Jim Garling

Bryan Painter, Columnist

Published: October 3, 2008

GUTHRIE — Jim Garling sits on the front porch of his Guthrie home strumming an acoustic guitar to cowboy tunes and watching the red foxes run from the cover of the trees across to the pond. This is retirement.

For more than 15 years, Jim and his wife Doris Garling owned the RV General Store, an RV dealership in Norman. But for about four years, Garling was driving from Norman to Guthrie once a week to teach fiddle and guitar lessons at the Double Stop Fiddle Shop. Internationally-known musician Byron Berline has brought a lot of music interest to Guthrie, and those interests often gather at the Double Stop Fiddle Shop.

The Garlings thought, what if instead of driving to Guthrie, we move there? About five years ago they did.

“Part of our retirement plan was to sell the dealership,” Doris said. “We set it up with the fellow who bought it that he'd make payments for at least 10 years. And so we've had that income.

“And now he is buying out the property. We first sold the business portion of it, just the stock and all of that stuff and then we kept the property. He was paying us rent on the property and now he's buying the property.”

Retirement is great. Garling has students ranging from age 5 to 70 and he does shows both locally and in other states as he performs cowboy-era music and music of the cowboy movie stars as well as more contemporary artists who reflect on the cowboy life.

Garling has recorded three compact discs and he's performed at the Cheyenne Cowboy Symposium in Wyoming and the Western Music Association Annual Meeting in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Closer to home he's performed at the National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum in Oklahoma City. And at home, he's played to the delight of friends, neighbors and a few red foxes.

“The Lord has blessed us,” Jim Garling said.

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