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I had a perfectly good late 80s, early 90s exposure to David Bowie. He was long since a thing, of course, and far beyond anything I could understand then, or maybe even now. That was part of the art. He was a kind … sort … a type of art of his own. I like to think that he was trying to tell us we all were.
It seems difficult to imagine listening to his duets just now.
We are back in north Alabama. We are at one of my mother’s places. Her grandfather built this house by hand a half-century ago as a side business. She’s done and had a lot of things redone. I’ve sanded generations of paint off the door frames. It is cozy and old and I’ve no idea how many people have rented it over the years. I think about that every time I’m here. Just something about this light fixture in the bathroom.
From what I’ve read that’s a pre-1960s light fixture. Maybe it is the original. Bathrooms back then didn’t always have outlets in the bathroom. And so if you needed to use electricity in the bathroom you’d reach to this guy over the sink.
Who were those people that were doing that reaching? What were their dreams and problems when they were here? What has become of them? When did they switch to electric razors and start using hair dryers? Where did they spend their holidays?
There’s a new place in the works. My folks have picked out their post-retirement home. We drove over to see it this weekend. The previous owners are moving out. They’re probably at that “I wish it was over and do we really need the last of this stuff or can we just burn it in the yard and save time?” stage. The sellers seemed to like lawn art:
I got this card game as a present. You get a random shuffle and your goal is to try to make a headline. Basically it is Mad Libs.
There’s an easy point system, or you could simplify things further and just vote on who has the best hand. The kids we played with, 12 and 17, were surprisingly good at the game considering how few headlines they probably see.
Anyway, it is called Man Bites Dog and it is a benign, family-friendly game. Much less emotional than Monopoly.
While visiting the other side of my family my grandmother brought out the instruments. These belonged to my grandfather.
I think she likes to hear me play them, she likes to hear us make music, she says. Or maybe she just likes watching us make jokes about them.
The work on the campus cafeteria continues. The short version is they are renovating. And part of that renovation has involved gutting the center of the large room. So they had to erect an interior room, keeping the dust in and the food out. They built a dirty room, basically. They put in plexiglass windows so you can peer in and check out their work. I’m not sure if I’ve seen a lot of students doing that, but it is interesting to see what is happening inside on a weekly basis or so. On the outside, murals and other sanctioned graffiti are going up. Here’s some Seuss:
I didn’t know there was such a thing as a drywall truck, but it makes sense if you think about it. Problem is, I never have. Nevertheless, here you go:
Work, work, work. But it never seems enough, or finished. Hopefully it is good, at least.
I got in a fast 2,000 yards at the pool. Fast for me, that is. I was very pleased with myself because it took much less time in the aggregate. Let’s call that progress.
Pizza for dinner, a nice story involving a police officer around midday:
“I immediately started ripping apart the sink and the pipes. If you can only imagine losing your wedding ring – you can do anything with the adrenalin going through your body.”
The next thing she knew, other restaurant patrons joined her in the restroom. At one point, at least six people were in the bathroom trying to find the ring – in addition to those who just had to answer nature’s call.
They not only drew a crowd, they caught the attention of Hendrix who works an extra job at Al’s. Someone asked the kitchen staff for a long utensil, and Hendrix got curious. “The cop was like, ‘What the heck is going on?” Shannon said.
[…]
Hendrix may have sent Shannon on her way, but he certainly didn’t give up. He, along with the restaurant manager, called someone they thought could help. It was a small miracle, Hendrix said, when the trio heard the ring jingling somewhere deep down in the pipes.
But the officer’s work had only just begun. He didn’t know Shannon’s name, or the names of her friends. That’s when the detective work started.
One last thing, the man was an Alabama-native and a legend, and I thought he might live forever (mostly because, in my mind, he’s been about 70 for 25 years). But Percy Sledge’s passing should prompt you to check out at least a few of his live performances. The man was an incredible performer:
I saw him at a festival years ago, mostly because I remember a high school teacher of mine told me about the time she saw him in a blues bar in Mobile. He was singing that signature song, she said, and he did the chorus, “When a man loves a woman” 56 times. Always wanted to see something like that.
This evening I did a 1,800 yard swim, toweled off and then had a 5K run. Finished at 75 percent target heart rate. The swim was about at my normal slow and sloppy pace and style. The run was probably at the lower end of my pace. But that’s a brick to start the season of exercise, and there’s nothing wrong with that. I’m feeling pretty good after, too.
You know, there’s a time when you don’t think about doing those sorts of things. And it doesn’t take all that long to look at those numbers and think to yourself, “That’s all you did?”
The mind is a weird place, is what I’m saying. I do not know what is happening.
So I swam in the indoor pool, naturally. I had the far left lane all to myself, hitting neither the wall or the room any at all. I did these in 50 yard increments, because I’m still trying to find some form of breathing that works. And having completed the mile I staggered out of the pool, into my flip flops, up the stairs, into the locker room, into some dry clothes and my running shoes and then out and over to one of the old gyms on campus. The gym was closed for a boy’s lacrosse practice, but the track above it was open, and I jogged and sprinted along on that, listening to the sounds of my footfalls and wondering just how long that track has been in place. This is what it looks like from underneath it.
And so to the parents that were there, sitting on the bench, watching their sons play lacrosse and listening to me trample 15 feet above you and wondering “Is this going to be the lap? Will this be the time? Are all of my affairs really in order?” I apologize. But you should have seen me in the pool.
I have this mental image that my swim looks really good for about 1,000 yards. Really it probably only looks really good for 15 yards, which is most of the push off the wall and that first stroke. But I can really make a nice streamline shape, boy, and I’m proud of that.
