Happy Bisrthday, Colleen!!!

Boo!!!

Thanks to Tammy for the jack-o-lanterns photo. The sour-puss dude–second from right–is definitely me this morning. Tammy’s pumpkin carvings show some of her artistic abilities.
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The Occupy movement seems to be getting more attention each day as protestors from around the country are being jailed for any minor offenses–real or imagined–which the elected and appointed officials can think of. Although city and municipal leaders highly desire to keep their well paying and prestigious positions, they don’t care one iota about the rest of us. Cops, as usual, are nothing more than willing puppets of the master race who want some innocent blood on their hands.
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Didn’t do a damn thing this weekend. First time in years that I didn’t get some decent autumn leaf photos; first time in years I didn’t get to Buck Mt. to shoot the Christmas trees all in a row; first time in years I didn’t get photos of the old church on Walnut Mt.
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Here is a piece of a tale I’ve been thinking about expanding into a short story:

With his surgically created sardonic grin, naked and corpulent Badi the Castrato and his enormous scimitar shaped phallus guarded the Teaching Harem of Alim the Kind. In other kingdoms Alim the Kind was known as Alim the Coward or Alim the Blamer or Alim Who Leads from Behind for he was not loved anywhere but by his own people and their affection was mostly in his imagination.

Badi the Castrato had once been a king of a rival country but had fallen upon hard times and come begging to Alim his Brother. Alim kept him as jailer for one of his harems, annexed his kingdom, and became powerful; too powerful for many of his other royal rivals and they were constantly looking mover their shoulders.

The older women of the Teaching Harem were misty-eyed dreamers of memories who were, by various means, taught to believe themselves as aged and no longer fit for the attentions of His Highness or even for his guests. Most were no more than thirty years of age.

The trainees were taken from their parents when they first showed signs of maturity and many of the nubile youngsters were happy to be away from the drudgery of their poverty laden lives. After each day”s instructions, they sat twittering about how they would be the ones to really teach the king the finer points of making love.

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At least it is now Monday–have a great Worshday, y’all ,and a Happy Halloween too!

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Wilbur 2007

Leaf color is nearing its height as we go into the weekend which is supposed to be cold and sunny after showers today and tomorrow. I hope to get to Wilbur no later than Sunday and see if the colors there are as spectacular as they were in 2007.
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Ok, let’s say that Occupy works well and we begin getting the country back for the benefit of all. Will Occupy members run for high public office in next few elections, say state legislatures and maybe even Congress of the USA? Will these people be sincere? Will the sincere ones be corrupted by power? The reason I ask these questions is because I’ve seen this scenario before; when hippies–mostly young–persuaded he government to reduce the voting age from 21 years to 18 years. Many very young people ran for office and some of them were elected and a significant lot of those turned out to be worse than the greedy fat-cats whom they had replaced. Power corrupts.
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Have a good Thursday!
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Train-Train part 2

Jola's photo; I thank her for allowing me to use it

Last night was quiet ... too quiet considering I live very near railroad tracks. There were no trains rumbling by to harass my sleep until 6:05 this morning when a southbound came chugging through. The local rag is reporting that a couple of wild boxcars broke away from a previously unknown herd and rampaged back and forth through three counties before wearing themselves into exhaustion and finally coming to a rest near the town of Watauga. Fortunately no innocent track-crossing persons were killed or injured during the dangerous escapade. The cold and confused escapees were finally caught and sent to a homeless shelter for lost and abandoned machinery before being spayed, neutered, and further processed. Hopefully they can be reunited with the remainder of their herd or placed into loving homes. If anyone knows the whereabouts of the feral locomotive that lost the runaways, call your county train dispatcher and if anyone is interested in having a loving boxcar for a household companion, call your local boxcar shelter, junkyard, or the Tennessee Department of Mental Health.
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It is more than a bit disconcerting to me to learn that New York City has an internal affairs division of 1,000 cops hired to investigate the the crimes of the remainder of the police force.
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If ever a coward there was ...
It has been reported that N.Y.P.D. officer Anthony Bologna who sneaked up on peaceful Occupy Wall Street women protestors that were cordoned off from the public and then blasted pepper spray directly into their unsuspecting eyes, has been harshly disciplined by having 10 days of vacation taken away from him. If you view the video, watch Bologna, a supervising officer in a white shirt, slink away and act the innocent after his aggravated assault on the women. Very cowardly! No wonder I have trouble respecting "officers of the law". Is this the "Rule of Law" which Mr. Obama touts when he speaks of exporting democratic ideals to the lawless world? Phooey!
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Otherwise, have a great Wednesday, my friends!

