– Let’s get spontaneous.
– Let’s not hold nothin’ back.
– Can we talk here ?
– Miami has an all-new Christian music radio station !
– I discovered it for the first time this afternoon at work.
– It’s Life-FM at 90.9, and it’s a powerful 100,000 watt station.
– I think their transmitter is right alongside the 18-Mile Stretch.
– That means that you get a clear and rich signal here in Homestead.
– Life-FM is Christian music for my age range and older.
– Its secular equivalent would be hot adult contemporary.
– I may be approaching 43-years-old, but I still like to rock my face off.
– That’s why I’ll also continue to listen to Call-FM at 91.9.
– My favourite radio deejay in the entire world works there !
– Driving here in America’s Riviera is always very challenging.
– We drive over 80 different ways here.
– That’s because we learned how to drive in over 80 different countries.
– The single problem that annoys me the most is tailgating.
– It’s also the most dangerous problem.
– I get tailgated virtually every day to and from work by multiple drivers.
– I generally slow down when a tailgater is at work.
– If the speed limit is 40, and I’m going 48 I’ll slow down to 42 for a tailgater.
– I do it for my own safety.
– If I have to slam on my brakes for whatever reason then I may be toast.
– I’d rather be that much closer to 0 MPH in the event that I have to brake.
– Tailgating should be a crime right up there with drunk driving.
– I’ve seen police cars tailgate – and also be tailgated !
– It’s a chronic problem down here.
– I appreciate those peaceful, quiet, and uneventful drives here in paradise.
– But they are way too rare.
– This is a multi-anniversary month for me.
– Celebrate Good Times Come On !
– 19 years ago I returned home from Operation Desert Storm.
– 17 years ago I started my post-military civilian life in Melbourne Florida.
– 16 years ago Homestead Air Reserve Base reopened for business.
– All of our F-16 ‘Fighter Falcons’ returned home, and so did I.
– It’s good to celebrate 16 years here in Homestead.
– That’s in addition to the nearly 5 years that I was here before Andrew.
– Homestead has been my home in 4 decades since the late-1980s.
– I belong here.
– I have a purpose here.
– If I didn’t belong here, and I had no purpose – then I’d move away.
– I’ll be here for as long as God wants me to be here.
Category: History
It’s time to kick-off a fresh new week of blogging here on ‘The Major’s Life Blog’, and I can’t think of any better way to kick it than with the longest-running weekly series in this blog’s history. It’s the flagship series that’s been here since the very start. It’s the ‘Tuesday Night Grab Bag O’ Thoughts’ – in HD !
I. Monkey Jungle – 51 weeks after my last visit to my favourite local tourist attraction I went back again this past Saturday morning to check up on my primate buddies. Read what I had to say about my last fun visit on the 14TH of March of 2009. On this visit I bought an annual pass to the joint. It’s worth it. Adult admission is $29.95, and an annual pass is $39.95. Had I bought an annual pass on my last visit in 2009 I could have used it for this visit – 51 weeks later – in 2010. Now I can visit as often as I wish free of charge. I dig that. This was another fun 2½-hour visit. It was also a cold visit with actual air temperartures only in the mid-60s and wind chills in the upper-50s ! My friend Mei the orangutan was so frigid that she kept throwing her new blanket on top of herself like a little kid. The only time she let go of her ‘blanketty’ was when she had to go fetch her food that unintentionally landed in the moat below her. My old buddy King the western lowland gorilla is still hangin’ in there. He’s nearly my age. He came right over when he saw the crowd gather, and he performed all of his usual tricks. He knew that it was time for Lunch. While the vocal animal rights activists may not appreciate Mei and King (and zoos in general) I certainly look forward to checking up on my old buddies with every new visit to the jungle.
II. Operation Desert Storm – TODAY – the 09TH of March – marks the 19TH anniversary of my return home from war on the harsh desert sands of Saudi Arabia. I departed Al Kharj Air Base at 0326 Saudi Arabia time on Saturday March 09TH 1991. It was a 7 hour and 7 minute flight westbound to Torrejon Air Base Spain followed by an unexpected 5 hour and 24 minute layover there. The transatlantic flight to Dover Air Force Base Delaware took 8 hours and 59 minutes. It was a long 21½-hour travel day for me. The next morning I flew from Philadelphia to Miami, and then back home to Homestead Air Force Base as a war veteran. For rest and recuperation the USAF awarded us returning home from war the rest of the month (March 1991) off from work. I ended up driving to my official home-of-record up in the Washington D.C. area to be with my family. That capped roughly 10,000 miles of travel for me in just 6 days.
