Category: Radio

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The Major’s Walk-A-Thon: Special On-Location Edition – Southwest Florida

1.  It’s Columbus Day, and it’s a day of relaxation for me after a lot of walking and a lot of driving. I drove 415.5 miles over 37 hours. That’s about 3 weeks of normal every day Homestead driving for me, and it’s just as I had planned out prior to embarking on the road trip. 201.3 miles of driving occurred on Saturday as I drove from Florida City to Lehigh Acres by way of Everglades City, Naples, and Estero. The remaining 214.2 miles of driving occurred on Sunday on the return trip back home to Homestead from Estero (where I spent the night) – via Naples and Plantation Key.

2.  On my Saturday morning drive over to the southwest coast of Florida I stopped for brief visits at the Big Cypress National Preserve Oasis Visitor Center as well as the Everglades National Park Gulf Coast Visitor Center just south of Everglades City. I don’t think that I have ever been to Everglades City before. (If I have then I don’t remember it.) It’s very small and very historic. About 500 people live there full-time. I plan to return back there during the cooler winter months to walk around the historic downtown area and check out the museum there.

3.  After a MASSIVE Lunch at Pinchers Crab Shack at Tin City on the waterfront in Naples, a walk to the end of the long city pier over the Gulf Of Mexico, and a nice scenic neighbourhood drive along the peaceful and quiet south coast of Naples I proceeded up to the big movie theatre north of Naples to get out of the mid-90s heat and sun – and to see the current box office smash “Zombieland“. It was campy and hilarious – perhaps a future cult classic ?

4.  It was so great to hear my radio station – The Call – over in southwest Florida. They just recently moved over from 107.5 FM to 107.7 FM in Naples. It’s an extremely weak translator station, and it was a bit ‘staticky’ all around the city – but a weak CALL-FM was definitely better than no CALL-FM. Up closer to Fort Myers I picked-up the much stronger 91.9 FM signal of The Call. It sounded great up and down I-75. On Saturday night I made my way over to Lehigh Acres (10 miles east of I-75 and Fort Myers) to attend a rock concert at a church featuring Jubilee, Horizons Fall, and Manic Drive. Rob from The Call was there. It was cool to hang out with him for a little while. All three bands rocked the joint hard and LOUD !

5.  On Sunday morning (after church in the park) I visited the Naples Zoo to check up on my animal friends. I then walked around the Coastland Center Mall to cool off a bit before making the return trip back to the southeast coast of Florida. This was my first visit over to the Naples area in about 20 months – way too long. My next visit will be much sooner than that – hopefully sometime during the upcoming cooler and dryer winter season. I think that it’s reasonable to state that it’s no longer ‘possible’ that I plan to eventually live in Naples, but that it’s ‘probable’. I fell in love with Naples all over again, and I wish to live there in the future. There is so much that I wish to see and do over there, so that will justify my more frequent visits to the area, and with each new visit I’ll be looking around for potential new neighbourhoods to call my future new home.

LATER TODAY – 2 MORE BLOG POSTS:
– ‘Celebration Community Beach Church At The Park’
– ‘Life Pointe Church Plantation Key Lime Pie’

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History Home Life Music People Radio

The Major’s Friday Night Disco Party

Flashback to the Spring of 1977. I’m 9-years-old – getting ready to turn 10-years-old, and I’m hangin’ out with my friends down by the creek at the bottom end of Red Wing Lane in Lanham Maryland. One side of the creek I ruled. I was in charge. The territory was known as ‘Chris Day Valley’, and it stretched for as far as my imagination would allow. On the other side of the creek my friends ruled, and their territory was known as ‘Wolf Pack State’. Our two territories neighboured each other, and we were friendly nations. See – even back then I was mastering geographic boundaries !

As I was compiling the paragraph above (and wandering around on the web) I believe that I may have discovered two friends of mine (simultaneously) from that neighbourhood and that time period. I’m gonna try to connect with both of them. I see their pictures (avatars) online, and they look very much as I remember them from over 30 years ago. One of them lived in the last house on the street right before the creek and the two ‘territories’. The other lived in a house just behind mine, and he was one of my first good buddy friends.

Playing on the radio back in the old neighbourhood up and down Red Wing Lane was a lot of Disco music. ABBA (from Sweden) weren’t really a Disco act, but they got with the times when they had to. The result was their only # 1 smash stateside and perhaps their most memorable anthem of the era. It’s “Dancing Queen” !  RE-LIVE !

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The Major’s Tweets

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If you’re not following me on Twitter then have no worries, for I’ve got the best of the best tweets from this past week. They are listed in chronological order:

– I am currently watching “Hell’s Kitchen” – perhaps the single TV show in primetime that I look forward to each week more than any other. [8:20 PM Sep 29th from twitter.com]

– Box Office Fun: I dig screwball comedies and horrifying thrillers. “Zombieland” combines both extremes. I can’t wait to laugh and scream !  [8:52 PM Sep 29th from twitter.com]

– OK everyone quiet – “Survivor: Samoa” is on now. [7:58 PM Oct 1st from twitter.com]

– OK the weekend has FINALLY arrived, and I’m kicking it off in GRANDE style – by doing two loads of laundry. Can I get a what-what ?  [4:08 PM Oct 2nd from twitter.com]

– I can clearly see the house that I lived in from ’72-’75 – front yard and all – on Google. It was new back then. Now it looks 38 years old !  [8:25 PM Oct 2nd from twitter.com]

– I’ve been jammin’ to ’70s On 7′ on Sirius XM since last night. THIS is a quality ’70s station – with legendary TOP 40 DJ Jay Thomas on now. [9:14 AM Oct 3rd from twitter.com]

– I am now enjoying Stuffed Spinach Shells & Garlic Rolls courtesy of my good friends over there at The Big Cheese Of Homestead. You know it !  [11:39 AM Oct 3rd from twitter.com]

– “SNL” got bold last night with their opening skit. It was Fred Armisen as the ‘promise-everything’ / ‘do-nothing’ President Obama. So true. [1:30 PM Oct 4th from twitter.com]

Follow me @majorhitwaves.

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Blogging History Life Music Radio

Saturday Night Retro

You can’t schedule Life. Life happens. Some of it you expect. Some of it comes from beyond sight and theory. I had fully expected to continue a previously-scheduled 10-week romp through the decade that was the 1990s here on the ‘Retro’. The goal was to reach 1999 on the Saturday before Thanksgiving. That won’t happen because 1992 has been delayed until perhaps next Saturday night. I’m flashing back this week nearly 38 years ago to the start of 1972, and it’s all because of a song.

So there I was on a random day this past week minding my own business working at my desk at work when a song came on a coworker’s radio. I could barely hear it, but during those 3 minutes that it was on it was the loudest thing in my mind. It was as loud as a speeding locomotive. It cut through me and took me back to a mysterious time and era that I had previously forgotten. A time when I was a wondering 4-year-old kid exploring the world around me from inside of a moving car. I was mentally and emotionally transported back to that time.

It’s crazy how a single song can be so powerful as to totally consume you in the moment. It brought tears to my eyes, and even tonight as I post this and hear it again it gives me the chills over and over again.

I often wonder if today’s hit songs on the radio will remind me of the good and the not so good times of my Life today some 10, 25, or 40 years from now. A little over a month ago I was at cruising speed enjoying Life, bragging about it, and planning it out weeks, months, and even years from now. Unfortunately the other end of my Life was suddenly imploding in an irreversible manner. There I was looking too far into the future while I was neglecting the foundation of the Life of the now. Life happened. You can’t schedule Life.