Richard Burton and James Mason died within a week of each other. Rhonda and I went to see "Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom." Then we stopped by Putt Putt and played some arcade games. The following night, August 11 1984, Savvy started a four night run at Austin Roks, a new club in Dallas right off Bachman Lake. Gary Don Johnson, our pro football buddy, dropped by to tell me he'd taken a job playing with the San Antonio Gunslingers in the USFL.  He seemed really interested in making sure I knew he "wasn't just Ricky's friend" - but was my friend too. That was very nice of him, but not necessary. 

There was drama at home when Ricky found out that Laurie and Tanya drove to Beaumont to see another band play. Rumors had been going around that Laurie was secretly seeing one of the Pantera guys on the sly. There were also rumors going around that Ricky was going to come back and join Savvy. I paid no attention to either. It did seem that Laurie had finally decided to challenge Ricky at his own game though. Larry Patton gave his two weeks notice to Rick Miller. He and Deana had decided to to get out of the night club business. I was surprised they'd stuck it out as long as they had. Larry had done a great job of managing the club. They were going to be missed. 

I went to see my parents. Dad was looking really old and it concerned me. He'd been having unexplained pains in his side since the auto accident on the ice back in December of '83. We had dinner and I talked about possibly starting a country band if (when) Savvy fell apart. They were supportive of whatever I decided to do. Back at the house, Rhonda called. We talked for over an hour. She was unhappy with our relationship and said she wanted to date other people. Our situation was worsened by the fact that we wanted to have a normal life, being exclusive with each other, but it just couldn't happen as long as the band was a factor. She didn't question me about what I did when we weren't together, but that didn't mean she didn't care. So the frustration came out in other ways. I didn't believe that she really wanted to date other people, but she got my attention and made her point. I didn't want to lose her.

I spent about 5 hours cleaning the kitchen. It was a mess. I took the dishwasher apart, pulled the fridge out from the wall, and went over every inch with a sponge. After the cleaning spree, I went to the movies and saw  Bonzai Buckaroo. I'd been spending a lot of time trying to learn Spanish. I bought a Spanish Language course for my Atari Computer which came with several cassette tapes that had to load into the computer's memory via a cassette data player. President Reagan made an off the record comment that made headlines for days.  It was during a radio microphone test that he joked, "My fellow Americans, I am pleased to tell you I just signed legislation which outlaws Russia forever. Bombing begins in five minutes!" 

The night finally arrived to say goodbye to Larry and Deana Patton. They were the dearest, nicest people. It didn't seem real that they were leaving. We all got pretty buzzed at the club, and had a little going away party for them. The following night, Rick Miller called the house and I answered. His speech was badly slurred and I could tell he'd been drinking. He was extremely depressed and had emotionally bottomed out as far as the music business was concerned. In fact, upon hearing my voice answer the phone, he admitted that he'd called to talk to Ricky. In a weak moment, he was going to ask Ricky to come back! I told him Ricky wasn't there, and managed to talk him down. Once he calmed down, he was embarrassed about the call. He went on to pay me some very nice compliments as a friend and co-worker. Then he hung up.

We met at the club and packed up the truck for the trip to Waco. I was mowing the lawn the following day when a phone call came in. It was Sherry from Houston, telling me she'd gotten married and was moving to Maine. I imagined her sitting at a desk with her black book open, calling all her old boyfriends to give them the news. I thanked her for the update and wished her luck. I wasn't quite sure what she wanted me to say. Ricky was scheduled to be out of the house by September 1st, one year and four days since he'd played his last gig as a member of Savvy. But his plans fell through and he had nowhere to move to. I told him he could stay longer if he needed. 

I bought a new Marshall amp and a TEAC four track recorder from Jim Wise. The presidential race was heating up and the media had come up with a new clever name for the Mondale / Ferraro ticket; Wally and the Beaver! I was happy to see a little humor in politics.  Ronald Reagan was nominated as the Republican party's nominee. That was no big surprise. Ricky mentioned possibly joining the Buster Brown Band. Rick Miller's niece, Trina, told us she was planning on quitting her job at Savvy's soon.

My brother Ray got married and Dan Kostura played piano during the ceremony. Rick Miller was depressed again over the sad state of business affairs at both Savvy's clubs. I was actually avoiding him for a while because he didn't have anything positive to say. When he would start talking about how bad things were, it would only depress me too. The club was his in good times and bad. I was just in the band. We had our own problems without getting caught up in the club's woes too. But it was all lumped together anyway. Who was I trying to fool?

