BILL CHERRY'S GREATEST DALLAS PARK CITIES REAL ESTATE BLOG: August 2010

For many years, and through our lives in several homes and offices, daily we have always flown the American Flag.  My unscientific study over the years has brought me to the conclusion that older Americans are more likely to do this than the younger ones.

Rightly or wrongly, I attribute that to the affect World War II had on us as very young children.  It was a time when our parents, grandparents, their friends, and our teachers were concerned that there was a real possibility the United States could lose and our rights to freedom as we were being taught them could be taken away.

Flying the American Flag is not only a way of showing everyone who can and will look that we are proud to be Americans, but it's a reminder to us as well.

My friend, Pam Sitler, is the marketing director of the Lake Highlands branch of Dallas' Republic Title, the title company many Realtors and our clients favor.

Last week she sent out an email to her list of friends, reminding us that we should all fly the American Flag at our home and office on Saturday, September 11th. 

It is, of course, the ninth anniversary of the two horrible suicide airplane attacks by al-Qaeda on the World Trade Center, another on the Pentagon and a fourth that crashed into a field near Shanksville, Pennsylvania after some of its passengers and flight crew attempted to retake control of the plane, which the hijackers had redirected toward Washington, D.C

Significantly, September 11th is also Patriot Day.

I pass Pam's message on to each of you, with the recommendation that you also encourage your friends and clients to do so as well.

Flying the American Flag and honoring it as a reminder of "for which it stands," will make you a Patriot like my friend, Pam. And that's a very good thing.

BILL CHERRY, REALTORS

DALLAS - PARK CITIES

Our 45th Year

214 503-8563

The Dallas Symphony Pops presented a program at the Morton H. Meyerson Symphony Center Friday evening, August 27th, and there will be repeats Saturday at 8 PM and a matinee Sunday at 2:30.

The program, simply titled "Gershwin Favorites," features Broadway composer, Marvin Hamlisch ("A Chorus Line") as conductor.  The feature soloist is Kevin Cole, who has devoted his professional career to the study and accurate interpretations of George Gershwin's compositions, especially "Rhapsody in Blue."

In addition to "Rhapsody in Blue," Mr. Hamlisch conducted "Swanee," "Prelude II," "Girl Crazy Overture," and "An American in Paris."

The  program was supposed to also feature Mr. Hamlisch's piano solos of "Embraceable You" and "Someone to Watch Over Me."  He substituted a singing performance of a student from the Dallas Booker T. Washington School of the Performing Arts, accompanied by her dad, a superb pianist.

Here's the nitty gritty.  I have purposely studied the compositions of Mr. Gershwin, especially "Rhapsody in Blue," Prelude II," and "An American in Paris" for just shy of fifty years.  As a result of that, I have no idea how many performance interpretations I've heard of each.

Mr. Cole is very definitely the master, at least he is with "Rhapsody in Blue."  And his solo of "Rhapsody" and his encore duet with Mr. Hamlisch in a dual piano performance were totally fabulous.

BILL CHERRY, REALTORS

DALLAS - PARK CITIES

Our 45th Year

214 503-8563

WEB

My lifelong friend, Frank Parker, sent this to me.  Great thoughts for how to live life.

Old Farmer's Advice

Your fences need to be horse-high, pig-tight and bull-strong.

Keep skunks and bankers at a distance.

Life is simpler when you plow around the stump.

A bumble bee is considerably faster than a John Deere tractor.

Words that soak into your ears are whispered....not yelled.

Meanness don't just happen overnight.

Forgive your enemies; it messes up their heads.

Do not corner something that you know is meaner than you.

It don't take a very big person to carry a grudge.

You cannot unsay a cruel word.

Every path has a few puddles.

When you wallow with pigs, expect to get dirty.

The best sermons are lived, not preached.

Most of the stuff people worry about, ain't never gonna happen anyway.

Don 't judge folks by their relatives.

Remember that silence is sometimes the best answer.

Live a good and honorable life, then when you get older and think back, you'll enjoy it a second time.