I got through some portion of the run by wondering what I would have for dinner. I can just look at a body of water and my appetite gets out of control, so, to have actually burned some calories, this could be a real meal. But I didn’t want this, and that would never seem filling and … for some reason there were two big burritos wrapped up and sitting on the floor of the track. So I somehow talked myself into Moe’s, because I guess I was getting hungry by then. Moe’s, I said aloud tonight, making it real, seems like a better idea in theory than in execution.
Please remind me of that as necessary. But, at Moe’s, there was this:
So now it is back to the newsroom, where the award-winning staff of The Samford Crimson is working on what will surely be another fine edition of their august publication. They’re celebrating their 100th anniversary this spring, ya know. We should have a party.
Things to read … because reading is always a party.
This one doesn’t surprise anyone, but it is nice to see: Huntsville ranked among top cities for STEM jobs
Turns out there is going to be a lot of stuff going in this summer: Redevelopment of Toomer’s Corner set to start after A-Day.
This is written in a sports talk context, but you get the sense that the anecdote might carry over to other programming: Is Sports Radio Ready For Its Future?:
Two discussions in particular stuck with me and have had my mind racing for the past few days. First, I was in Dallas for the Radio Ink Sports Conference and during my time there I had the chance to moderate a panel which focused on the mind of millennial listeners. I was on stage with three college students. Two were 21-years old and the other was 26.
Over the course of 45 minutes, I hit all three students with a barrage of questions on their perceptions and interest in sports radio and I along with the rest of the room learned that they live in a different world where content is only king if it can be consumed quickly. If it requires sifting through your podcast to find it, waiting through a commercial break or needing to wait for a host to finish rambling off-topic, they’re gone. Even the big name guest means little if it doesn’t include a hook worth sticking around for.
And that whole essay is a pretty nice read.
They got that right. Rickwood Field ranked among best baseball destinations
Really, I just mention that to dust off this Rickwood piece I did some years back. The oldest continually operational baseball park in America, in 20 minutes:
The place is 105 this year. This is a painstakingly recreated manual scoreboard you’ll see in the outfield:
And, over on Facebook, I’ve started The Best Single of the Last 45 Years game. So far there are eight great choices, including mine, which I heard tonight, and whose intro inspired the entire thing:
If you can’t get in a good mood with those horns the very reverend Al Green is right behind them, ready to work everything out.
He’s still doing it, too.
Yep, that’s all you want.
You can tell people all of the reasons they shouldn’t take pictures of signs, and there are plenty of good reasons, but still, when the classics come back to life, you can’t help yourself:
After nearly a decade of its pumps sitting idle, fuel is again flowing at the former Saco gas station at the corner of Dean Road and Opelika Road in Auburn.
Auburn resident Mike Woodham turned the station’s original lights back on at the Saco gas station Monday as he reopened it as Woodham’s Full Service—a gas station offering full or self serve fuel service, a full-service tire shop, oil changes and more.
“The City of Auburn has been very gracious to my kids and very good to me, and we wanted to give something back,” said Woodham, who owned Woodham’s Tire in Montgomery and has been in the auto business for 30 years. “We wanted to serve back. And the best way that we know of is what we bring to market with our tire knowledge.”
Known for its iconic Saco sign, the previous gas station closed more than nine years ago after then-owner Dick Salmon was shot and killed at the business in July 2005. According to an Associated Press article as reported by The Decatur Daily on July 24, 2005, Salmon had worked at the family-run business for 43 years.
And the store:
Not a lot has changed, and that seems to be the plan, and that’s great.
Breakfast at Barbecue House this morning, which meant I could skip lunch. Read students’ news stories all morning and afternoon, and that is always fun, right up until I imagine then trying to read my marginalia. And then there was class, where we talked about profiles and obits and got ready to point to exciting digital methods of story telling, which will last us through the rest of the week.
There were other office things, a late dinner and here we are.
Things to read … because here we are.
I’m keeping it to three, but these are three incredible Selma pieces to read. Because they are better than the headlines, I will link you with a good quote for each:
I thought I saw death. I thought I was going to die. — Rep. John Lewis
The world doesn’t know this happened because you didn’t photograph it … it is so much more important for you to take a picture of us getting beaten up than for you to be another person joining in the fray. — Martin Luther King Jr.
Not even the National Guard wanted to go through Selma — Dr. Bernard LaFayette
And now for another kind of fortitude, this is a strong testament of health, strength, and mind over chemo, Finding strength in triathlons:
It was debilitating. “I was 10 days away from doing my eighth Ironman,” Hackett says. “I was still training 100 percent and I had this huge, stage four tumour going.” His youngest daughter was just two weeks old. His oldest was five years old.
[…]
Hackett is on an aggressive form of chemotherapy, a regimen called FOLIRI, whose name represents three different drugs. His oncologist, Dr. Michael Sawyer, combines the regimen with a relatively new drug called bevacizumab that attacks the growth of new blood vessels. Hackett tolerates it well. “He told me he biked 20 or 30 kilometres the day before I saw him,” Sawyer says. He also ran a five-kilometre race just four hours after he finished his first round of chemotherapy.
The exercise might have something to do with it. “There are many studies, both in curative chemotherapy (to remove cancer completely) and chemotherapy to prolong people’s lives, where it appears that people who exercise do better than people who do not,” says Sawyer.
So we’ll all be at the gym a bit longer tomorrow, no?
Here are a few media links:
How four top publishers use Facebook for video
Testing out Meerkat: the app that brings live streaming to Twitter
What does the Twitter live streaming app Meerkat actually do?
You Won’t Understand The Potential of Snapchat Until You See This
And, finally, we’ll end with some music today. If you’re still looking for something to hate Tom Hanks in, keep looking because this probably isn’t that thing either:
Have a great and purposeful week. See ya tomorrow!
