Letter Writing

My parents were very avid letter writers. After my Mother lost her sight, she would dictate her letters to Daddy, and he would send them. Her family used to write once a month to each other, as the "family letter" to keep up with happenings. After they started to die, their family letter died with them. All of them were written in their hands and mailed. Oooo, what a concept! Letters that were in envelopes and put in a real mail box. My parents never had a computer or access to e-mails. If they had, I suspect that they would have spent their entire day writing to their friends. It was important to stay in contact with others. When I was in college, I used to write to my friends, and they would write to me. Except for Sonny Smith, who I used to send cassette tapes, and he would send them back to me. We would record music and talk about whatever was on our minds. The "Walter Durst Radio Hour" was born on station "WOW", which stood for "Walter Oh Walter". Yeah, they were pretty funny, and I still have some copies. They were classics. With the advent of e-mail, letter writing has become something of a thing of the past. I have found that if someone doesn't have e-mail, I will not write to them. If I do, it is rare. I can count on one hand the number of people I write real letters to. It is an art that is slowly or quickly going away. The art of letter writing. Maybe because you don't have to pay for a stamp. Maybe because you forget how to write. At any rate, it is a lost art. Years from now, letters on paper will be collectible, if they aren't already. How much do you bid on a letter from Mary Frances Durst to Walter Durst? $500? Sold American!!

Mentors

I was reading this morning about someone I know named Angie, whose mentor named Tedd has died of cancer. Angie works in TV, and Tedd was her first news director who mentored her and pushed her to succeed. I was reminded of my mentors. There have been several people in my life who have mentored me in various areas. My drama mentor was Skelly Warren. He was filling in as my Drama teacher at PC, when my regular teacher went on sabbatical. Skelly was tough. I remember he taught me a great deal about concentration. During rehearsals, he would stand next to me and yell in my ear, while I was reciting my lines. I had to hear what he was saying but block it out at the same time. Despite his believing in perfection, he also believed in being as loose as you could on stage. We did physical exercises, as well as mental exercises. Technique was important, but the main thing was being a total person. My business mentor was John Brusack. He was the merchandise manager at Belk, when I was a buyer. He taught me many things about business, mainly about how to stay ahead of the curve and to make people want to buy things. He showed me how to be an innovator and be a merchandiser. But the most important thing he taught me was to never forget the people around you. You cannot succeed without the people. No matter how big your ego gets, you must know that you are nothing without the people who got you there. So, share your knowledge with those coming up. That way, you will live on through them. It makes all the difference in the world. Thanks Skelly and John.

Target Audience

A writer usually writes for a target audience. Advertisers usually advertise to a target audience. If someone out of the target group benefits, then that's even better. But, the target audience is chosen to appeal to a segment of the population that may want the product more than others. So, what is my target audience for this blog? It actually changes from day to day. I know, for example, that some people read my blog every day. I truly appreciate those folks keeping up with me. There are some blogs that I write directly to them. Other times, I write to people who probably don't read my blog, but maybe they will one day, or they might hear about it. I find it highly amusing that I will write something, and then I'll see it on the news. For example, I wrote about oil speculators inflating the price of oil, and they need to be prosecuted. Then, a week or two later, there were news people talking about the same thing. I don't know if someone read my blog and gave them an idea, but I like to think so. Since I am a rather private person and keep my emotions inside, most of my friends don't know about some things I have written about, as I find it very easy to write about emotions, just not voice them. So, getting back to my target audience. My target audience is you the reader. I thank you for reading my blog. I hope that it is thought-provoking and entertaining. And if you think I am being a little cryptic sometimes, you are right. Some people think I am very hard to figure out, but I am quite transparent. Don't read too much into me. Once you figure me out.

Greenwood SC

Greenwood SC is located about 45 miles from Greenville and about 70 miles from Columbia. It is where my Grandmother Durst lived, and where my father was born. My Durst ancestors started Greenwood. They were Germans who settled in South Carolina in the early days of America. They came to Charleston first and then headed inland. They came to an area close to modern-day Greenwood and were known as Palatines. As the years progressed, they moved a little further. Some went to what is now Edgefield. Others even ventured out toward Texas, but my family stayed around Greenwood. My great-grandfather started a cotton mill that provided jobs and economy to Greenwood. Later, he would start the bank, which one day became a part of Bank of America. My grandfather had the first car dealership in Greenwood. He and my Grandmother had four boys--James, William, George and John. John was my father. His father died in 1924, when my father was only around 13. There is some controversy on how he died, but the symptoms indicate a brain tumor. My Grandmother raised all four boys and sent them to college which was Clemson. She was a school teacher. She lived until she was 105, and everyone called her "remarkable". Greenwood is a relatively small town, but it has a lot of heart and history. I have a street named after me near Lander University called W. Durst Street. To be fair, there is a street named after my cousin Elizabeth called E. Durst Street. The sad thing is that today there are no Dursts from our family who live in Greenwood. They have all either died or moved away. My parents are buried in Greenwood, along with Uncle Jim and Aunt Claudia, and other Dursts. One day, when I die, there is a place for me in that cemetery next to my Mother. If you ever visit Greenwood, which I hope you do, just think about what it took to make the town what it is today. And, you'll also see the second widest Main Street in the world next to Buenos Aires Argentina.