Happy Birthday, Cathy!!!

 

Everyone please keep Dear Alice and her family in your thoughts; her sister’s husband passed away in West Virginia. She will be journeying there as soon as she finds out what the arrangements are. Peace to you and all of your loved ones, my friend.
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Time may be an undefinable invention of abstraction, but you will come to know that it is in fact as extant as anything which we can realize with our physical senses. Time definitely has weight and as you grow older its increasing mass relentlessly presses down on your shoulders until you feel the burdens of all the world are being carried by you alone.
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In yesterday’s dream sequence, the tibbets I referred to is Paul Tibbets, the pilot of the plane which dropped the A-bomb on Hiroshima, Japan in the summer of ’45. The manson family was a cult of cold-bloodied killers lead by Charles Manson in California during ’69.
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I had a very tough weekend with plans to go to Walnut Mt. and the old, abandoned church and then on to the Christmas tree farms and apple orchards on Buck Mt. Instead, it was a weekend of much discomfort caused by a huge buildup of fluid in my chest. First bout I’ve had with that malady since July. I finally feel well enough today to get caught up on a few things.
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Have a Tuesday.
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night

northbound freight trains rumbled by shaking me out of warm bedding and onto the frosty steel deck of one empty flatcar where light rain was stinging brightly my naked body through a wintry mist and passionless stars aglitter as tibbets droned overhead and wobbling beams of locomotive search lights looked to be miles ahead where the screech of air horn blasts were little more than a single toot through the onrushing darkness which was broken in places by industrial fires and lights of many large and small towns along the tracks and children and manson families romped noisily at school playgrounds under cold and weak winter sunshine which wasn’t sufficient to produce electricity from weedy solar farms dotting hillsides sporting bright spring buttercups and skeletal families waved from lichen encrusted concrete crypts as four of us rode the open car through farms of amber waved plenty and ancient detroit suburbs where pungent scents of newly mowed hay was cocktail blended with the stinks of big cities decaying beside a moonlit riverside just as the train crashed into the station awakening me with a startled spasm lifting me back into my warm place and the night remained quietly normal
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There were a few robins in the back yard Saturday morning. JJ and Todd found a large black snake on a tree out back; maybe it will catch the mouse who has so graciously decided to share our home with us.
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Have a wonderful Worshday!
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 So much for Obama’s highly touted “Rule of Law” in Libya. Moammar Gadhafi was captured, tried, found guilty, and executed in the blinking of an eye by a New York Yankee’s fan. It says a bunch for the glorious export of Western-style democracy … and commercialism. Which foreign leader wants to be next in the sights of America’s freedom rifle?
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For the past two evenings, I’ve tried to watch the baseball World Series. It was the first time I’ve watched a full inning of baseball on TV—except for a few college games—since the ’89 earthquake series and will probably be the last time. I don’t know why I even tuned in to the game last night or the night before. I suppose it is something like watching a teeny-bopper titty flick; sometimes I feel compelled to do so and always end up wishing I hadn’t. Baseball is so boring, especially on TV. Nine players run into the playing field and then try to make three players on the opposing team wish they were somewhere else. The opposing players try to make the field team look like fools. The problem is that it is almost entirely in slow motion; you’d think they were getting paid by the hour for their efforts instead of the multimillion dollar salaries they each receive, win or lose.
The only way I could possibly become interested in baseball again would be for them to have some excitement between innings. How about a few downs of football, something like the colleges have in their overtime games between the first and second inning? How about a dirt track World of Outlaws auto heat race between the fourth and fifth innings. For that all important seventh inning stretch, they could play a couple holes of pro golf in the outfield. Between the top and bottom of the ninth, they could have a music concert. At least people would get their money’s worth of entertainment throughout the event. Maybe they could cut the baseball game to four innings so people could get home at a decent hour.
In my youth, I loved baseball and the Brooklyn Dodger’s first baseman Gil Hodges was my favorite player. However, the New York Yankees were my favorite team. I liked many players from other teams, too. Back then they had real men who were players first, very much the opposite today’s coiffed automatons who play the game only for the money. When Pete “Charlie Hussle” Rose was forced out of the game in 1989 by its commissioner of betting, I lost all interest in the sport and realized it was no longer a game but instead it had become just another big entertainment business, much like a Madonna concert. The fan’s wants have been removed from the game except for the money they generate for team owners and players.
You da Man, Pete!
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Rant’s over … Have a great weekend!

