(Tom) This week on Arizona Illustrated, we celebrate and appreciate the ever-changing nature of life in the Sonoran Desert from an iconic corner store owner.

(Roy) Here in this store, it's not just come in and buy what you want, but it's also find out how Annie's doing.

(Tom) To a look at the Chicago Music Store's old location on Congress.

-This building on the corner of 6th Avenue and Congress Street was built in 1903 to house the Los Angeles Furniture Company.

(Tom) Singin', cussin', and fightin' with Katie Lee.

(Katie) My favorite old English word, ****.

It's a great word.

(Tom) And one last night at the Flycatcher before it closed its doors.

(Sara) This building and all the people that have come through this building have been a huge part of my life.

(Tom) Hello and welcome to Arizona Illustrated.

I'm Tom McNamara.

You know, this show has been on the air for more than 40 years, and we've been working on this weekly magazine version since 2014, and in that time, a lot of things have changed.

Take this green screen set, for example.

This is what it looked like 10 years ago when we filmed our first episode with me as host.

And it's not only the set or the way I look, a little grayer now than I used to be, but many of the people in our stories have passed away and buildings have changed or been demolished.

And our show today will be looking back to remember and celebrate what once was.

Starting off with Roy's Corner Liquor Store, where Annie Laos and her son Roy were managing the family business when we first visited in 2014.

(Annie) When I was 11 years, I went to work for my dad.

So I was raised in the workforce.

[bell ringing] When my husband told me we was gonna open a drugstore, I thought, yippee!

(laughing) That's for me.

Here comes the bus.

(Roy) My mom is absolutely a person that I can't find anywhere else in the community.

At her age, still working in retail, six out of seven days, it's amazing to me.

(Annie) I don't know what the next one is because I can't see it.

(Roy) Get your magnifying glass out.

I'm getting a little there.

I need this thing.

Ooh, it's just too big.

I don't need this.

I can see it.

(Annie) Today is the dance, right?

God, already is the dance.

(soft music) My husband Roy graduated from the College of Pharmacy at the University of Arizona in 1952.

He was a registered pharmacist, and we did pharmacy for about 50 some odd years.

(Roy) He was kind of like the local doctor, the local pharmacist, and also got into sundries and a beer and wine and spirit his liquor, so he had everything in one place.

(Annie) He used to take care of families.

You know, the mothers would bring their kids in, they'd have a sore throat.

Well, he knew what to do.

Somebody would come in with pink eyes, and he knew what to do.

I open at 11 o'clock usually, or maybe a little bit before.

Closed at five, because I'm pretty pooped at five.

(laughs) (Roy) You got pricing on this stuff, Mom?

I didn't think when I was eight years old that I would last to nine working here at the store, because I wanted to lead so badly, because when my dad forced me as the oldest son to come and work here after school, I was so mad at him.

Why would you do this to me?

Now I'm 61 years old, and I'm still here at the store.

(Annie) In this store, you can't sit down hardly at all, and it passes fast, and I think life passes like that, fast.

You turn around and you're old.

We're looking at what this building was before we bought it, which was in 1956.

The Shanghai Cafe, see, right there.

And the prices are unbelievable.

I was born and raised here, so was my husband.

Tucson High graduated from Tucson High and got kicked out of the University of Arizona.

But that's another story.

I'm an old Tucsonan, I got sand in the blood.

I never had the desire to move.

Probably it means that I was so dumb that I couldn't move out of town, but maybe I didn't want to move out of town.

(bell ringing) - $4.99.

- $4.99?

- Let me add these groceries up real fast.

- Okay.

(Tywan) You can come in any time you want to and just ask for an item, and normally when you don't see it, she'll have it somewhere else in inventory because she holds on to things like that.

Where can you get these wallets again?

You cannot get these wallets anywhere else.

These are like classic retro right here.

(Annie) It's just stuff that they don't make anymore, they don't sell anymore, but I keep it.

Because you can't, there's no way in the world you could ever get it again.

Volcanic oil made for horses, but used by human beings.

