Once upon a time….Is this not the way many great stories start? I’m not saying this is a great story, but it is a story, a personal story.
Joyce and I have recently found ourselves in Amarillo quite often after not having been there for quite a sometime.
Amarillo figured prominently in our early business life. We had close ties to Amarillo. Consolidated Distributing was our TV and appliance distributor.
We’d often travel to Amarillo with our pickup and trailer and bring back TVs for our shop.
We also worked closely with A1 Communications in Amarillo, They provided us with 2-Way radios and expertise as we expanded our business to include selling and servicing radios, antennas and other communications equipment.
It seems now that most of our trips to Amarillo have a medical component. This goes back a few years to Joyce’s midnight LifeFlight trip to Amarillo due to kidney failure. She now has regularly scheduled appointments with her nephrologist.
Joyce and I first met not long after the US Navy sent me to RAF Edzell in rural Kincardinshire in Scotland.
Joyce is from Dundee Scotland’s fourth largest city and North Sea seaport. When out and around in the city, we would occasionally stop in at a small pub (public house for my American friends) called The Small World. Old Scottish pubs just naturally come with lots of old wood and character. The Small World was no exception.
I obviously am not Scottish and was often asked where I was from. When you are 4000+ miles from home in a foreign country it’s sometimes difficult to explain a place like Hooker Oklahoma and where it’s at. My usual answer to that question was, “130 miles north of Amarillo Texas.” Since most people had heard of Amarillo, I felt that was as suitable an explanation as any.
In the Small World, there was a gentleman named Jimmy Mathers. He would sing and play the guitar. We got to know Jimmy and of course he had heard my explanation of where I was from.
Most every time we were there he would play Tony Christie’s song, Is This The Way To Amarillo.
That was special! I think of that often as we make our way to….Amarillo.
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