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Train train

JJ found one reason the trains are so loud in the back of the house; my bedroom is smack above the basement drive-under garage and the garage door is acting like a drum head; amplifying the rumble, the rattle, and the roar. We are also half-way between two grade crossings and we get horn-blasted coming and going.
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I can see what looks like snow covering the upper flanks of Unaka Mt. this morning. The sight does nothing for my perpetually grumpy disposition.
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Where did I learn anything about kissing a woman’s hand, you ask? After all, you are but a mere hillbilly and probably married your mother or your sister or your first cousin, you say. Did I kiss the cow’s foreleg before I stump-broke her, you ask?
I’ll answer the last question first. ‘No’.
First cousins, mothers, and sisters desire to be kissed and pampered, too.
I learned what little I think I know from movies, mostly. Rudolf Valentino was very good at on-screen woman wooing, and many other leading men of pre-WW2 romantic films were pretty darned good at hand and arm kissing, although I think most of them were somewhat clumsy at lip smooching. Clark Gable was known as a pretty good lover of and for the ladies—off-screen and on-screen—and he did most of his hand kisses very well.
Anyway, I learned that keeping eye contact is the most important thing in hand kissing. If you are suave enough, and the lady is in a receptive mood, a lot of messages of intent and interest can be made with the eyes from the time your gazes meet through your picking up her hand and slightly leaning into it and on to the soft kiss and maybe a gentle stroke or two of her wrist before you release her. You are the charming snake and she is the your pretty little bird victim. Her eyes will tell you how well you did and your eyes can tell her you want to do a lot more.
Stuff like this comes natural to some men, but there is no way I could ever pull it off. Too bashful am I and I ain’t keen to being slapped. To say the actual flat truth, I have no real idea of what I am writing about when it comes to matters of intimate interpersonal male-female relationships. Truth! I’m just a hillbilly.

Have a lip-smacking Thursday!

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Mid-week mutterings

No Occupy and no politickin’ in this blog today… maybe later.
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Didn’t get any decent shots of Sammy yesterday; I was using my fast f/2.8 105mm portrait/macro lens but even at that, I was using natural window light and hand-holding the camera.
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Raining and turning cooler with possible snow showers in the higher hills tomorrow night. Another four months before robins return. We still have not had a hard frost and it is affecting leaf color.
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For men only; women please do not read this. Thank you.
Never leave the company of a woman without presenting her with a kiss … if possible. If she gives you her hand, gently lift it to your lips and place a kiss on the back of it; not just a chicken peck but let it dwell for a second while looking into her eyes. If she doesn’t panic, kiss her wrist before slowly releasing her hand. Keep eye contact! If her body language makes you think she liked your effort, smile and lean slightly toward her; if she does nothing, you are free to place a small kiss on her cheek, but first, whisper something sweet to her before your lips touch her skin. Again look into her eyes, smile and turn to walk away. Odds are that you will (A)-Get an invitation to come in for a few moments (B)-Get a hug and possibly a kiss on the lips (C)-Get an invitation to call her. Or you could get an offended slap or even a knee to the straddle.
Being terminally shy, I have never tried any of this but it sounds like it ought to work.
Disclaimer: I am not responsible for broken egos or smashed scrotums … kiss at your own risk.
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Have a wonderful Wednesday!

