for courage and clarity of thought.  I would then pray that the audience would receive what I was about to give them.  That prayer would calm me down, and then I would be ready to face the audience.  

 A lot goes on backstage.  It can be very chaotic.  There are people to make sure you enter the stage at the appropriate time.  There are make-up people to make sure you look good.  There are costumers to make sure you are dressed properly for your character.  Wardrobe changes may have to be made quickly.  There are prop people to make sure things are placed onstage for the actors to use.  All the while, there is the actor getting ready to present a good performance with the help of others who don't often get the praise they deserve.  

    

Actor

  One of my regrets in life is not being able to do what I really wanted to do:  teach acting in a college setting.  I wanted others to learn what I had learned on how to be a good actor.  I have to say though, in all humility, I am a great actor.  Anybody can be a good actor, but a great actor is developed from the inside.  Some say that one is born to be a great actor.  You can learn the basics to be a good actor.  You can learn how to sit and how to stand.  You can learn an accent or even bits of a foreign language.  You can memorize lines and repeat them in a scene.  One thing a good actor can't do is separate himself from a character. 

 A character has to be developed to be believable.  You have to know what the character likes to eat; who were his parents; what was his childhood like; who were his friends growing up; what was his education like; did he finish high school; did he go to college; where does he live; does he live in a house or an apartment; does he work; what kind of job does he have; does he like his job; does he like the people around him; does he have any bad habits; what kind of car does he drive; is he married; has he been divorced; does he have any children.  The list is endless in developing a character.  Some of these questions can be answered from the script.  Others might have to be answered in your own imagination.

 I can count on one hand the number of great actors I have seen in my lifetime, either in person or on the screen.  They are a rare breed.  The key to telling the good actor from the great actor is if you forget that you are watching the actor, whose name you might know, and you see the character he is portraying.  If you just see the actor, he is just being good.  If you forget about the actor's name and dwell on the character, he is being great.  Not all great actors are always great.  Most will tell you that sometime in their careers that they have just done a mediocre performance.  

 I am super-critical in my work.  I have to be to get better.  What an audience member might see is not what the actor sees about himself.  That's kind of why I don't like seeing myself on a TV show or in a movie.  I am always seeing something I could have improved upon to make it better.  The director might have thought it was all right, but I didn't necessarily see it to be all right.  I take the acting experience very seriously.  That's why I am a great actor.  

Melty

  When I first started working at Belk in Columbia Mall, I was put in charge of the Books and Candy departments.  I loved to work in Books.  I had a lot of experience selling books.  Candy was a different story.  Despite wanting to sell books, I found that the majority of my time was spent selling candy.  Of course, I had to sample the candy to know what I was selling.  At least, that was my excuse.  

 One item we sold a lot of was something called "Smooth N Melty Mints".  They were flat and came in several bright colors.  They came in a cellophane bag.  Most of our sales came from folks planning weddings, because they served them at receptions.  They were $3.99 per bag.  

 A man came into the store on a Saturday in the summer to buy several bags of the mints.  He was getting them for his son's wedding that evening.  There was a warning on the bag that said not to leave the mints in a hot car.  After all, they would melt.  He bought the bags and left.  A few hours later, he stormed into our store and laid these blobs of melted mints on my counter still in the bags.  He said he had driven over to Dutch Square and had left the mints in his car.  When he came back out, they had melted in the bags.  I showed him the warning on the bag about not leaving them in a hot car, but he was furious and wanted to sue the store for selling a faulty product.  He wanted to see my supervisor.

 I called her to come out and talk to this angry man.  When she heard what had happened, she had to stifle her laughter.  I was trying to do the same.  I wanted to suggest to the man that he take some scissors and cut the mints, but I knew that would just throw gasoline on a fire.  He wanted to exchange the mints for good ones.  My supervisor showed him the warning label on the bag, but he wasn't satisfied.  He threatened to cut up his Belk charge card and told us he would tell others to do the same, because we sold defective merchandise.  My supervisor told me to give him an exchange for new bags, which I did.  

 My supervisor told me to throw them away.  I kept one bag to show customers what would happen if they left the mints in a hot car.  It never happened again on my watch.

Streaking

  Back in 1974, I was a junior at Presbyterian College.  There was a fad on campuses all over America called Streaking.  Students would run nude across campus and try not to get caught by the police.  We were warned a head of time that the PC students were not allowed to streak.  It would mean that the police would arrest whoever they caught, and the school would take appropriate disciplinary action including expulsion.  

