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It was like a carnival on a beach where aliens landed… I could hear a wheezy accordion… I could taste the salty air… I could even see a green haze on the horizon that looked like it was from another world! That’s what each kernel of this glazed coconut popcorn tasted like. There is a wide array of flavors on the wall at Pop Culture where we bought two little bags of popcorn, and I intend on going back to try each one. This popcorn isn’t something you can live on, but it’s something you can live for!

Maybe it’s a phase I’m going through, maybe it’s a revelation: I love V-neck tees. I especially love ones with weirdly singular retro designs like this souvenir shirt from an Asian restaurant that may or may not exist. No eating establishment sells t-shirts like this anymore! That’s why I had to have one! This is only one of 4 t-shirts that I bought recently. Another one has the AM/FM dial that I wrote about last week, and then two more were mailed to Hoovie’s house yesterday. I’m waiting to hear his response. Operators are standing by. As soon as I know, you will too.

There’s an online station that is an easy “go to” when I want to hear music that is soothing yet weird, funky yet nerdy, retro yet futuristic… I’m talking about Inhailer Radio. I haven’t heard a station like this since WOXY. Oddly enough I discovered it when a former WOXY DJ made a post on social media about it. Inhailer Radio makes me want to inhale… exhale… and then inhale again. You will be hard pressed to find another radio station that plays bands like:
Moonspeak
This Is The Kit
Illuminati hotties
The Replacements
Red Rum Club
Ghost of Vroom
I only wish I could play it in my truck.

The tuner on my new V-Neck t-shirt can’t pull in any stations, but that familiar sight can take me back to another time. I can still hear that DJ in Oklahoma who sounded like Wolfman Jack but he called himself The Boogie Man. His show started out with a chorus of women chanting “Boogie Man, Boogie Man, oooh! aahhh!”  When our TV stopped working, my little sister and I discovered  CBS Radio Mystery Theater and listened to stories like The White Wolf. In that story a stepmother turned into a wolf and killed all of her husband’s children except for one, and that poor kid was telling the story as the wolf was panting outside his window. Yep, there’s a lot of memories in those frequencies and megahertz.

How weird is it to keep my distance from those I love during Thanksgiving? It’s weird enough to make me wish I could dress like a pilgrim and stand on your front porch! Jenny asked me if we could go caroling (just the two of us) when it get’s closer to Christmas. We would just go around the neighborhood to feel connected to friends we haven’t seen in a long time. It’s actually not a bad idea if the weather doesn’t prevent us. In the meantime here’s a song by Susan Werner from her Songs of Social Distance album. Warning: it might make you cry. It made me cry.

The first time I heard Susan Werner on Folk Alley, an online radio station out of Kent State Ohio, I knew I wanted to hear more. Then I found out she has a YouTube channel where she’s been doing a series every Sunday night where viewers can see her live and post comments and make song requests. Maybe I’ll see you there next Sunday night at 6pm! In the meantime I hope this song of hers cheers you up.

Jenny and I filled up her Kia Soul for 95 cents last Sunday. Gas hasn’t been that cheap since Model T’s shared the streets with horse drawn carriages and Henry Ford was a household name! I took a picture of the gas pump to prove it really happened…If you’re wondering how we went back in time to pay eleven cents a gallon, it was by way of our Chopper Shopper card from Price Chopper. We saved up enough points from our grocery purchases to knock $1.54 off the $1.65 price. We actually pumped 8 gallons into that gas tank for a whopping total of 95 cents. I wanted to keep driving, but I was afraid we might go deeper into a time portal. Being so far west into the Kansas Territory we might have been caught between the U.S. Cavalry and a warring tribe of Native Americans.

Jenny and I heard this song on a Sunday drive and loved it. It’s upbeat and it has a good message. Anytime someone writes a song that brings people together so they can put aside their differences, I’m in. The first song I remember hearing on the radio like that was probably Everyday People by Sly and the Family Stone. This one is called East Side West Side by The Mammals.

It’s been 18 days since my last blog post. I think that’s a record, and I’m sorry dear readers. It’s time for me to follow Ma Bell’s advice and reach out. Reach out and touch someone. Earlier in the week I was flashing back to 1979 and my first Sunday afternoon at James’ house. We were riding his mini bike in a cow pasture and talking in goofy cartoon voices. His mom made roast beef and potatoes, and later we listened to the Doors’ long version of Light My Fire in his room. We were just 13. He’s a grandfather now. A couple of days ago my mom sent a text. She was reaching out. I reached back the next day but her ringer was turned down. I’ll try again this weekend.

There is an old stump of a concrete post about 10 feet away from our house. It barely clears the undergrowth now, but I remember when it was taller. I always wondered if it was the remnant of a hitching post. I asked a neighbor once and he said “yeah, I think so,” but he didn’t seem too sure either so I looked up “hitching posts” online. After seeing a bunch of storefronts for bars I found one that someone posted on Pinterest. It has eight sides and an embedded cable like ours does. If anyone asks, I’m going to say “sure! that’s what’s left of our old hitching post! You can’t tether your horse here anymore, but it can probably knock the blade off your lawnmower!