Used to sell like mad.

You couldn't keep it on the shelf.

It's black and it smells like hell.

(laughing) (bell ringing) - What's up, Annie?

- How are you?

- I'm good.

It's Hayley's birthday yesterday.

- Oh, no kidding.

- Nine years old.

- Oh.

- Isn't that crazy?

- You're getting old?

(Roy) Here in this store, it's not just come in and buy what you want, but it's also find out how Annie's doing.

And also, she spends a lot of time socializing with her customers.

So she builds relationships with them.

- You know, like, oh yeah, and that's how this ties together and all that stuff.

(Annie) We found a good niche in this store that you met the people and you took care of the people and we were very close so I could take care of my children.

(soft guitar music) It all worked out very good.

(Roy) My brother called me and told me that my dad had passed away, so I was on I-10 and I kinda got choked up a little bit.

I was, didn't know what to do.

(Annie) I mean, I hated to see him go, but I didn't want him to live like he was living.

(Roy) He passed away on my birthday, August the 5th.

Ah, you know, things go on.

It's tough to lose my dad.

Although he was pretty tough on me, it goes back to this whole thing of you become your dad and your dad becomes you.

And you don't realize that sometimes until later on in life.

So when he went, it was kind of, I kind of felt like there was a piece of me that went too.

- Come on in.

- I'm trying to catch the bus.

- I know what you're doing.

Come on in.

- He wants to buy his cream soda.

Hurry up.

- I don't know which one.

- Just grab one.

We gotta go.

Nevermind, you're gonna make us miss the bus.

Come on.

- You're not gonna miss the bus.

- How much are these?

99 cents a dollar?

- The bus is here, Jacob, come on.

- Here, here.

Okay, here.

Thank you.

(bell ringing) Everybody has bus-mania.

They think they're gonna miss the bus.

It comes back every five minutes.

- She has such tenacity, such strength, such energy.

She's a constant reminder of what it takes to survive in life.

- Thank you, I love you.

- I know.

I love you too.

I like to do it.

What would I do, sit home and look at television?

I don't think so.

I meet people, I take care of them, they come in and talk to me, and it keeps you going.

(bell ringing) (Tom) Since filming that story, Annie Laos passed away in 2017, and her son Roy died at the age of 65 in 2019.

Andrew Brown, who produced that segment, is and was deeply appreciative of the time spent with both of them.

Last year plans were announced to put a Starbucks pickup in the old Chicago Music Store building on Congress.

In this next story, we captured that long-standing business while it was still in that location in 2015.

[MUSIC] (Jim) Buildings are acts of collaboration.

The owners, designers, builders, and users all contribute to the building.

With a historic building, such as the Chicago Music Store at 130 East Congress Street, the list of collaborators grows very long.

[MUSIC] This building on the corner of 6th Avenue and Congress Street was built in 1903 to house the Los Angeles Furniture Company.

The two longest tenured owners have been the J.C. Penney Company from 1927 to 1957, and the Chicago Music Store, who had been there since 1967.

It was J.C. Penney that combined two buildings to create the current one.

You can see evidence of this combining by looking at ceiling beams, window patterns, and the angle of the original pressed tin ceiling tiles.

The last 15 years have seen a new ceiling structure, removal of decades-old paint from tile work, a listing on the National Register of Historic Places, and a general overhaul of street facades.

[MUSIC] There's a lot to love about this building.

There are the quirky bits, the balcony that runs along the north wall that is so short I need to tilt my head, the partial basement, the not-quite-square angle where the walls meet, reflecting the angle of our downtown streets.

There are also the grand gestures of the building, the nearly 30 feet of open air from the ground floor to the skylights, the hierarchy of stairways, [MUSIC] the generous ceiling height in the mezzanine, the shaded, terrazzo-tiled front porch that is a gift back to the community, allowing for comfortable window shopping and creating a performance space for local musicians.

While I admire the history on display here, I also see vast potential in this building.

[MUSIC] Skylights could be reopened and more windows put in, including the return of the storefront windows along 6th Avenue.