Good Friend

As we have discussed before, friends mean the world to me. Since I don't have much in the way of family, my friends are my family. My friends Thom and Mary Ann Stone have allowed me to share their family for holidays and other occasions. They have been doing that for about 10 years or so. I have seen their children, Payton and Nathan, grow up. And, we have grown from Lego to Wii. My friends keep me young. They care about me, and I care about them. Sounds simple, huh? Yeah, maybe. But you see? I have a lot of baggage with people not caring about me. That brings me back to the walls. I recently did a survey, and one of the questions was about making friends easily. I said no, because of the walls. Sometimes, I open a door to a wall, and let someone in, or maybe I'll walk out for a few minutes, but then I will retreat back within the walls. Sometimes, I will even attempt to breach someone else's walls. That's when I make a friend. It isn't often. So, this brings me to a story. I have a friend named Joni. She has a lot of other friends. I worked with her at Macy's, and we became friends through work. She and I worked to bust a worldwide scam that targeted stolen credit cards and merchandise. We have a lot in common. When I left Macy's in December, it was at the same time that a mutual friend died suddenly. It really affected her. At his funeral, Joni and I shared a long hug and cry. It was a release, but also a sad time for her. A couple of months later, a friend of hers was seriously hurt, and I think she began to realize that maybe there was a need in her life to explore the fact that there was life beyond Macy's. Her life had been consumed with work. We began to talk. Mostly, it was via e-mails. Some were visits to Columbia or Augusta. A few were phone calls. Joni swore me to secrecy. She couldn't have anyone to find out what she was thinking. We have mutual friends that could have helped her with her decision, but she trusted me with my counsel and secrecy. Some would say that I have a character flaw as a gossip. But, Joni trusted me, and I didn't let her down. When she would talk to me and sound depressed, I would tell a mutual friend that they might want to e-mail her and say a kind word. I wouldn't say why, and they just thought that she was having a bad day. But, it was an attempt to just keep her spirits up. Two weeks ago, I got a little gift for her and brought it to her on the day that she told Macy's she was leaving after 22 years. That day, she was happier than I had seen her in a very long time. She saw that there was a life out there. It will take her a while to decompress, much like it did for me. She will do some travelling, and work on her house. She will help out her father and spend more time with friends. She is a special friend to me, and a very caring person. Maybe that is a trait that others had not seen in her, but I have. She cares about me and is a dear friend. After she left Macy's, I apologized to a couple of her friends who didn't know she was leaving. I said I was sorry that I had not told them about her decision before, and that I had to lie to them as to why I had come to Columbia or gone to Augusta to meet with her. Either I said I was antiquing or just hanging out. Their response to me was that they understood that I was a "good friend". That meant the world to me. I also wanted them to know that I could be trusted and am not a gossip. It is hard to be away from my good friends, and maybe that will change before too long. But for now, to all my good friends--thanks for letting me get close to you. If we work together at some point down the road, that would be great. But, we are family. I can't be any more sincere than that.

Magnificent Seven

There was a movie several years ago called "The Magnificent Seven". It was a western about a group of desperadoes who save a Mexican town from a bad man. It is one of my favorite movies. I also have a penchant for eye candy. So, what do those two things have in common? Something that I have never shared before. Before you call me a pig or some sexist person, let me say that the "magnificent seven" were women who I cared for or were in awe of. It started at Belk and went on through Rich's/Macy's. Since people came and went, the list was constantly changing. As a game of sorts, I would count each day who I saw that was on the list. It was very rare to have a complete 7. Most days, it was just good to have a majority of 4. There wasn't a real criteria for the list, but most were attractive, smart, funny, a real personality, and nice. They also were generally good people. Without offending anyone pro or con, I am not going to say who I had on the list, but anyone who knows me, and who I worked with, could make some good guesses. I have a character flaw of putting women that I like on pedestals. I can't really relate to people one to one very well. So, this was something of a fantasy. Nothing truly sexual. Just a wish. So, to all of those who were on my list, thank you for being nice. Most of them went on to a much better life and successes, so I would like to think I may have been a help in that by making them feel special. Who knows?

Solar Eclipse

Today, there was a solar eclipse in China. Just in time for the Olympics. They say that eclipses make animals go crazy for a little bit, and humans just go crazy. Maybe I can blame my craziness on an eclipse I experienced in 4th grade. I went out on our patio. They told us to watch it either with a pinhole in a shoebox or with majortime dark glasses. Of course, I couldn't get the shoebox to work, and we didn't have the required dark glasses, so I watched the eclipse as a shadow on our patio. It was kind of neat to watch the patio get dark in the middle of the day. But, I knew it still wasn't the same. So, on a dare from my neighbor Bruce Campbell, I briefly looked at the sun and saw the partial eclipse with my eye. Bruce thought it was funny, and I thought I was going to go blind. We both went a little crazy. Bruce and I used to do a lot of crazy things. We got walkie-talkies that had a pretty good range. We would play army in the backyard and use the radios. We found out that the frequency was the same as some private airplanes, so we staged a plane accident. We talked his sister Patti into providing screams. We told a pilot that we had crashed in a swamp. I don't know if they believed us. They probably thought we were just kids. At least, I hope so. Bruce and I, along with a couple of other kids, threw crabapples that would bounce up under cars going down the street, and the drivers would think that something was wrong with their cars. That was a lot of fun, until we did it to a police car. We didn't do that anymore. I think the best thing we did was the prank phone calls. We did the normal calls like--is your refrigerator running, but we did a classic. Totally at random, we called a woman named Mrs. Smith. She was an older lady. I identified myself as an employee of the phone company. I told her that we were having trouble with the line and needed to test her phone. She agreed. I asked her to tap the mouthpiece. I heard tapping. I then told her to unscrew the mouthpiece and tap at the plate inside the phone. I heard her unscrewing the mouthpiece and then tapping. I then asked her if she was in the kitchen, and she said yes. I asked her to boil water on the stove. She said that she had boiling water already, as she was making tea. I asked her to place the receiver in the boiling water to purify her phone. I heard a crackling sound and then the line went dead. It has been 40 years since this incident, but if Mrs. Smith is still living, I'm sorry we hurt your phone. But, us kids had a laugh. I blame it on the solar eclipse.