I was officially a day person, after decade of working the late shift. All those years of being up all night playing music and partying had worn me out, and I was hopeful that a more normal routine would be good for me. But the transition was slow in coming. It seemed like those dark circles under my eyes were getting worse instead of better. 

The grass was really getting high compared to the rest of the immaculately groomed homes in the neighborhood, and the only lawnmower we had was one I'd been toting around for several years which was on its last legs. I took 15 rolls of undeveloped 35mm film (that I found in a shoebox) to the drug store to have it processed. I ended up with a lot of band gig photos that dated back five years and earlier. 

Rhonda seemed to be getting a little tired of the living arrangements on San Marcos. She'd been a good sport so far, but the wild party days were over. I was thirty-one years old and it was time to start thinking about moving out and getting on with our own lives. Leave it to a woman to bring it to my attention. There was a part of me that could have continued hanging out at Jim's forever. That was the part of me that heard Rhonda's suggestions to move out as sort of nagging. But another part knew she was right. Secretly, the only real question in my mind was "how long would I be able to hold out?" 

Rhonda's geriatric black schnauzer, Gretchen, had long-overdue surgery on her teeth. We knew the procedure would be risky because of the dog's age, but she'd been having trouble because of infections due to the bad teeth. It had to be done. We heard that a girl was shot and killed at Savvy's, but no details were available. Ted Knight (Caddyshack and Mary Tyler Moore Show) died. He'd been a cult favorite with the guys back in Savvy. The fall semester at UTA would be starting soon.  

On September 5, four Palestinian terrorists seized Pan Am 73 with 389 passengers and crew on board. During a stopover in Pakistan, the plane's power supply failed and the terrorists started firing in panic. The four terrorists immediately rushed to the front of the aircraft looking for the cockpit and were surprised to discover that the cockpit was not located at the nose of the aircraft, as expected. They did not know that a Boeing 747's cockpit could only be reached by ascending a stairway located at the rear of the first class cabin. This delay allowed the cockpit crew to escape, but twenty-two passengers died and more than 100 were wounded. 

There was more terrorist activity the following day when twenty-one Jewish worshipers were killed in Istanbul during an attack on a synagogue by an Abu Nidal terrorist team. The world seemed to be coming apart at the seams. There had been terrorism aimed at the U.S., but the actions had not been taken on U.S. soil. At least not yet it hadn't.

Things in the world may have been crazy, but things at home seemed to be going better than ever with Rhonda. Summer was winding down and I had a lot of down time. I worked on my car, wrote new routines for the "mascot" gigs, and played with my computers. The pool in the backyard had not turned out to be the oasis we'd hoped it to be. It was filthy green, and had very strange bugs living in it. I'd kept it up as long as I could without assistance. The pool really hadn't been Jim's deal from the start. The longer it sat unused, the bigger the mess would eventually be in cleaning it up. It eventually seemed to be invisible to us all. Nobody wanted to fool with it. 

I was thinking a lot about needing to find a real job. My hope was that I'd find  something at college that would excite me. RJ's grandfather died. Dick Correndor had built the old rock house on Lulu next door to the garage apartment RJ and I had lived in while playing with the Desperados. Dick reminded me of workout guru, Jack Lalane. He continued to show off his strength well into his old age by lifting buckets of concrete for his workout. Mom, dad, and Chris were finally settled into their new digs on Onyx Dr. South. They were really happy to finally have a home they could call their own. 

Jim had a wreck late one night and was stubbornly selfish about giving up details from the ordeal. All we knew was that his car was gone but he was home. He seemed really embarrassed about the whole thing and just didn't want to talk about it. Of course this gave me plenty of material for jokes to harass Jim with for a while, but for some reason, Jim didn't find it funny. Had he been drinking? Was he arrested or injured? The whole thing would remain a mystery. Jim keeps secrets better than anyone I've ever known. Especially his own!

In October, Rhonda's dog finally died. Even though she'd had surgery recently, the death caught us by surprise. Gretchen had been the family dog while Rhonda was growing up at home with her parents and sister. After her parents divorced, Rhonda took Gretchen with her. The dog was the last remainder of what had been a seemingly perfect childhood, prior to the family breaking apart. Rhonda took it much better than I had expected. 

Actor Forrest Tucker (from "F TROOP" fame) died. Joan Rivers got her own talk show on the new FOX network. Jay Leno did a great comedy special. David Letterman was giving an edge to late night TV that appealed to younger audiences. Johnny Carson's tonight show was winding down as Johnny neared retirement. 

Jim's mom came to visit. On October 26th, Rhonda and I visited my parents at their new place. We played some football in the yard, and dad even did a little quarterbacking! Our old family dog, Brandy, was so happy to have a fenced in yard to run free in, rather than being chained up as she had been back on Lincoln Avenue. We had a great dinner and a heartfelt visit. 

Classes had started up again at UTA and my grades were holding up. I became friends with a black guy from school named Ladelle. We had many deep discussions about race relations, and society from our different points of reference. Things got jacked up a few notches as the new lineup of instructors knew they weren't dealing with fresh meat any longer. It was challenging, and I loved it.

Things at work on the mascot gig front were becoming strained. The agency that handled scheduling of my events was not doing a very good job at the time. It seemed they were giving the task of scheduling to new interns that came through, and nobody was staying around long enough to properly learn the job. As frustrations continued, I became somewhat vocal about the problem to various people I would work with. Eventually it got back to the agency, and I was called in on the carpet. Isabelle, the red-headed matriarch who was a liaison between the agency and myself gave me a stern warning to keep my mouth shut, or risk losing the job. 

Someone told me that UPS was hiring, so I applied for a job there. It didn't happen. Our friends Cliff and Carla Valentine had a huge Halloween party. Syria and Britain were quarreling. American Eugene Hasenfus was captured by Sandinista soldiers after the weapons plane he was flying in was shot down over southern Nicaragua. Herschel Walker signed with the Dallas Cowboys. Steve Pelluer was doing a pretty good job of quarterbacking the team while Danny White recovered from an injury. Mike Sherrard was a hot new receiver for the Cowboys. He became a big favorite after making a couple of really great catches. I worked with him a couple of times at "mascot" gigs. Nice guy.

I didn't go to Savvy's much anymore. Between school and work, I was a busy boy. Since the breakup of Savvy, the nightclub had evolved into a heavy metal bar. Pantera, Madame X, Sweet Savage, and many other metal / hair bands were regulars there. Someone at class one night told me that they had been to Savvy's a few nights earlier, and that a chain link fence now divided the bar in half; one side was for the regular drinking age crowd, while the other was intended to be similar to a "teen club" for minors. That chain link fence would become infamous. After the tragic shooting death in 2004 of Pantera guitarist - and friend - Dimebag Darrell Abbott, rocker Sebastian Bach (of Skid Row fame) wrote a lengthy tribute in which he states that he first met Dimebag at Savvy's Nightclub. He mentioned the chain link fence and how it reminded him of the club in the Blues Brothers movie that had the chicken wire between the audience and the band!

 One of my college classes required me to read the newspaper every day, to keep up with world and local events. I was surprised to see an article in the Star Telegram entertainment section which stated that ex-Savvy members Rick Miller and Rich Mauch were planning to put together a three piece version of Savvy! Huh??

CHAPTER 7

AFTER SAVVY MENU

BACK TO JONESLAND

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