 There was a rumor around campus that some students were going to streak on an upcoming night.  The police were ready, as were the administration officials.  No girls showed up for the event, but a few guys did.  They had bags over their heads to avoid being recognized, and there was alcohol involved.  One of my Theatre friends went running across campus, but his bag turned sideways, and he couldn't see out of the eye holes of the bag.  He ran right into a police car and was stopped.  He was fined for indecent exposure and let go.  The school didn't do anything except tell him not to do it again.

 I got caught up in the streaking fever that night, but I wasn't going to run across campus.  I stripped down in the restroom of the Student Center and ran ten feet to the next building over which was a classroom building.  I don't think anybody saw me, because all of the attention was on the students across campus.  Just as well.

 Some of the girls did expose their butts from the windows of a dorm to the adoring boys down below.  We cheered for more, but that was all they were willing to do.  

 It was a wild night at PC.  It was supposed to be a religious school.  It was in name only.  

Plate

  I never had a vanity license plate for my car.  Personalizing it just wasn't what I wanted.  Maybe it was a little paranoia, but I just didn't want to stand out in traffic.  I wanted anonymity.  I just took whatever plate the DMV would send me.

 One day, I got the plate in the mail, and to my surprise, the plate read "DMW 777".  It had my initials spelled backwards plus three "7s", which was my lucky number.  When I had plates before, I had to remember them by making up words that were close to the letters and numbers.  Now, it was a no brainer.  Was it a stroke of luck that I had this special plate?  Was it random?  I didn't really have a clue, but I knew I could easily remember it.

 I worked at Columbia Mall, which had some crime areas near there.  It wasn't in the best of neighborhoods.  As I was getting off work from Macy's, a friend wanted me to see her new car.  When I walked back to my car, I saw that my license plate was gone.  It couldn't have fallen off, because I had securely fastened it.  There had been a rash of stolen license plates from cars in the parking lot.  Panic set in.  What if the person used my plate on a car involved in a crime, and I would be blamed for it.

 There was a Richland County Sheriff's substation inside the mall.  I went in there to report my stolen license plate.  They told me I wasn't the first one that this had happened to, which I already knew.  They gave me a slip of paper to take to the DMV to get a new plate and to present to any officer, if I got stopped before getting to the DMV.  Thankfully, there was a DMV close to the mall, so I didn't have to go far.  I could take a lot of backroads getting to the mall from my apartment so as to avoid as many officers as possible.

 I got a new plate with random letters and numbers.  I really liked "DMW 777".  I hope whoever used it after me liked it, too.  All the way to jail.

Forging

 From early on in my academic years, I had been told by teachers and my parents how smart I was.  Testing revealed that I had an above-average IQ bordering on genius.  There were two problems with me being so smart.  The first was that I didn't study for tests. I just didn't see the need to study.  The second problem was that I just didn't care about my grades, even though my teachers and my parents did.  It was very hard for me to make an A or a B, unless it was in a class I liked.  Unfortunately, there weren't many of those classes being offered. When I got to college, I found that I was very good in Speech and Drama.  I loved those courses and made A's in those.  I had a 4.0 in my major which made up for those F's.

 In 8th grade, I was not doing well at all.  I got beat up every day by bullies. I hated coming to school.  My grades were suffering.  So, I decided to do something that would avoid the embarrassment of bringing home a bad report card.  A parent had to sign the report card, before the student brought it back to school.  I learned how to forge my father's signature.  

 He signed things in a very distinctive way.  It took practice to sign "John K. Durst" correctly.  The last name was easy, because he used the line off of the "D" to go above the rest of the letters and cross the "t" at the end.  I worked for about a week to get his signature down to a copy of his.  I would turn in the report card with the forgery, and my teachers never knew the difference.  Some kids would be creative and change "F's" to "A's" by just adding one line.  Some of the teachers got wise to that and changed from printing grades to using cursive writing.  It was harder to make that change for the students.

 One day, my father asked me why he hadn't seen my report card in almost a year.  I tried to make up an excuse, but nothing was very believable.  He called the school and asked them if they were still issuing report cards.  They said yes, every six weeks.  My deception had been discovered.  My father was mad at me along with my teachers.  I felt the sting of the paddle that my father gave me for my forging his name. From then on, my father knew when a report card would be released, and he demanded to see it.  Those days weren't happy after that.  

 I still didn't study, and I still didn't care about my grades, but at least I graduated by the skin of my teeth.  High School.  College.  Graduate school.  No more forging.

