trying to learn the #lapsteel enjoy good live music college football God bless America
Georgia, USA
Joined October 2016
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Paul Monroe retweeted
If you have been giving the U.S. Treasury an interest free loan for a year, you are probably thinking about when you might get some of that money back. What you should be thinking is "when can I get a MONTHLY rebate of tax I do not owe" like in FAIRtax. fairtax.org/about/how-fairta…
Paul Monroe retweeted
In August 1969, twenty-two-year-old Melanie Safka sat in her mother’s car on the way to what she thought was a small festival. Then she saw a helicopter and a hillside covered in people. She had arrived at Woodstock.
Melanie wasn’t even scheduled to perform. Her label had sent her with no guaranteed place on the bill. Backstage she waited alone in a small tent. Her nerves became so intense that she developed a violent cough and feared she might not be able to sing. Joan Baez noticed and sent over tea and honey.
When rain hit the stage and another act refused to play, the organizers turned to the unknown young woman in the tent. Melanie walked out alone with her guitar. No band, no backup. She sat on a metal folding chair and began to sing. Members of the Hog Farm had been handing out candles. As she performed, first a few flames appeared, then hundreds, then thousands. The muddy hillside filled with light.
The sight stayed with her. She wrote “Lay Down (Candles in the Rain).” It became a Top Ten hit and helped start a tradition that later became phone lights at concerts. The industry still didn’t know where to put her. Too gentle for rock, too independent for the image they wanted. She left Columbia when they tried to reshape her and resisted being packaged as the “cute hippie girl.”
In 1971 she and her husband founded Neighborhood Records, making her one of the first women to own an independent rock label. Her first release on her own terms was “Brand New Key.” It reached number one and sold more than three million copies. She continued recording for decades, released more than thirty albums, remained popular in Europe, and performed into her seventies.
Melanie Safka died on January 23, 2024, at seventy-six, still working on her thirty-second album. After her death her children asked fans to light a candle in her memory. On that night in 1969 she had been a frightened twenty-two-year-old with no guaranteed slot and a cough that threatened her voice. She walked out anyway. People have been holding up their lights ever since.
Damn
.@RonCapps28 destroys a Funny Car body during Q3 at the #FallNats!
@TeamRonCapps • @txmplex • #StampedeOfSpeed
Today is why I love college football !!! Upset’s everywhere, close games, rivals pouring their hearts out for a chance to beat their heated rivals.
Looked at a 65 convertible ford falcon today. 1 owner all the paperwork. Few little problems. Wife said no. Don’t have space we have 4 garage spots 3 cars
Got a new phone yesterday. First once since 2020. They cost to dam much and by the time I figure it out I will need a new one again in 6 years
One good story
Tonight the Atlanta Braves play an elimination game against the Philadelphia Phillies, and the man taking the ball first quit baseball to work at a 7-Eleven.
Ray Kerr went to Hug High School in Reno, a program that has won 27 games since 2008 and lost 245.
He had been to exactly one major league game in his life, a Giants and Athletics game in Oakland when he was 13.
He pitched two years at Mendocino College and went 3-7 with a 4.60 ERA.
So he quit. Went home to Reno. Took a job at the IMAX theater and a job at the 7-Eleven.
Here is how he describes it.
"I cleaned up a lot of popcorn. I said, I'm done cleaning up popcorn."
And the other one.
He "stocked the shelves in the cold fridge, listening to my music, kind of forgetting about baseball."
He thought that was the rest of his life.
Then a junior college coach named Eric Perry called him.
"Let's go back to school. Let's go to Lassen Community College. I still think you have baseball left in you."
Here is the part that matters most.
Somebody had to pay for that school, and Ray Kerr grew up in foster care. The woman who paid was his foster mother, Lisa McCarthy.
In his words.
"She's the one who gave me all these opportunities to go back to college, to pay for it if I actually wanted to."
He had to earn a 3.5 GPA to get in. He earned it. Then he went 7-4 with a 3.45 ERA over 91 innings.
That summer he pitched in Alaska against Division I hitters and put up a 1.11 ERA, and his fastball started doing something it had never done.
"I thought I could only throw maximum 92."
It kept climbing into the mid 90s.
The Seattle Mariners signed him as an undrafted free agent in August 2017. Four years later they traded him to the San Diego Padres, and in April 2022 he walked onto the mound at Petco Park and struck out Justin Turner, Max Muncy and Chris Taylor in order.
He called his foster mother first.
Then in June 2024, with the Atlanta Braves, he tore his elbow and needed Tommy John surgery.
Career over. Again.
They re-signed him on a minor league contract. He did not throw a major league pitch again until August 17 of this year.
Since that day he has a 1.47 ERA, and left handed hitters are batting .174 against him. Which is why he is getting the ball tonight with Kyle Schwarber and Bryce Harper due up in the first.
Now the honest part. He is an opener, not a traditional starter. He may face six hitters and hand it off. The Atlanta Braves are doing this because of matchups, not sentiment.
But a kid from a high school that loses 90 percent of its games, who stocked a cold fridge at a convenience store and figured that was it, is throwing the first pitch of a win or go home playoff game.
He is done cleaning up popcorn.
Paul Monroe retweeted
The pictured girl was found wandering alone in the Pinnacle Park apartment complex. She is safe and unharmed, but it is unknown where she lives or who her guardians are. If you have information that could assist responding officers, please call 9-1-1.
No or Dave Parker
Harold Reynolds was running from first on a Scott Bradley double in the 10th inning of a tie game at the Kingdome in June 1989. He should have scored.
Bo Jackson got to the ball in the left field corner, turned and threw him out at the plate. The game stayed tied and the Royals won it in extra innings.
Clemente won 12 Gold Gloves with his arm and Ichiro's throw in his rookie year got its own name in Japan.
Nobody else ever threw a baseball the way Bo did that night, though. Whose arm are you trusting for one throw home?
I will turn 60 tomorrow and all I want is to sleep past 5:30 am and a Braves win while I'm at the game.
