Do You Remember This Smashing Night at Amarillo’s Hastings?

There are a lot of great things that happened at Hastings while they were here in Amarillo. We had such a great thing going for us and then the internet happened. Everything went online.

So now we don't really have a building to go to when we want to grab a newspaper, a cd, a book, and a movie. One that you can visit late on a Friday or Saturday hoping that they have that DVD's new release that you wanted to see. That one-stop shop place is gone. I miss having that right in our backyard. I guess it really is true that you don't know what you have until it's gone. Hastings, I am so sorry I took you for granted all those years. I really thought and hoped you would always be around.

I always thought I could hear your closing song again as I hurried with my purchase up to the register. Now all we have are the memories of a simpler time.

One of my memories was about an unwanted car that made a late-night appearance on a Saturday night. I wonder if anyone else remembers this happening.  I was working at the big Hastings on Georgia Street at the time.

I remember getting a late-night call. Or maybe it was early morning. Depending on if you are a glass-half-empty or half-full kind of person. It was probably around one or two a.m. If I was a betting person I would say it was after two a.m.

It was my boss who was another manager at the store. He was out of town and needed me to go up to the store because there was an incident. I had to wait until another manager showed up. The rule was there had to be two employees in the store at all times. We both had to be there to enter. Even if there are other people, like police there.

Somebody had driven through one of the two sets of glass doors and then took off. Not sure if the crash was to try to steal something or if that crash just had the chance to sober them up. All I know is there was a mess.

When another manager, Dean, showed up we went into the store. Nothing was missing. Nothing obvious anyway. We had cameras so of course the police wanted to see the footage.

Then all we had to do was wait. So what do you do inside a Hastings at like two o'clock in the morning? You grab a movie off of the shelf and watch. We also grabbed some microwave popcorn and had a snack.

We watched "There's Something About Mary". That was the new release at that time. I mean why not? We had hours to kill and nothing to do but wait for the cops to finish up their investigation.

I had to work later that morning. I was scheduled to come in at nine so I was hoping to get home at some point for a quick nap. By the time the police were done it was getting close to seven. So there went that nap.

During all of the police investigation going on we did have a company come in to board up the door until we could get it fixed. So we were able to leave when the police did. Nothing was better than the phone call from the manager who called me in the middle of the night.

He did thank me for going to the store to help. Oh, and he also said he got someone to cover my shift. So I got a good night inside a closed Hastings watching a movie on the clock. I got to also go home and nap. So this was a good time.

I don't even know if an arrest was ever made. I know the video of the "accident" didn't help at all. Maybe we did find out who it was. I just knew my part of the story and was good with it.

Does anyone else remember going to Hastings on Georgia when one of the entrances was boarded up in the late nineties? If so now you know the backstory.