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Squeak

We have a mouse in the house and I have a suspicion I know where it came from.
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Sammy is coming over today so I can attempt to make some photos of him in his Halloween-themed clothes. I am a lousy people photographer and I don’t have much faith that anything I make will be acceptable.
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Have a Tuesday!
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Another war for Holy Oil

 

I read where there has been a sizable oil discovery in Central Africa. Obama is sending some fully armed troops into Central Africa. For a president who declares he is going to get us out of such conflicts, doesn’t this seem a bit strange? Well, no. If major oil companies want troops sent, then there will be troops sent. Remember Kuwait and Iraq? Another tip that it is being done for Big Oil is the fact that Congress is not raising hell about the deployment of more troops in harm’s way. When big oil owns the government, things get done and most of those things are detrimental to freedoms of the ninety-nine percent. It is disquieting when government is so hush-hush about something as serious as getting more of our troops killed in the name of Holy Oil.
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Did you see the video clip of the undercover cop pushing a protestor inside CitiBank just so he could arrest her for trespassing? Is this Your America?
For years I have been challenging America to wake up to the underhanded shenanigans of our politicians whom have become prostitutes to big business. Seems like with the occupy movement, some of us are suddenly climbing out of our dreamworld and realizing the financial, cultural, and educational nightmare this nation has become. We must awaken many more and show them the truth so that they may become active in the effort before the one-percent slips us a Mickey and sends us back to the sandman of complacency. In high school, I had to take a half-credit course concerning the problems of democracy. Not for one minute did it cover any of this kind totalitarianism. Wake up America!

Songs of the hills

Two nights; two songs. Didn’t sleep well the past two nights so I sent my mind down a heretofore untrodden path. In my thoughts I composed lyrics for two songs, both bluegrass and both gospel (ok; so I’m a hypocrite). One is tentatively entitled ‘My Golden Crown’ and the other is ‘Aunt Mary in the Kitchen’. Hillbilly/bluegrass is what I call innocent music; there are no long, foreign, or high-education words; most are only four or five letters long and deal with the things familiar to hill people. It is a simple music for a simple way of life.
Iff’n I had a banjer, I’d play one of them thar tunes fer you’uns … iff’n I knowed how to play a banjer.
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I think I have the Escape problems narrowed down to the transmission overdrive; on an educated hunch, I took the car out of overdrive while we were cruising along yesterday and it smoothed out and didn’t miss any more. We were almost home so I didn’t get to give it a good test but I think I am on the right trail. It will still have to go to a mechanic if I can find one I can trust. I’d rather deal with a shady lawyer than with a shade-tree mechanic who claims to know it all.
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Occupy is picking up steam worldwide. The powerful one-percent are bound and determined not to allow the other ninety-nine percent of us to share in the wealth by giving us a chance to make a decent living and have a happy life.
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Mark for Alderman of Gibsonville, North Carolina! Gotta start somewhere.
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Have a good Worshday!
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Uneasy weekend

Breaking in Warsaw's 'Old Town'

I’ve been a bit under the weather the entire weekend. I didn’t make it to the Occupy, but I understand it was a success with between one-hundred and two-hundred marchers of very diversified backgrounds making the trek from E.T.S.U. to downtown JC. I was planning on being there, but got voted down by Sammy; he decided he wanted to go shopping for Halloween outfits therefore he went and I sat at home. Hope I can get some decent pics of him in his new duds.
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Didn’t sleep well last night, so I stayed in bed until late this morning. I rode with Carolyn to clean the little bank, and then we went driving through the countryside and finally ended up in the mountains. I am guessing that next weekend will be best color for hills at around 4,000 ft. and the next weekend will be good at 3,000 ft. and lower. Hope the weather is good on next Saturday or Sunday.
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Thanks to Jola for the fine ‘breaking’ photo. The kid’s attires are as interesting as the dance.
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Have a great new week!
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Pill poppin'

 