Don 't interfere with somethin' that ain't bothering you none.

Timing has a lot to do with the outcome of a rain dance.

If you find yourself in a hole, the first thing to do is stop diggin'.

Sometimes you get, and sometimes you get got.

The biggest troublemaker you'll probably ever have to deal with, watches you from the mirror every mornin'.

Always drink upstream from the herd.

Good judgment comes from experience, and a lotta that comes from bad judgment.

Lettin' the cat outta the bag is a whole lot easier than puttin' it back in.

If you get to thinkin' you're a person of some influence, try orderin' somebody else's dog around.

Live simply, love generously, care deeply,
speak kindly, and leave the rest to the universe.

Don't pick a fight with an old man. If he is too old to fight, he'll just kill you.

BILL CHERRY, REALTORS
Our 45th Year

214 503-8563

Dallas - Park Cities

WEB

While I'm not sure of its genesis, there's a somewhat new gimmick when it comes to service calls for warranty work.  As you are making arrangements to schedule the time the technician will come, you are told that you will need to provide the operator with your credit card number, and authorize a charge to your account for $99.50.  "That's in case the problem isn't covered by the warranty, " she explains.

So what is the inference?  They charge $99.50 to determine whether or not your problem is covered by the warranty, and they are afraid that if it isn't, you'll stiff them and not pay the charge for the diagnostics?  The solution, therefore is to get payment in advance?

This tact sounds so much like the American Home Shield approach that caused me to discontinue that service.  I had found that more often than not, the tech would start off by telling me that he doubted the trouble would be covered by AHS.  That was as he began walking from the front door to, say, the dishwasher.  He hadn't even begun to check the appliance, and he was already preparing me for the bad news.

And almost always he found some way to fulfill his prophecy, weasel out of repairing it under the home warranty.  Almost 100% of the calls I made for service to AHS ended up costing me the AHS call fee, and the problem would turn out to not be covered, and the guy who came out was not allowed to repair anything that wasn't covered, so to get it repaired would cost yet another service fee.

We bought some rather expensive home equipment a couple of years ago.  It appeared it wasn't working properly, so I called to ask for warranty service.  The warranty was supposed to be for five years.  I was told that I would have to authorize a $99.50 charge on my Visa card before they would send the serviceman.  "We won't process the charge unless we find the problem isn't fully covered by the warranty," the lady said.

I replied back, "Well, don't send anyone.  I'm going to call another company, pay them for the service call, and find out exactly what's wrong and know in advance whether or not it will be covered by the manufacturers warranty.  If it is, I'll call you back.  If it's not, I'll have the guy who's here fix it.

She acted puzzled.  I explained that I wanted an unbiased opinion as to the cause of the problem.  There was no way I could be assured I would get that from her company since they were so anxious to make arrangements for payment before I had seen the whites of the serviceman's eyes.

It seems to me that many companies are becoming more and more disconnected from their customers, and that those disconnects are self-imposed.  I wonder what we might be doing in the real estate brokerage business that might be leaving a similar distaste in the public'smouths?

BILL CHERRY, REALTORS

DALLAS - PARK CITIES

Our 45th Year

214 503-8563

WEB

There was a wonderful clothing store in a big Texas city that had been started in the city's downtown in the late 1800s by two brothers from Galveston.  By the 1970s it had grown to at least four stores throughout the town and with others planned.

And one of those stores grew to sell multimillions of dollars annually, even out-performing the downtown mother store, because it had been built in an area where there was great growth of the homes and businesses of the rich and famous.

Although the brothers owned that store building, they leased the store's major parking lot from another family, but with the option to buy it if the lot were ever put on the market for sale.

The two brothers died, and the heir apparent was a son.  He took the helm of the operation, and before long he was the hero of the tony.  Handsome and rich, and probably with a publicist, his photo and his social doings were constantly in the news in Houston, New York and abroad.

He lavishly spent money on even higher courtier inventory, put two of the largest of the stores through enormous expense for redecorating, and did other things he thought would build an even better mousetrap.  Perhaps he envisioned himself as the clone of Stanley Marcus of Neiman-Marcus.