My brother Ray (center) gets married. That's brother Chris on the 
left and me on the right. We'd come a long way from the days of 
the home made Christmas cards we posed for as kids. 

Posing for dad as he shot our traditional home
made Christmas cards in 1961. That's me on the 
left, Chris in the middle, and the groom, Ray,
on the right.

Rick finally called us all together to tell us he was thinking of making Savvy a part-time venture. That would be okay for me, but Savvy was the only source of income for Rich, Dan, and RJ, and I couldn't imagine them being able to manage financially if we went part-time. Nor did I think Rick truly wanted it too. But then the Savvy rollercoaster took a twist and a turn and we were back having another super weekend and all was right with the world again. 

It was September, which meant Telethon time again. With Larry Patton gone, Wayne was running things. I helped out as much as I could. The Party Animals played first. They were followed by Horizons, a band featuring Rick Miller's brother-in-law on keyboards. Carlton was Carla's brother.

(Coincidentally, three nights prior to writing this chapter, I ran into Danny, the guitar player from Horizon. It was in May of 2004 at the Jubilation club in NE Ft. Worth. He recognized me and told me that he'd been in a band with Carlton. He asked if I'd talked to Ricky Lynn Gregg lately. He had no idea what a loaded question that was.)

September of 1984 would be a month of major moves for a number of people in our circle of friends and acquaintances. First, Rhonda moved out of the apartment she'd been sharing with Becky and Cheri, and into a one bedroom apartment, still in the Woodhaven area. In mid September, Ricky finally moved out of the house on Lester and Rich Mauch moved in with me. We played a week at Savvy's in Waco and then five nights at Matley's Phase II in Dallas. Mom and dad took a trip to Colorado to see Uncle Kenny and Aunt Sally (my dad's brother and sister-in-law.) Rick and Carla had their baby twins! Beautiful little girls named Shelby and Shea. Gary Hogeboom was the official new starting quarterback for the Cowboys. We started talking about going on another ski trip to Lake Tahoe. 

Ricky's band, the Ricky Lynn Project, became the house band at Matley's. Rich hadn't been moved in a week when his toilet stopped up. When he tried to fix it, he flooded his bedroom. Ricky stopped by and jammed the last set with us at the gig at Matley's Phase II. Our vacation was coming up in a week and I'd never needed one more. The band seemed to have stabilized again, but my personal life was in the crapper.

The Dallas clubs were filled with a never ending supply of new girls, and while that should have been a good thing, it was starting to really cause problems. Rhonda wasn't ever going to be happy in any kind of relationship with me as long as I was out there living the rock and roll life. My crazy lifestyle was the main source of our inability to find any kind of normalcy. I probably told myself a thousand times to just break it off with her once and for all and be a free range chicken out in the club scene, but I couldn't do it. I didn't want to lose her. And I had a severe case of intuition telling me that if I didn't slow down and smell the roses, and appreciate what I had, I was going to lose everything I truly cared about. 

Life goes on for those in the audience, But for us on the stage, life is like the movie Groundhog Day; every night we go back and relive the same events over again, unless we make an effort to break out of the pattern. Rick Miller broke out with his marriage and birth of his children. He was still in the band, but looking for an escape plan. Who could blame him. He was the only one in the band with a real life. I was still a fugitive from reality.  Times were changing, and so were styles. I seemed stuck in 1980. I'd dated a wagonload of girls, almost all of which had gone on with their lives. I was going nowhere. Suddenly, being in a band didn't seem so cool. We'd become like the old Merry-go-round at the park that you can always come and visit, and it never changes. But after a while you bring your kids to show them the old ride. 

I'd been lying awake in my bed all night long, thinking way too much, full of too much emotion, when a wave of depression hit like a load of bricks. I'd been carrying around so much emotional baggage since around the time Ricky told me he was going to leave, that it just got to be too much to hold in anymore. I broke down and sobbed. I should have seen it coming but didn't. It took me by surprise. I curled up on my side like a nutcase in a mental ward and asked myself the hard questions that I'd been hiding from for too many years. What was I doing with my life? Where was I going? What were my goals? How long could things go on the way they had been? What would I do with my life after the music stopped? One question led to another - until the next thing I knew, I wasn't asking MYSELF the questions anymore. I was asking God. The tinfoil taped to my bedroom windows kept the room dark as the sun came up and I prayed myself to sleep. 

CHAPTER 60:  THE BREAKING POINT

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