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One Happy Texan

Harvey Young lived a life of hard work and great reward. His alter ego, Tex Thomas, is one of Austin's legendary crooners and guitar slingers. In a life filled with hard work and play, Young faced every challenge head on.

These days you find him mostly here-the Texas Hill Country north of Austin-or cruising on down to the city for a gig at Guero's Bar with his decades-old band, Tex Thomas and His Danglin' Wranglers.

Folks like to tell Young how important his music was to them and that he hasn't lost much over the years. But the 60-year-old with a smoky drawl will probably just smile and say thank you, not desiring to burden them with the many health issues that have weighed him down so much, he's not sure there's much time left in the saddle for this old cowboy. But as the song goes, that's "further on up the road."

Life began for Young in the tiny town of Spade, and like most West Texans, he learned that eating well meant getting your hands dirty. The Young's grew cotton on their farm, although his dad also was pretty well known as a steel guitarist, a skill that certainly influenced the lad and helped to guide his future journeys. But being a musician meant hitting the road a lot of weekends, and his father was no exception to the rule. Harvey was only 13 when a car wreck killed his father, and the boy's working life began in earnest.

"We weren't poor, but my mother had never worked," Young reminisced as he steered toward Georgetown, over on Interstate 35. And so they both worked hard to put food on the table and keep up their home. Earlier on, Young overcame polio and learned welding. By the time he was 12, he worked three or four jobs at a time. He would find time, though, to play baseball, first Little League, and then in high school. The sport would lead to more physical ailments.

"I tore up one of my knees playing catcher," he said. "And that may have begun what's wrong with my thumbs. I broke them both, and osteoarthritis set in." He developed arthritis as well in his back and legs-"Heck, most of my joints ache these days"-and the disease would plague him from then on.

For 40 years, Young and his mother owned a bail bond company in Amarillo. During those years, he built a large home in the country and with his wife, Patti, raised daughter Erin Marie. He suffered from migraine headaches from time to time, something he attributes to the polio. After an accident that required a blood transfusion, he caught Hepatitis C.

Despite the maladies that seemed determined to lay him low, Young worked hard during the day so he could pursue his passion for music nights and weekends. By 1976, he and his band had gained a following. Like a good tune on the jukebox, however, the song eventually had to end and so it was that as they aged and married and began families, the band found it harder to stick together and for a while, disappeared all together.

When the bail bond business began to fail, he turned to home remodeling and displayed some spectacular woodworking skills that would earn him top dollar. But working with his hands like that wasn't in the cards for long and three years ago, he couldn't do it any longer. "I started hurting myself," Young said. "I have a neurological disorder that causes me to have intense dizzy spells. I fell off a wall three times." He marked Jan. 1, 2020, as his final day of work.

By then, Young's list of ailments was nearly as long as a music set at a Texas roadhouse. Arthritis, migraines, Hepatitis C, shortness of breath, dizziness and temporary blindness from the neurological disorder, aching thumbs and a bad lower back ─ he needed an even longer list of medications to ease the pain, and his doctor recommended he apply for Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI) benefits.

"The kind of work I've always done, you have to be in good shape to do it," Young said. "When you know you can't do it and you know why and what caused it, you do what is necessary.

"I didn't know anything about [SSDI]. I talked to a lot of friends in the music business, and everyone said I needed an advocate." He researched the Internet for help. It was there he found Allsup.

Allsup is a nationwide provider of Social Security disability, Medicare and Medicare Secondary Payer compliance services for individuals, employers and insurance carriers. Founded in 1984, Allsup employs nearly 700 professionals who deliver specialized services supporting people with disabilities and seniors so they may lead lives that are as financially secure and as healthy as possible. The company is based in Belleville, Ill., near St. Louis.

"I looked at quite a few ads for firms that offered help with SSDI, but I liked what Allsup had to say," Young said. He called and was helped by a pleasant young lady. "I had zero problems with them. They knew what they were doing, how to get the information I needed, and apparently they did a good job with Social Security."

Allsup accepted Young as a client Jan. 8, 2020. He was awarded benefits Jan. 16, 2020, after a senior representative took his case before an administrative law judge. Allsup pioneered the concept of on-the-record hearings, whereby the client avoids the hassle of having to go to court. Young was one happy Texan.

"I would recommend Allsup to anybody," he said.

Young never feared going broke, thanks in large part to his wife's work as a human resources manager for a hospice company. But he'd been paying into Social Security since 1965 and, "I felt like I had the money coming to me," he said. He doesn't know how much time he has left, fearful he may die before he reaches age 65. The SSDI benefits enable him to take it easy and spend extra time with his daughter and especially his grandson, Ian Ray, who live in Cibolo, a small village near San Antonio.

Since his band got back together a few years ago, his daughter manages his website and sets up gigs for them. She joins him fishing sometimes, and the whole family sets out on road trips when they can, in the RV he made final payment a couple of years ago.

When the mood strikes, he puts pen to paper, writing songs that speak of the faces and places he's known, the many roads he's traveled, and lessons learned along the way that have guided and sustained a life fully lived.