The owners of the parking lot that the store had leased for many years, contacted the man and told him they were putting the lot on the market, and were giving him the option to buy it. 

I remember that he came by our office, I suppose for real estate and business advice that he had no intention of following if it differed from his opinion.  He said, "The family wants $XX per square foot for the lot.  I don't think they'll get anyone to buy it for that.  I offered them $YY."

We all chimed in saying almost as though we were the Four Freshmen singing a tune, "Have you lost your mind?  If they get an offer for that lot that's for more than $YY, your store will drown.  Not only will your customers have to search for a parking space, but the buyer will certainly put a new building in front of your store.  You'll be out of business there in less time than a heart beat."

He stuck by his guns, and within a few months, the parking lot owners sold the property to someone else for, you guessed it, $XX per square foot.  It wasn't long after that that the loss of the parking lot plus many other of his decisions sunk the entire business and it closed.

It had survived and thrived for nearly one hundred years.  He broke its back in less than ten.

It is interesting how often that the enormous risks of beginning a business and being able to nurture it to success are totally outdone by the next generation of the family.

I know another business that was begun in the 1880s that the grandson was able to tank within a year of his taking the helm.  The unfortunate part of that was that the prior generation depended on his success for their continued income.

And then there was a famous restaurant that had enjoyed enormous success for more than 90 years when the great grandchildren of the founder sent it into red ink.  Their fathers, one in his 70s, had to quickly step back in as the operators to save the business from the possibility of financial ruin.  It will surely eventually be sold, the better choice than giving the heirs a second chance.

You know of some examples of these kinds of business failure vignettes of your own.  Businesses that had a powerful name among their clientele, but by the time the next generation got through with its own idea of management, even the company's name no longer had value.  The line on the Balance Sheet that says "Good Will" was now followed with a zero.

Oddly the risk of leaving these businesses to the next generation to run was substantially greater than the risk each incurred when the businesses were started.  In each case, the founders' better decision would have been to sell the business to a third party rather than to leave it in the hands of the future generation of their own family.

In argumentation and debate, the subject is always styled to say that there is a need for a change.  The burden of proof is on those who favor the change.   If they are unsuccessful, those favoring continuing the status quo win by default. 

In business, once there is a successful formula in place, to decide whether or not to modify it, management must prove to itself that there is a need for a change.

I was home for the holidays one year, when my daddy came home for lunch.  He barely said hello before he called his stock broker, Don Frye, at Rotan-Mosle.  "Don, Sears has lost its mind.  Sell my shares immediately."

It seems that a substantial part of Sears successful formula had been letting each store manager inventory his own store, and that there was a great profit sharing provision that allowed the managers and their teams to get rewarded based on their store's sales.  Ernie Norton, the store manager in Galveston, had told Daddy that he had just learned that all of that was being modified.

Daddy said, just watch how the greed of corporate management will alter the company's future profit opportunities.  That was forty years ago.  How have things gone for Sears? 

BILL CHERRY, REALTORS

DALLAS - PARK CITIES

Our 45th Year

214 503-8563

WEB

Seller-financing licensing exemption reinstated  

Great news for sellers who finance in Texas: Texas Department of Savings & Mortgage Lending Commissioner Doug Foster has issued a notice that allows the continuation of the de minimis exemption until further action is taken by the Legislature. This exemption, which was briefly repealed by the federal SAFE Act, means that a seller can once again finance up to five properties in a 12-month period without being licensed as a residential mortgage loan originator. The Texas Association of REALTORS® worked closely with the agency in its efforts to continue to allow the exemption to apply in Texas.

The de minimis exemption has not yet been recodified, but the Texas Association of REALTORS® will continue to work during the next legislative session to see that it is reinstated in statute. 

BILL CHERRY, REALTORS

DALLAS - PARK CITIES

Our 45th Year

214 503-8563

WEB

Dr. LEON BREEDEN
1921 - 2010
View Funeral Service

Monday, August 16, 2001, almost fifty-one years to the day from when Dr. Leon Breeden was hired by North Texas State College as its professor of jazz music, several hundred gathered at the Denton Bible Church in Denton, Texas to celebrate his life.  Dr. Breeden passed away on August 11th just two months shy of his 89th birthday.