The wonderful spaces of the mezzanine and second floor could again be fully open to customers.

The Chicago Music Store makes me grateful for the efforts of everyone who work together across time to create it.

It also makes me hopeful that it will continue to receive love and attention so it can evolve, grow and continue to serve the needs of our community.

[MUSIC] (Tom) The last Piano Lover's Lounge was held at Flycatcher five nights before that 4th Avenue bar closed its doors for good in 2018.

The monthly night featured employees who had been working at Plush and then Flycatcher for a combined 26 years.

[MUSIC] (Sara) This building, the people in this building and all the people that have come through this building have been a huge part of my life.

And so I just found happiness here and it's a great job.

[MUSIC] (Paul) The last Piano Lover's Lounge until maybe another place allows us to do it.

[MUSIC] (Sara) I was walking down 4th Avenue once and I saw a sign in the window.

I called the number and I was hired on Halloween of 2000.

[ Sara Singing ] Piano is my favorite thing to do.

It's my hobby, my passion, I love it.

I took lessons as a kid, I studied music at the University of Arizona.

That's what I love to do, and I love to play for people.

I wouldn't consider myself being stuck here, I like it, you know so I come back by choice.

I do other things.

I have recently started doing real estate.

So, that's keeping me really busy, so I have that.

[Clapping] It feels goos because I know it's celebration and I have a lot of friends and family here who support me that have always been here to support me.

I hope that I have been able to give them some feels with the music, you know, some joy.

That's what it's about.

Nothing lasts forever and I guess they are finally kicking me out of this place is what's happening.

Being forced to leave.

I've kicked enough people out over the years, I guess it's my turn.

(Paul) Sara Mohr plays first for a couple of hours, or however long she wants.

If I'm feeling up to it, I'll play upwards of 4 hours I think.

I've been here since June 2010, about exactly eight years.

[ PAUL SINGING ] I'm just security or dorb or whatever you want to call it.

I had friends that worked here that said, "Don't barback, it's not worth it.

It's not worth the extra money."

I'm like, "I think it might be worth it, but I still didn't do it."

Laziness is part of it, but I guess another thing was, I didn't think there was ever anybody that had been here that long that had just said, "I'm just cool just hanging at the door."

(Sara) He's got velvet pipes, that boy, and he's an incredible musician.

He is so talented.

(Paul) I like getting a reaction out of people.

I like to make people laugh.

If I were a more driven person, I would be going out to different places and trying to get gigs like these.

I should have started doing that back in February, but I didn't.

Typical Jenkins.

The song is called, "We Didn't Fly the Catcher."

Justin Matt, Sarah Mohr, May Bell, Chini Wade, Chris Porsman, Aaron Brewer, Randy Lopez.

[ PAUL SINGING ] I've never been in a place where everybody is just so kind.

I'm going to miss everybody.

I'll still see them here and there, but not nearly as often.

(Cheering) (Tom) Next, we take you and our cameras to Jerome to meet a true one-of-a-kind singer and activist, Katie Lee, who, as you'll see, saw her own share of change in a lifetime.

[MUSIC] (Katie) The first thing I say every morning when I get is ****, that is my favorite word, my favorite old English word.

****.

It says it, it feels good, it's a great word.

My name is Katie Lee, and I'm probably best known for my bad mouth and my activism.

I wish I were recognized more from my writing because I don't think my writing is bad at all.

- In her 95 years, Katie Lee has found recognition for many of her talents.

There was a time when she was known as an actress, followed by a decade touring the country as a folk singer.

But wherever she went, she felt the pull of the desert she'd known as a child.

(Katie) I was raised in Tucson.

I was so lucky to have a mom and dad, a dad who was like a child who treated me like a kid because he was a kid, and my mother on the other side who was the artist in the family, the singer, the teacher.

God, how lucky can you get?

And they didn't pamper me.

I was outdoors all the time.

My dad, when I was 12 years old, bought me a Remington octagon barrel shotgun and taught me how to shoot, how to use it, how not to use it, and how never to use it.