Carolyn went to pharmacy yesterday to get refills on her RA med and on my Xanax. When she got home she needed to take one of her capsules but couldn’t find them. She searched the car, called the pharmacy to make sure they had given her the meds, called Wal-Mart—she went there after leaving the pharmacy, and called the gasoline station because she went there after leaving the store. No sign of our drugs anywhere. She searched the car once more and went through the grocery bags from Wal-Mart; by then she was very perturbed. She once more checked the car and found nothing but a very old french fry from McDonald’s which, I might add, was still as fresh-feeling and tasty as ever after I brushed the lint, dust, and a hair off of it. She came into the office and sat down; I was feeling sorry for her because I knew she was hurting and needed her pill. After a few minutes, she struggled to her feet and went into the kitchen and presently came back with a chastened grin and carrying the pharmacy bag with the pills. Where did she find it? In the dry foods cabinet with our cereals.
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“The hearts of the rich are hardened. The existence of the poor is a reproach to them.”
~ Murray Lenister
Cities around the country are attempting to put the hurt on Occupy protestors by failing to issue permits for certain activities in certain places, and for other grievous sins of peaceful rebellion. New York City is threatening (by proxy) to out the protestors from the park where they have been camped, saying it needs to be “cleaned up”. Big money is apparently becoming frightened by the populous uprising and is fighting back the only way it knows how; by buying the municipal governments. Look for more confrontations with excitable police as the movement solidifies.
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Have a good weekend.
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Happy Birthday, Jeremy!!!

Three days old and the Dreads have begun growing

Dream

My American Dream was born on Main Street and died on Wall Street.
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Rainy this morning; should be sunny and mild for Saturday’s Occupy. The above slogan will be on my protest sign. Protests can work. Remember James G. Watt? He was a part of Ronald Reagan’s conservative insanity. Lost his job as Interior Secretary; even Reagan could not withstand the public outcry against his good friend.
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Carolyn is at hairdresser and my world is peaceful.
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Looking 10 years ahead seems like a long time. Looking 10 years behind is seeing the blink of an eye.
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Have a Tuesday!
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Singin' tha blues

OCCUPY!
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What a lousy weekend it was; thank goodness it is now Worshday. Carolyn mentioned going out for awhile Sunday so I could make some photos, but when Sunday came and I was eager to go, she decided to stay home. It isn’t safe for me to be driving, especially the smallish Escape, which means I am at the mercy of being hauled by someone else; I feel like a forgotten old dog. I haven’t been off the place in nearly two weeks and was very much looking for an outing. This morning, she did take me to Fall Branch with her to clean the building there, but it was straight there and straight back home. I am bored!
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Speaking of the Escape, it is broken. Just paid out hundreds of dollars to get the brakes fixed and now it has developed an intermittent miss in the engine. It will soon be not fit to drive. Get it fixed and sell it, I suppose. I hate when cars begin nickeling-and-diming a person to death, especially these days when nickels and dimes have become big bucks.
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“We have to have a strong, effective financial sector …”
~Barack Obama
Having a strong financial sector doesn’t mean we have an effective one. Mr. President, would it not be better if we had an effective financial sector based on the needs and strength of the people instead of the wants and whims of the few who own Congress and the White House? Stop playing politics with our livelihoods.
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Have a great Worshday!

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Rag Doll

Marla had no illusions about Greg; to him she's like a cup of coffee from McDonald's drive through. She's fine while hot and steamy but she would soon find herself tossed cold and empty along the roadside.
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Be happy when the baby sleeps ... soon he will awaken as a teen.
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I hope for a global "Occupy" on October 15. Plan on participating in your home town; your presence and voice can make a difference.
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Politicians are beginning to take notice of the Occupy Wall Street movement, and yes, with their lip service pro and con, the protests have become a legitimate movement. Hopefully, it can and will become the We The People revolution which has long been my desire.
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Today I wish I had cable TV; I would love to see the Georgia-Tennessee football game.
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If I were to oversee the selection of the first members of the Rock 'n' Roll Hall of Fame, the only two I would pick the first year would be Bill Haley and Elvis Presley. Michael Jackson would never have a place in it.
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The Four Seasons were the first big name musical concert I ever attended ... 1964 ... I think. The opening act was Brenda Lee.
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Around four decades ago, hardhats--my union brethren--attacked peaceful Vietnam War protestors in NYC; I was appalled and ashamed of my union membership. The marchers were also protesting the Kent State Massacre but the construction workers applauded the Nixon/neo-Nazi Army National Guard for killing the students. Now that the shoe is on the other foot and the union construction industry is in decline and organized labor has all but lost its political influence, they seem to be siding with the Occupy Wall Street movement. Obviously many non-trade unions are supporting the cause, too. My my, hey hey, rock 'n' roll is here to stay!
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If the movement can coalesce, it can turn into something which can change the world. I listened to some of the participants of Occupy Wall Street yesterday, and just all about the people interviewed were protesting for different reasons. That is ok, but I think they need a catchall purpose with strong organizational leadership to make the movement work; if not, I fear many of the splinter protestors will become disillusioned and go home.
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Obama and Biden are giving political lip service to the protests, and Biden even sounds a bit sincere, but until I hear a sincere apology for T.A.R.P. and the damage it has caused for everyday Americans, they may all take a flying fuck at the moon. Even hillbilly I am smart enough to know there is no sincerity in candidate's rhetoric.
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Congratulations to Tawakkul Karman, Ellen Johnson Sirlea, and Leymah Gbowee for sharing this year's Nobel Peace Prize.
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Title quote by Dwight D. Eisenhower
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Have a great weekend!
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Talking About A Revolution