For the many thousands who Dr. Breeden taught, and the tens of thousands who heard his famous University of North Texas One O'clock Lab Band, as it performed throughout the U.S. and many foreign countries, I asked his close friend and colleague, James Riggs, if he would let me publish the eulogy he delivered.

Here are Jim's thoughts:

On this day celebrating Leon Breeden's life, I am deeply honored to be the spokesperson for thousands of Leon Breeden's former students.

As we all know, under Dr. Breeden's guidance, the University of North Texas Jazz Division rose to prominence as an unquestioned leader in university jazz programs with the One O'Clock Lab Band being its centerpiece. Not only was Dr. Breeden a music pioneer who brought respectability to jazz studies, he was also an outstanding teacher combining strict teaching of the fundamentals of jazz, with an open encouragement for original jazz composing and arranging.

Dr. Breeden has been a mentor, colleague and close friend of mine.  I would not be standing here today, if it were not for Leon Breeden.      

Every UNT jazz student (and there were thousands) contributed to make the legend of Leon Breeden and the legend of the internationally famous One O'Clock Lab Band.  As new students we wanted to be a part of it and had to convince our parents why we wanted to move to the remote cowboy country of Denton, Texas. 

Every UNT jazz student (whether they were in the One O'clock Band or not) actually played a part in the "Legend of Leon Breeden".  He was compassionate man whose compassion included all people, all UNT students.  For instance, Dr. Breeden gave important One O'Clock jobs to individuals specifically notin the One O'Clock Band so that they could be a part of the One O'Clock dream.

Dr. Breeden planted a seed in each of us to venture forth into the world utilizing the inspiration and spirit of jazz music.  As a young man, Leon himself had been inspired by the beautiful music emanating from Benny Goodman's clarinet bell....(and then, there were all those professional big bands).

It turns out that music is simply the human spirit reacting naturally to the miracle of the overtone series and (OK, Ed Soph) the element of rhythm and there you have it, jazz. The spirit is in all of us.  Music is a beautiful miracle, a wonder that is given to us as part of life itself and the axioms of the solar system.  

For musicians the spirit emulates deep down in the pit of our stomachs and it begins with a seed planted by other musicians demonstrating their love of the music.  Leon Breeden was the teacher that planted seeds in all of his students, all of us.  I am very pleased to have been one of them.

Leon Breeden earned two Doctorate degrees, an honorary "Doctor of Letters" from Texas Christian University in 2001, and in 2009 from the University of North Texas.

Dr. Breeden spent most of the 1950s as a high school band director at Grand Prairie High School.  Grand Prairie School District named their recent new Music Building the "Leon Breeden Music Hall".  Dr. Breeden was very pleased at being presented this honor.

Dr. Breeden was an unusual man who stuck by his guns and realized his dreams and challenges from day to day. 

Congratulations Dr. Leon Breeden for your many great lifetime achievements, you had a great run.

We will now close with the tribute band performed by Leon Breeden's former students; Chris McGuire, saxophone and clarinet, Jim Riggs, saxophone, Mike Steinel, trumpet, Rodney Booth, trumpet, Dan Haerle, piano, Ed Soph, drumset and Lynn Seaton, bass.  

James Riggs
Regents Professor Emeritus
University of North Texas
Denton, Texas. 

BILL CHERRY, REALTORS
DALLAS - PARK CITIES
Our 45th Year
214 503-8563

WEB

LA PARRILLADA
7660 Gaston Avenue
Dallas

214 327-5513

No Cover, No Minimum

While most of Dallas' Beautiful People are eating and partying in the expensive restaurants and bars throughout Uptown and the West End --not to forget Cedar Springs -- on Saturday nights, some of the finest music is being played at a small Mexican cafe on Gaston Avenue near the Spillway.