And during the war, I kept my family and rabbits and quail.

I used to shoot the heads off quail.

I must have been pretty good because not anymore.

Believe me, I can hardly hang on to my coffee cup.

- As a young woman, Katie tried her luck in Hollywood, where she worked in film and radio for six years.

Then, on a visit to her mother in Tucson, Katie saw something that would change her life, a film by her friend, Tad Nichols, about running the Colorado River through the Grand Canyon.

(Katie) And when I saw that movie, I just said, "How do I get there?

I can't do that."

It was 500 bucks for the upper half and 500 for the lower half.

And I was making what?

Maybe 20 bucks a week out in Hollywood, no matter what I did.

And about 10 o'clock at night, later that month, Tad calls me and he said, "You want to run the Grand Canyon?"

I said, "I can't do that.

I told you, you know I don't have that money."

And he said, "No, you can come for just your food, which is about 50 bucks.

You pay 50 dollars and bring your guitar and sing to the people on the beach at night."

So that's what I did, and that's how I got to the river.

But then the river became part of me, and still is, because I don't think I had been anything like the person I am until that river just picked me up and took me along.

To me, it's just like life, the way life flows, the way it goes along.

And it comes back and it forms eddies, and there you're in this eddy, and you don't know which way to go or what to do.

The next thing you know, you're going over rapids, and you just are elated.

And then the next thing you know, you're in this calm, calm water, and just sort of swirling around easy.

That's life, you know?

That's a river.

- While on a river run, Katie fell in love with a stretch of the Colorado called Glen Canyon.

(Katie) Eden couldn't have touched this place.

125 side canyons, each one of them different.

Each one of them with a voice and a look and a feeling of its own.

The breezes, they talk to you, and you can talk back and get answers.

These floats on the Glen, where there aren't any rapids really, yeah, there's some few that I used to swim through.

But it's just a laid back scene, and you have a chance to look around and get to know the place and understand what makes us do that, and what makes that do this, and wow, look at that.

Some of the vistas were so beautiful, we just stood there and cried.

You know?

How come?

Here I go.

- Katie lost Glen Canyon as she knew it when the Glen Canyon Dam was completed in 1963.

(Katie) And that's when I started writing articles about it.

I started singing, writing songs about it.

I put out two or three CDs about it, and from then on, it was just constantly working to bring down that dam, and I'm still at it.

Dam, dam, that's my license plate.

- The dam remains, and Katie's activism and anger have never abated.

(Katie) I feel about that dam just like I've always felt about it.

I'd like to blow it up.

If I knew how, I'd do that, but I don't know how, and that's probably very fortunate.

Rivers are supposed to run.

They're not supposed to be dammed up.

They're healthy that way.

They feed the planet.

It's like veins in your arm full of blood, okay?

You dam them up, what do you get?

An aneurysm, and that's what these rivers have.

Aneurysms, poor things.

- In 1971, Katie settled in the central Arizona mining town, Jerome.

Today, it's where she writes in a windowless room tucked into her home.

It's where she reads the emails and listens to the songs she has inspired.

[MUSIC] (Katie laughs) (Katie) I think that's so cool.

How nice of him to do that for me.

- In quiet moments, it's where she looks out over the vast valley below.

But despite the roots she's grown, Katie Lee still believes the best way to wake up to life is to venture into the world's wilder places.

(Katie) When you're out there and you are on your own and you know you have to take care of yourself, all your senses sharpen, your smell, your sight, your hearing, your touch.

Everything comes out of the skin and becomes part of what's around you.

And if you can do that, you're going to learn some things about yourself that will keep you from making the wrong choices, that will point a direction for you.

All you've got to do is listen and look.

(Tom) Katie Lee died two years after the filming of this segment at her home in Jerome in 2017.

She was 98 years old.

We hope the stories in the show today serve as a reminder that all things change and it's important to appreciate the people and the places in our lives while we still can.

We're happy to have made these stories when we did.

I'm Tom McNamara, thank you for joining us here on Arizona Illustrated and we'll see you again next week.