Has the Revolution begun? Even conservative geezerville Johnson City has an Occupy Johnson City clone of the NYC Wall Street groups. I see glimmers of hope for finacial equality everytime I watch videos of cops using riot sticks to beat unarmed protestors. Such police actions in Chicago pretty well killed the hippie movement of the 60′s; maybe this time it will empower more folk to become involved in restoring and safeguarding their liberties.

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Disappointed I am; I didn’t win the Nobel Prize for Literature. A Swedish poet won this year; Tomas Transtromer beat out Bob Dylan. Haruki Murakami and myself for the prize. I suppose the fact that Transtromer is Swedish and that the prize is awarded by a Swedish organization is not pertinent. According to CNN, … the academy has had a tendency to pick obscure European writers over the past several years. Maybe I should change my name to something catchy and move to Europe; it is for sure that I am already obscure enough.
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Apple’s Steve Jobs has died. I cannot say I liked him personally, but he was definitely a superb leader, innovator, and salesman. He changed the world of personal communications and entertainment along with creating jobs for many Chinese citizens.
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I am being disenfranchised as a voter; Tennessee has a new law which forces anyone wanting to vote to show a state or Federal I.D. card with the individual’s photo on it. A driver’s license will suffice. However, Tennessee also has an old law that says people over age 60 do not have to have their photo on their driver’s license. The new law is another Republican sponsored attempt to require every American citizen to have a an I.D. Sooner or later, it is going to happen even though it is most likely unconstitutional. Of course, the Constitution has become a mere piece of history for right-wing extremists to trample upon whenever they have a knee-jerk whim. They have made the document much the same as they have the bible; it means whatever they choose for it to mean.
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Have a great … Thursday already?
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Words of no value

Sammy spent most of the day with us yesterday and he was a bit out of sorts; I think he is cutting his first tooth. He just turned three months old, gnaws his fist, and slobbers like a dieting chef. I tried to make some photos but didn’t have enough light and he wasn’t about to hold still enough for a 1/60 sec. shot.
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The squeeze is getting worse as banks create or raise fees on every service affecting the middle class and poor. Maintaining overly-high profit margins is the New America. Bank of America pretty much told President Obama to mind his own business when he complained about the unreasonable increases. He seems to have taken their advice.
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I want to do another story but am having a case of writer’s block compounded by memory corruption. I’ve found a couple of places in my last story that need a bit of work, mostly in the important opening paragraph.
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Sean Connery or Roger Moore as 007? Best 007 movie?
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I mentioned yesterday that old-time hillbillies didn’t care for classical music. They didn’t much like Shakespeare, either. In fact, they didn’t much care for anything British; after all, they are of Scots-Irish ancestry and there has been bad blood with the English for hundreds of years. They have also been told how the English treated the Watauga settlers during the Revolution by inciting native Americans to attack and kill people who had no interest in supporting either side and that added to the animosity toward the Crown. When Lord Cornwallis threatened to send troops over the mountains to wreck the settlements because they would not side with the English, settlers from the Wolf Hills (now Abingdon, Virginia), the Cumberland Gap area, the Nolichucky settlements, and the Watauga settlements mustered at Fort Watauga and hiked into North Carolina to take their brand of war to the British. They whipped a Red Coat army which had taken defensive position atop King’s Mountain; it is considered by many historians as the turning point of the American Revolutionary War in the south. Personally, I like the British; they are probably the best friends the U.S. has in the world and they gave us Monty Python! History lesson over ... class dismissed.
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Have a good day!