III. Your Weather Forecast – No ‘Tuesday Night Grab Bag O’ Thoughts’ is complete without a weather forecast (or at least my analysis of recent weather). It’s been a record-breaking cold winter season all across America’s Riviera due mostly to the continuing El Niño phenomenon. This is the same weather pattern that destroyed virtually every single tropical system out at sea last summer. It appears that El Niño is now waning, so more normal seasonal weather should be expected for at least the next 9 months or so. In the near short-term look for a return to afternoon temperatures back in the 80s and overnight low temperatures back to where they should be during this time of the year – the mid-60s. Also look for a return to that wonderful South Florida humidity that’s been on hiatus for an extended period of time. Normal probably won’t feel so normal after so much abnormal weather for the greater part of the past year, but I’m sure that we will all get used to it again in no time flat.
IV. Longhorn Steakhouse – Late this morning I enjoyed a delicious Lunch at Homestead‘s Longhorn Steakhouse. I was in the mood for juicy steak, buttery mashed potatoes, and soft warm bread, and I can’t think of anywhere else within a short driving commute to go for such a fantastic feast than the Longhorn. I’m also doing my part to try to keep this place in business. I hear that the joint is jumpin’ every night for Dinner, but it seems like such a well kept secret for Lunch. You can enjoy a delicious Lunch there with excellent customer service for $10 or less – slightly more of course if you prefer to go the steak and potatoes route such as myself. The Longhorn is gradually becoming a Tuesday for Lunch tradition. Who wants to meet me there next Tuesday ? I’ll treat !
We’re just about 48 hours away from another intriguing ‘Thursday Night Mini Thoughts’. Think of what would happen if the ‘Grab Bag O’ Thoughts’ collided with Twitter. It’s what you’d get with the ‘Mini Thoughts’. Each unique thought is presented in 15 words or less, and I pass the savings on to you !
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This week on the ‘Retro’ it’s a TOP 10 pop smash that I consider to be one of the greatest written songs of the rock and roll era. It’s a song by Andrew Gold who worked behind the scenes with Linda Ronstadt at the time. In fact she returned the favour in this song by providing backing vocals.
As the story goes this kid who was born ‘on a summer day – 1951’ (such as Andrew himself) was thrown to the side and neglected and abandoned by his parents when his sibling was born ‘in the summer of ’53’ (such as Andrew’s sister). He was once an only son who was the only one. He was a lovely boy that then became a lonely boy. At the age of 18 ‘on a winter day – 1969’ that lonely boy left home to find the love that he had lost. We’re not sure if he ever found it, but his sister went on to live happily ever after.
By substituting the years 1951, 1953, and 1969 with 1967, 1975, and 1985 this song can be the lyrics of my childhood. I take this song very personal because unfortunately I can totally relate to it. If I elabourate any further on this I will get way too emotional, so I’ll just leave it at that.
All is well in 2010, but it’s been a slow and struggling recovery for me over the past 35 years. I AM living happily ever after.
Parents – love your children forever, and never neglect or abandon them.
FLASHBACK with me to the Summer of 1978. It’s when Garfield made his debut in the comics section of daily newspapers everywhere. It’s when the world’s first test tube baby was born in England. It’s when Pope Paul VI died at the age of 80, and was succeeded by Pope John Paul I who died just a month later.
I turned 11-years-old on June 05TH 1978, and I successfully completed the 5TH grade at Magnolia Elementary School in Lanham Maryland. After all of these years it’s the 5TH grade that stands out above all of the rest as the most memorable of them all. It was memorable in a positive way – great teachers – great classes – great classmates. I really believe that the latter half of my grade school years (4TH, 5TH, and 6TH grades) were more influential and more valuable in molding my later adult life than the subsequent Junior High and Senior High school years. My writing skills today were conceived and developed during those latter grade school years.
On the radio during the Summer of 1978 Disco ruled, as it crossed-over in a big way from the big city nightclubs to mainstream pop, rock, and soul radio nationwide. The Bee Gees‘ younger brother Andy Gibb was only 20-years-old at the time, but he was one of the hottest solo acts in the world. Here’s his memorable Disco smash that spent most of June and all of July of 1978 at the very top of the national pop chart. It went on to become the # 1 song of the entire year here in the U.S. – as well as one of the biggest songs in American chart music history. Here’s “Shadow Dancing” on the ‘Disco Party’:
CountUp 