BILL CHERRY

Thanks for stopping by for our weekly Sunday after church meeting here in the park. It's so nice to see you.

I was just thinking about why Sunday trips to the park are so important to me. They remind me of when I was a little boy during the War years.

After Sunday school, during the spring, my daddy would bring me here so I could swing, ride the merry-go-around, and go down the slide a zillion times.

And then we'd go to the ice cream factory just about three blocks away, and get a freshly made ice cream sandwich. We'd sit on the factory's front steps and eat that delight. It was called Purity Ice Cream and even Texas' famous Blue Bell Ice Cream doesn't match up.

My daddy, William Wallace Cherry's, birthday was last week, and if he were still alive, he would be 99-years old, but I still think of him as the young man in the park with his little boy on Sundays after church.

RIP OFFS. OK, here's the latest. A company called Reserve Solutions is pushing a debit card that lets you withdraw money from your 401 (k). Of course the withdrawals are treated as loans against your retirement account. Now let's see if the federal government is astute enough to put a stop to this, or will it be the next sub-prime mortgage.

PER STIRPES. These two Latin words frequently work their way into wills. It's a method for distributing an estate. Per stirpes (which is Latin for "per branch") specifies that each branch of the deceased person's family receives an equal share of the estate. Say a man dies and leaves three grown children. His estate would be equally divided among the three. If one of them had died, then his one-third would be equally divided among the deceased son's children.

PER CAPITA. Conversely, per capita is a method of distributing an estate where each child living at the time of the decedent's death gets an equal portion. No provision is made for branches being beneficiaries. Consequently if one of his three children has predeceased him, none of his father's estate would pass to his children.

SCHWAN. There is one food delivery service that is reminiscent of the past when the milkman brought milk to the door, as did the egg man. Schwan's Fine Foods wonderful products. They come to our door every two weeks. We are especially fond of their skinless chicken breast filets and their deserts. You can order by Internet, telephone or when the delivery man stops by.

RETIREMENT. The trick of retirement is figuring out how much net worth you must have to supplement your social security, pensions. Etc. Here's a retirement income calculator.

PET MOVING EXPENSES. Fido's moving expense is totally deductible just like any other member of the family, if the move is related to a new job. OK, maybe moving Fido isn't such a big deal, but what about your horse?

DR. KENNETH COOPER. Dr. Cooper is known world-wide as the father of aerobic exercise. He has an enormous facility here in Dallas and another one in nearby McKinney. He also oversees the manufacture of a number of vitamins and diet supplements. The most amazing one is his fish oil capsule. He's figured out how to take out the after taste and the burp.

Get on Dr. Cooper's health newsletter mailing list. It's free. Click here.

DIET. Oddly, a number of medical experts appear to be weighing in on the best diet for losing weight and remaining there. It's 1972 Edition of Dr. Atkins' Diet Revolution.

Thanks for stopping by the park this Sunday. I hope you'll find the time to join me again next Sunday. In the meantime, remember....

GOD Blesses!

If you've eaten at TGI Friday's or seen any nostalgia movies or TV programs, or if you've listened to the various music programs broadcasted by the ABC Radio Network, you've been touched by my friend Bud Buschardt.

<<---Bud Buschardt

Bud has one of the largest catalogued record collections in the world. There are more than 100,000 of those babies. They are in specially built open cases that line almost every closet in his home plus every wall -- floor to ceiling -- in his home control room that overlooks one of the most Tony neighborhoods of Dallas.

It's from that enormous collection and that control room that Bud specially programs and supplies the music to them all. And he has for years and years.

And it was from the big ABC building near Dallas' Galleria that for many years Bud produced the programming for ABC's Starlight Network. In addition to his enormously popular rhythm and blues program..the program that he hosted and loved, "The Night Train," he was the on-air sidekick of DJ legends Joe Lucina and Eddy Hubbard.

Joe Lucina--->>

Bud was born in Houston in the early ‘40s, and he had the misfortune of coming with acute asthma. The doctors said he needed to spend as much time as possible indoors. His mom and dad noticed that he was interested in music, records and wondered how record players worked.

<<---Eddie Hubbard

They bought him a small 78 rpm turntable, some records, and that started his passion for adding more and more and then some more, and saving them all. He worked at radio and TV stations as an apprentice until he got his degree in communications from the University of Houston. Fate brought him to Dallas.

Here he worked with all of the Big Boys, beginning as a floor and cameraman at WFAA-TV. But all the while his record collection was growing, and then growing.

Bud's Control Room --->>

Bud retired a few months ago, but he continues as an adjunct professor of radio and television at the University of North Texas in Denton, and as the nation's best authority and source of recorded music.

Although we've known each other for a long time now, and we have our irregular monthly lunches, this past Wednesday was the very first time I ever got to see Bud's soul. He invited me to come see, and he said I could bring my camera.

"I don't worry about losing the collection in a fire. At least the melted vinyl would fill all of the pot holes Mayor Miller didn't get around to filling on my street."

Copyright 2008 - William S. Cherry

All rights reserved

Dallashomes University Park Homes Highland Park Homes Dallas Piano Tuners

One recent evening I got a call from a woman. She didn't identify herself, but her question was where she could go to find out what houses were going to be foreclosed. I asked her if she thought hers was going to be one of them.

<<--BILL CHERRY REALTORS, WORLD HEADQUARTERS

"No, sir," she said, "I want to go buy a couple of them, fix them up and sell them." She went on to tell me that she had seen a program on TV about how easy it is to do that and get rich, and had bought the fellow's books and DVDs.

I asked her if she had read the material and listened to and watched the DVDs. "Sure have," she said.

I said, "After all of that instruction you didn't learn how the foreclosure process works and where to find out what will be auctioned and when?"

"No, sir."

"And did the instructor tell you that you would have to have cash or some other form of purchase funds acceptable to the trustee? And did the instructor tell you that you had to deliver those funds if and when you won the auction?"

"No, sir."

"So do you have, say $100,000 in your savings account that you can use to cement the purchase if you win the auction?

"No, sir."

So at that point I asked her to give me a few minutes to explain how the process works. Of course when I finished, she knew she had invested in a get rich course that was totally useless to her.

I want to know why these hucksters are allowed to make these claims? One of them who sells a real estate investment course has been dead for at least ten years, yet there he is on TV advertising his course...even promising that the purchasers get to personally ask him questions by telephone.

This is yet another lobbying project the National Association of Realtors could work toward getting stopped. It would be one more way they could work toward rebuilding the dwindling reputation of Realtors.

Copyright 2008 - William S. Cherry

BILL CHERRY REALTORS

9936 WINDLAKE CIRCLE

DALLAS, TEXAS 75238

214 503-8563

HIGHLAND PARK RESIDENTIAL SALES REPORT

August 1, 2007 through January 31, 2008

The information for the above report was supplied by the Metrotex Association of Realtors' Multiple Listing Service. We assume accuracy, but make no warranties.

Sales that were not handled by a member firm of the Metroplex Association of Realtors Multiple Listing Service are not included in these statistics. While I believe this report to be accurate, it was nevertheless prepared from that source which I did not audit or otherwise verify.