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Soulshine

 

I was just thinking …………………………… . . .  .  .   .    .     .
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Sunday morning I was tuning through the AM radio band just to see if it was still being used and for what it was being used. I shouldn’t have been surprised to find the frequencies being put to use by local, small church preachers; some large city churches were also broadcasting their Sunday sermons to the masses.
Until the late 1960′s, AM radio was about all there was other than shortwave broadcasts from abroad. FM was around, but was not popular among the proletariat; it had the reputation of snobbishness because many of the few available stations aired jazz and classical music, something which made hillbillies sneeze and fart and run screaming for the outhouse. My first real introduction to the FM band was in 1972 when I bought a Dodge pickup truck which had an AM/FM radio. It was love at first listen for me; I remember driving home to Tennessee on Friday evenings from working in West Virginia, and somewhere atop Flattop Mt. on the West Virginia Turnpike, I started picking our local FM station from Johnson City which was WJHL-FM. The good part was that they were playing some album oriented rock and roll and a mix of other genres. By the mid-70′s, the station had changed its call letters to WQUT, boosted its output to 100,000 watts, and was playing only album oriented rock and roll to ex-hippies and cool-dude fans in several states. By the late 70′s, the station had become the most popular commercial FM station in the United States, beating out markets in New York City and Los Angeles. With shows like The Tennessee Midnight Rambler on Saturday nights and Friday afternoon’s Blazing Turntables (Blazing TT’s), along with the uninterrupted playing of a new album each Wednesday night at 12:00 which could be recorded to cassette at home, the local rock scene was booming. Big-name rock bands were begging to play recitals at our small Freedom Hall Civic Center. Then along came—choke-choke—disco and before you could say ‘where’s my coke spoon’, the station became mostly Michael Jackson and other to 40 vomit. Sometime in the late 80′s, it once again tried to recapture the old magic by changing to a hard rock format, but it was too late, new wave country garbage like Achy Breaky Heart was mesmerizing the nation. WQUT is now just another classic rock station, playing repetitive canned fare each day and beating our brains into jelly with The John Boy and Billy Big Show each morning … disgusting!
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Have a Tuesday, my friends.
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Frost!

Pie

We had patchy frost this morning! Come on robins; come on Spring! Yes, I know; I am wishing my life away but most of my winter life is miserable anyway, so I might as well crave an early grave on a warm, spring day … in about 30 more years.
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Amazon has just released for pre-order their new Kindle Fire tablet which many say will be an Apple iPad killer, at lest in the market place. It is a Google Android based product with a 7″ touch screen and has full net access much like my Droid X smart phone. The killer part is the highly popular Amazon Kindle branding and a price less than one-half of the iPad’s cheapest model: the Fire sells for$200. It has no 3G or 4G access to Amazon’s Whispersync service, but will work on any normal wi-fi network. The units will not be shipped until November 15th, but if you want the versatility of net access in a reasonable sized package and an enticing price for an Amazon Kindle product, it is worth a close look.
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Curly or Shemp?
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Where I last lived, the medical center’s quick response helicopter flew over my house a lot; I lived only two miles from the hospital. The chopper was always low enough over our place to drown out anything and everything; it was extremely loud and annoying. When I moved to my present location, I figured the trade-off of helicopter for trains would be a fair deal, but little did I know that the chopper followed the RR tracks to the hospital. Being situated on a high ridge, my house is now as close to the helicopter as ever when it flies over at least once each day or night, plus the shape of the hill funnels the sound of the trains right into my bedroom window. I wonder if I could use the Patriot Act to justify shooting down the air-ambulance and blow up the train tracks; both terrorize my sleep?
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Republicans! Finally do something good for your country and give us Rick Perry as your nominee for President of the United States! Wubba-wubba!
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Have a great Worshday!
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