Buckshots

      Every year since forever, the International Council of Shopping Centers holds a May convention in Las Vegas.   This event hosts 35-40,000 participants and now fills up the convention center with massive booths, displaying new and existing shopping center projects.        In the late 70’s, the developer’s booths were in the hotel suites along the Las Vegas strip.  Back to back, rapid fire meetings were held for retailers looking for shop space, landlords looking to lease space and vendors selling their wares.  I was working for developer, Melvin Simon and Associates, and for a couple of years was responsible for our leasing suite at the original MGM Hotel.         I scheduled the food, drink, rooms and everything associated with almost 3 days of deal making, involving over a thousand people in our suite alone.   We also had Ed McMahon present for several hours a day, serving as our corporate spokesman and celebrity greeter.          The first time I was in charge, my

      In 1973, Melvin Simon and Associates transferred me from a small mall in Indiana to Irving Mall in Irving, Texas.   Though no longer an entry level role, it still paid “slave wages.”   In order to buy food, I needed to find something in radio or TV on the weekends.   I was hired for Saturday and Sunday evenings at WRR-AM, 1310 on the dial.   This was a grand old radio station with a long colorful history, located in Fair Park on the site of the Texas State Fair.       I talked and played music from 6 PM until midnight on Saturday.   On Sunday, Brad Sham (early in his career and destined to become the broadcasting “Voice of the Cowboys”) had a talk show with sport celebrities at 8 PM.   I handled the callers, played the commercials and interacted with Brad, when he wanted to banter.   It was easy and fun…Brad was a nice guy and I met some interesting people.        A couple of times Brad brought in Roger Staubach, who had joined the Cowboys a few years earlier. 

      My 50th high school reunion is coming up in October in Sherman, Texas and I (as always) have mixed emotions.   It is nice to see old friends, but bushels of them have died or fallen off the face of the earth and disappeared.   This causes me to pause over the enormity of life’s relationships, eternity and what we can actually accomplish in our allotted time here on earth.   One minute you are a pre-teen knuckle-head kid in elementary school, attempting to figure out life, making friends and establishing relationships.   The next moment, you are an almost 70-year-old knucklehead grandparent, your friends seem to be vanishing and you are still hoping to figure out life.   What is going on?   It is all too fast!   I want to nurture the good memories to savor as I age and to lessen the impact of those unpleasant events still lodged in my psyche.      Scheduled events for the weekend include tours of our old high school building (now housing Piner Middle School) and the ori