Tech Terrace It's Not

No, these are more pics from the poorer side of town.

Somehow, I just like this stuff.  

Last Sunday

Last Sunday we drove off someplace and meandered around in an area that contained both residential and industrial elements. I can't even tell you where we were, exactly. At one point I saw a street sign and it indicated we were at 23rd and B. So we were in that area, roughly, and that's where these pics were taken.

 We had to have been near Tent City, because this old incinerator is a landmark near there.

 We've got some evidence of flooding in what looks to be a big, illegal, dumping grounds well within the city limits.

 Nobody in the city really cares about illegal dumping in this area because this is not where the "good" people live. In Lubbock, the "good" people are white and rich. In Lubbock, the white and rich are God's children. That seems to be the prevailing attitude...

So, Guitars!

Let's take a look at those guitars. (UPDATE: ADDED TWO MORE GUITARS! A Squier VM Mustang in Sonic Blue and an Epiphone Les Paul Jr. in vintage sunburst.) This is my current collection, less one, and that one is a steel-string acoustic I keep at my mom's place so I've got something to play when we visit. It is a Squire 25th Anniversary (CORRECTION: 20TH ANNIVERSARY)!) dreadnought I found in a local pawnshop for about $90. Solid spruce top, nice tone, very playable. 

 But here is the old TrueTone. More work on the upper frets would probably make it playable right up to the 14th fret, where the neck joins the body but I got tired of messing with it. It does have a steel reinforced neck but it is not adjustable. All the trim is painted-- there is no binding. The bridge was not glued on so that made it easy to get the intonation right. It was way off when I got it, the strings were too heavy, the action was a mile high. I shimmed the neck, worked on the frets, set the bridge, filed the string slots in the plastic nut, and now it is playable. I want to believe it came from the old Western Auto in Monterey Center, right here in Lubbock. This came from a local estate sale. They wanted $75, I made a $45 bid at my wife's urging (she is very tolerant of my guitar hobby) and won. (UPDATE: I did more fret work and now I can play it right up to the 14th fret.)

 Here is the Glen Burton Les Paul copy I got from eBay recently, in vintage sunburst, under $200 with shipping. I can't find anything wrong with it. It looks fantastic and plays great and sounds like any Les Paul I've every heard. I'm perfectly happy with it and plan to get a Glen Burton SG copy before the end of the year. I'll probably buy it on eBay.

 I bought this candy apple red Squire vintage modified Jaguar from Musician's Friend last year. Nice guitar! I had two vintage Jaguars at one time. One was a sunburst pre-CBS and I found that I had to do the very same bridge modifications on this guitar as I did on that old one. Once that work was done, it was perfect. (UPDATE: I replaced the bridge with a Stewart McDonald Mustang bridge.)

 I bought this Mexican Stratocaster new from Jent's House of Music here in Lubbock in 1999. I was preparing to rock out during the big Y2K crisis, but we were not attacked by our electric razors and coffee pots so the whole thing was a bit of a bust. But not this guitar! This is my "Buddy Holly" instrument. I blocked the tremolo.

 Several years ago I found this nice Squire Jagmaster in a local pawnshop for under $100. Another bargain, and a very good player.

 And this Cordoba Cadette is another pawnshop bargain-- a little over $100 after sales tax. These things retail for close to $300. It has a 24" scale, like the Jagmaster and Jaguar. I need to put new strings on it.

Monterey and Caprock Centers

Monterey and Caprock Centers were both on 50th Street. Monterey, was of course, nearest Monterey High School. W D Wilkins furniture is all that is left of the Monterey Center which included Hemphill Wells and Western Auto. I dated a Monterey high school girl who referred to Hemphill Wells as "Humphill Wells". In fact, I think all of the kids at Monterey called it that. Gee. What COULD they have been thinking? There is a plaque near W D Wilkins describing some of the history of the place. Both of these early Lubbock shopping centers featured covered walkways between buildings. There used to be store fronts on both sides of the walkways. Since there was really nothing left to photograph at Monterey Center, we examined Caprock. 

There were storefronts back in here, once.

This is all open to the public and it's right next to Ci Ci's Pizza on 50th Street.

 Not much of the original tile is left...

 Bud's Men's Shop was part of Caprock Center. There might have been a Radio Shack.

 A few of the original benches remain.

 This was once Dunlaps.

This was part of Dunlaps. These were the first shopping centers in Lubbock and they were a big deal in their day.

Recovering At Last

Yesterday was bad, and I thought for a while last night that I must be getting even worse, but no. This morning, though weak, I feel definite improvement. I might even be able to go with my wife to our gym today. I might not be able to do much, but at least I'll be there. Probably did not have West Nile because of all the respiratory stuff. Maybe just a bad summer cold. I hate summer colds! And while the rain pours down again, most likely all weekend, with renewed prospects for local flooding and another surge of weeds and killer mosquitoes, let us examine another abandoned home we found a few weekends ago, way out on East Broadway:

This place needs to be bulldozed, and soon!

When I post here again, I will show what little remains of one of Lubbock's first shopping centers. I am old enough to remember them when they were in a state of decline. Today there's not much left. I got interested in them because my wife informed me that one of them had a Western Auto store-- remember those? They used to be all over the south. At an estate sale recently I found an old TrueTone guitar, which was a Western Auto brand. I got it for $45 dollars and restored it to playable condition. It probably came from that same old Western Auto on 50th Street. Without doing major work on that guitar I got it to play in tune all the way up to the 12th fret, which is good enough for a lot of music of the kind I like: folk, blues, country. It looks pretty good and sounds funky. The action now is comparable to that of a nylon string classic so I used light electric guitar strings to make it easier to play. I will post a pic of it, and some of my other guitars, soon. I've found some good quitars at very reasonable prices, on-line and in pawnshops. One of them really blew me away: A Glen Burton Les Paul copy. It was far better than I expected. I owned an old Les Paul Custom once, and this guitar is just as good, if not better. And it cost less than $200 with shipping! They also sell an SG copy and that is what I will get next, so I can do that AC/DC thing.