I think I’ve sufficiently recovered from moving now to resume blogging. Why, I’ve regained almost full use of my hands! And I don’t collapse into a weepy puddle every time I need to find something I last saw laying on a counter back in the other place. So . . .
Stand by for news!
Yesterday marked the one year anniversary of Paul Harvey’s passing. In a more just, more perfect, more lovely world, I would have been on radio and television this last weekend talking about Mr. Harvey and giving the book another little goose up the Amazon sales charts. But alas that’s not the world we live in. (Of course, it’s never too late to send a father or grandfather the Paul Harvey’s America as a gift!)
Speaking of news. I still can’t share any about the new book project. It’s still top secret, but I’ll spill when I can. Or you can ask my wife. She’ll tell you.
In other, utterly-unrelated news, I’m off to Alaska today–Anchorage and environs for a week. The forecast is for mild (by Alaska standards) weather. Highs in the mid-30s, snow showers most days. In other words, about the same as in Mineeapolis. I mention that because in the six years we lived in Minnesota, I developed a habit of comparing the winter temps in Minneapolis to those in Anchorage. Nine times out of ten, it was warmer in Anchorage.
Look for my Twitterings and Twit-pics to be all Alaska-y over the next few days. Why follow me on Twitter? I can’t think of a single good reason. Unless you enjoy random musings like this one from the other day:
Regrets? I have a few. e.g., I rooted for Taylor Hicks on American Idol a few years back. That one still stings a bit.
Here’s something I came across on BoingBoing the other day that I’ve been meaning to mention. I can’t express how much I loved the story that relates to this picture:
The photo is from a 1949 LIFE magazine pictorial/article about the great battle of the bench that roiled Whitney, Texas back in ’48/’49. You can get the full story here. But at issue was a long, rough-hewn bench which had sat outside the local drug store in Whitney for as long as anyone could remember. From almost the very day that it appeared, it had been occupied all day long by old ranchers and farmers who would chew tobacco and comment on everyone and everything that moved into eye-shot.
I loved this story because my home town of Wilburton, Oklahoma had a bench that performed pretty much the same function. It sat outside Fern’s Cafe, (which burned to the ground a few years back) and was always occupied during daylight hours by gentlemen I called the Spit and Whittle Polo Club.
The Battle of the Bench in Whitney erupted when some image-minded busybodies tried to have the bench removed. My favorite quote from the article was this one:
“I’ve never heard of such foolishness”, ‘cried 97-year-old Tom Rose, dean of the bench sitters’. “Come here in ’77 from Tennessee, been married 76 years, and my wife ain’t whipped me yet.”
That was “1877” he was referring to, by the way.
Now I’m off to Alaska!