The marque says "Live Music Sat."  And while my quirky sense of humor wishes that were the name of the group that plays there, I realize that's not the case.  And if the group actually has a business name, it's not revealed anywhere inside.

Rosalinda de Leon is the keyboard artist.  She spent forty years on the road accompanying and leading the orchestras for some of the biggest entertainers in the business.  Her pedigree is even spectacular:  University of North Texas degree in music and graduate degree from The Julliard.

Two brothers - Daniel and Lico Cisneros - easily show strong music education as well. 

Lico is the leader and the bass guitarist.  Daniel plays drums.  Both of them sing individually and as a duet.

Daniel Cisneros

The bill of fare would be most likely described as Latin Jazz.  Gee wiz they're good.  From Antonio Carlos Jobim's many bassa novas to the standard jazz tunes like "On Green Dolphin Street."

Let's talk about the menu.  All of the food here is fresh and made there.  None of this commissary stuff.  In fact there is one hot appetizer, casserole style, that contains Mexican sausage.  Our table of eight, a couple of Saturdays ago, noted that it came close to one of the best things we'd ever eaten, anywhere.

There is also a full bar.

Lico Cisneros

Try La Parrillada.  This is one of Dallas' least known treasures.

BILL CHERRY,

REALTORS

DALLAS - PARK CITIES

Our 45th Year

214 503-8563

WEB

4524 BELCLAIRE
Highland Park

Sunday Open House 2-4
August 15, 2010

The custom mantel and surround of the family room fire place plus the series of French doors leading to the rear garden blend the ambiance of nature and comfort.

You can see how spacious the dining room is, easily accomodates a nice size formal dinner gathering.  To your right is the foyer and living room.

Homeowners in Highland Park frequently have gatherings for a large number of guests.  The kitchens must have large prep areas as well as the cooking tools the caterer will need.

Here we have the big Wolf commercial range, along with large built-in side by side refrigerator-freezer, two dishwashers, warming drawer, butlers pantry, and superior counter space.

The master suite is very special.  In addition to the spacious room, the master bath has everything imaginable, and just to the right of the three sets of windows in this photograph, there is a door to the private balcony.  Perfect for morning coffee as you're in attendance for the Bird Symphony.

BILL CHERRY, REALTORS

DALLAS - PARK CITIES

Our 45th Year

214 503-8563

WEB

LEON BREEDEN
1922 - 2010

Arguably the most noted jazz music educator that a U.S. college or university has ever had was Leon Breeden.

Dr. Breeden passed away from natural causes at Southwest Medical Center in Dallas about 3:30 PM on August 11, 2010.  He was 88-years old.

His funeral will be held on Monday afternoon, August 16, at 3:00 at the Denton Bible Church, 2300 East University Boulevard in Denton.

Those of you who have read my blogs and newspaper columns over the years know that Dr. Breeden and I were closed friends for more than fifty years, although I never studied under him and I doubt he ever heard me play the piano.

There are thousands of musicians, his former students, who are working today, many famous.  Their talents were jump started by Leon Breeden as they learned to play in his famous jazz bands, known by the time of day the classes met.  The most famous of the bands and the one that all students strived to join was the One O'clock Lab Band.

Dr. Breeden's bands recorded scores of LPs, cassette tapes and CDs throughout his twenty year tenure.  Several won Grammys. All of those recordings are available today.

The One O'clock Lab Band played at the White House for several presidents, and for the heads of state of foreign countries, and for large audiences throughout the U.S. and a good portion of the world.

One thing I have noticed over the years is how sparse the attendance is at the funerals of most educators.  It seems such a paradox.  The last time I went to one, it was for a high school math teacher; the best one at the school, and the one so many readily credited as very important to their personal education.  Other than I, I doubt there were ten other former students in attendance at her funeral.

My wife, a retired teacher and school counselor, says, "Well that's just the way it is."

I hope that will not be the case with the services for Dr. Leon Breeden this coming Monday.

 BILL CHERRY, REALTORS

DALLAS - PARK CITIES

Our 45th Year

214 503-8563

WEB