Sanger-Harris
[Read part 1, part 2, part 3, part 4] As I mentioned in an earlier post, McCord Music was upstairs on the right side of the wing toward Sanger Harris. When our house burned down – see part 4 – I bugged the crap out of my parents to replace at least one of the two guitars that had burned in my room. For some reason, they were a little more concerned about the blackened house on Courtshire Dr. with no roof.
I finally convinced them that my way of dealing with the situation was with a guitar and writing songs. I can be stubborn. So I went to McCord at the mall and bought another Yamaha to replace the one that had burned.
By the end of the school year, we were back in the house. During the summer, I started working at the car wash at Forest Ln. and the Tollway. In front of the Pizza Inn by the Safeway. Then the Pizza Inn became Kel’s Kitchen. It now sits empty. The Safeway is now an Antique Mall. Or was last time I bothered to check.
I was still working there went I started at Richland College before transferring to NTSU, now UNT. When I had some money saved up, I talked my dad into co-signing a loan for a Martin guitar. Thanks in large part to the staff at McCord Music.
A year and a half later, I took a break from school and moved to Nashville with Joel Nichols. One day while we were working at Deli Junction (our day job), Joel got a phone call. One of our roommates called to tell him that our apartment had been broken into and his guitar was stolen. It turned out that it was my guitar that had been stolen, along with anything that you could play music on or with. When Joel looked into his room off of the kitchen, his guitar was still there. We figured it was a friend of his that didn’t want to take his guitar.
Fortunately, my parent’s home insurance policy would cover the guitar and tape recorder. I took the bus back to Dallas. Unfortunately, the insurance wouldn’t pay out enough to replace the Martin. So I took what they gave us and went to McCord Music of course. I sat in one of the listening rooms, surrounded by guitars. Most of them were in the price range. A couple of them were a little more. I’ve always thought positively.
I came to an Alvarez. I played a couple of songs and then called the salesmen back. I told him I’d found my guitar and he could put the rest up. The sound actually fit my voice. It had a clear pick guard and the wood matched my hair. I had my guitar.
That’s my history with McCord Music in Valley View Mall. Although I was in there at least a hundred times over the years. That Alvarez guitar sounds better today than it ever has. You can hear it at my show on Sunday.
Peace be with you.
store opened. Besides being a cleanup person – there wasn’t a carpet I didn’t clean on the second floor facing the mall – I had two other part-time jobs. One I don’t really remember. The other was writing a music/entertainment column for the North Richland Hills News, which is long gone now.
When a dog or dogs bark on TV – or there are any animal sounds at all – Buddy heads to the television. Our son, Conner, rescued Buddy from his former “owner” who had him chained on a short chain in the backyard. His food and water bowls had ants crawling all over them. Conner told them he was taking the puppy and brought him home.
and partly – again, still – because he can. He still gets this look on his face that says, “this house is freaking cool!” Having Misty to play with is a bonus. At times it seems like he remembers before Conner brought him home. If we do a certain thing – we haven’t quite figured out what it is – he’ll snap at us. Not to hurt us, more as an automatic response.
I just got home a little while ago from helping to pick the food up from Metrocrest Social Services with members of Christ United Methodist Church to deliver Thanksgiving food to the Sack Summer Hunger (SSH) families. With the weather having turned cool, it was quite a bit different than the 90+ degrees weather we worked in during the summer. All of the volunteers were in excellent holiday sharing spirit as everyone helped get the vehicles loaded.
I was letting the dogs, Buddy and Misty, out into the backyard. Buddy took off to make his rounds through the backyard. Misty, who is quite a bit older and heavier, rumbled out past the large trunk of the tree. When she was just past the tree, she stopped, looked up at the tree, and half-heartedly let out a quick bark. Then she turned her head back around as if to say “oh, the hell with it, it’s too hot,” and sauntered on to one of her favorite resting spots.
don’t you? Come to think about it, most of my best memories are those times when I’ve found myself in a new good place, feeling the same way. I hope I’ll always have those memories. I have relatives and friends who have already lost some of their memories.