Amazing

  One of the places I loved to go to, when I lived in Fort Worth, was Six Flags Over Texas in Arlington.  It was halfway between Fort Worth and Dallas.  I also loved roller coasters, and I found that I could ride one coaster and sing the first verse of "Amazing Grace" before the first drop.  For some reason, I found that very calming.

 Before moving to Texas, I went to Six Flags there while in college.  They had two things there that I really liked.  One was a tower that you could go up in and see the entire park.  The other was a gondola ride that went across the park.  Since I was a little mischievous back then, I used both things for pranks.

 I was riding the gondola ride and had some pennies in my pocket.  I was about 20 feet above the ground, so I dropped pennies from the gondola on unsuspecting people.  I tried not to hit them on their heads but aimed for right in front of them.  Sometimes I missed and actually hit some people.  I didn't think they knew it was me, but I learned later that some people had reported the Pennies from Heaven.

 I moved onto the tower.  It was much higher than the gondola, and it was a hot day.  How do you cool off the people walking below the tower?  By spitting off of the tower and aiming at people.  It seemed perfectly logical.  I got a few good spits off of the tower, when a security guard came up to me.  He asked me if I had been spitting off of the tower.  I denied it, but they had witnesses.  He then asked if I was the one who was throwing pennies at people off of the gondola.  Of course not, I said.  They had witnesses.  I was asked to leave the park.  I was with some friends, but they didn't care.  

 Fortunately, it was about the time I was to meet up with my friends to leave anyway.  I bet the people I threw pennies near kept the money, and the ones that got spit on got cooled off some.  They never got the chance to thank me.  I was the "Lone Stranger". 

Hut

  When I was a member of Kilbourne Park Baptist Church, we had a great youth group.  Because we were so tight, the church decided to give us a house on the property for us to hang out in.  It had been used for Sunday School classes, but the church didn't need it anymore.  We were very excited to get this one-story house.  It had two large rooms on either side of the house which were separated by a long and wide hallway.  It had wooden floors and sheet rock for the walls.  We needed to do some work to get it the way we wanted it.

 The church provided us with the necessary materials like paint.  They also gave us some adult help on how to paint the walls mostly with rollers.  We had fun painting the walls, as well as ourselves.  We learned the trick of using masking tape for the edges.  There was some disagreement on what colors to paint the walls, but the majority ruled--purple, white, green and pink.  Some of the kids wanted to paint the walls in psychedelic colors, but the church said no.

 As we were preparing the house, we had an idea to knock down the hallway walls and make one big room combining both side rooms and the hall.  We asked for sledgehammers to get this done.  One of the church's members was a contractor.  He had the blueprints for the house.  He came by one day and asked us what we wanted the hammers for.  We told him about our plans, and his mouth dropped open.  He told us that if we were to go through with our plans, the roof would cave in.  Those two walls supported the roof.  We decided that we would just use the rooms as they were and not to knock down any walls.  It was probably a good decision.  

 The church called it "The Youth Hut".  It was our home away from home, until the church took it back and used it for other things.  Eventually, it was torn down and turned into a parking lot.  We had a lot of fun in that house.

Tub

  I prefer baths to showers.  I always have.  It reminds me of my childhood.  A word of advice:  never lose your inner child.  I take baths and listen to music. It is the nicest part of my day to be in a hot bath and listening to my stereo.  Today, it was Stevie Ray Vaughan.  Showers are okay, if I don't have a choice.  It is just relaxing to be in a bath.

 This brings me to an experience, when I lived in a condo in Greenville.  The buildings were close to one another, and they formed alleys between each building.  My bedroom was on the second floor and overlooked the alley and the back of the next building.  The guy, who lived in the opposite condo, was a bit overweight.  I'm being nice.  He probably weighed 300 pounds.  Every morning, unless it was storming, he would come outside on his porch; strip down to nakedness; and stand in a metal tub to take a bath.  Even in the rain and the cold, he would have this ritual.  Unfortunately for me, I would see him from my bedroom.  I wanted to look away, but it was like watching a car wreck.  Maybe, he was too large to fit into his tub inside, although those tubs were pretty big.  Maybe, he was a nudist.  I never met him to find out.  He was the real-life "ugly naked guy" character from "Friends".

 I would hope that we would have thunderstorms in the mornings, because it wouldn't have been safe for him to stand in a metal tub with water.  Although, I secretly wanted for him to test the laws of electricity.  Some of the condo's residents complained about his show every morning, but the owners said he was within his rights to do that on his property.  If he had been a supermodel, and she was bathing herself outside, it would have been vastly different.  If anyone sees me taking a bath outside on my porch, call the folks with the rubber rooms.  

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 soul 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.