Presidential Quotes (9 of 16): Harry S. Truman

Today, we continue our series of presidential quotes with a quip from Harry S. Truman, a Democratic senator and vice president, who succeeded Franklin D. Roosevelt, who was one of four American presidents to die of natural causes, to the presidency.

The Truman Library is located in Indepedence, Mo., just outside of Kansas City:

"I never did give any body hell. I just told the truth and thought it was hell.

http://www.trumanlibrary.org

Virtual Postcard from Missouri-Toy Museum

This image is from The World's Largest Toy Museum in Branson, Missouri, a resort town in the Ozark Mountains which is known as a mecca for country music fans. Russian emigre stand-up comedian Yakov Smirnoff also has a theatre in Branson.

Well, that's all for now.......I just heard Willie Nelson's "On the Road Again" playing on the radio...................he will be 'on the road again' himself when plays in Charlotte, NC, on Dec. 5th http://www.visitbranson.com/

http://www.missouribeautiful.com/

http://www.yakov.com/branson/

http://www.willienelson.com/

Sunday Comics Dialogue_ A Cameo from Big Bird

Greetings to our friends in Baltimore, St. Louis, Denver and San Diego here in the USA, and to those of you in London, Frankfurt, Istanbul and Dubai.........

Today's entry looks at funny pages dialogue from the Sunday, Nov. 18th edition of "The Charleston Gazette-Mail" in Charleston, W.Va., which still carries the wonderful comic strip "Mother Goose and Grimm," which features a cameo from Big Bird, but Mitt Romney was nowhere to be seen (to think 47-percent of our fellow Americans wanted Mitty Rich to be prez.....wow!).

Oh...but, first an update on how former American gold-medal winning gymnast Shawn Johnson is doing on "Dancing with the Stars," drats, someone changed the channel!

Here we go:

1) "Just a turkey hallucination. I get them this time every year" (from "Garfield")

2) "Ok, I'll need to but a turkey," (from "Grand Avenue")

3) "It's not proper for a girl to call a boy on the telephone" (from "Peanuts")

4) "They're trying to kill me out there. They want to cut my head off. I'm going to die!!" (from "Mother Goose and Grimm," a turkey is talking)

5) "What a great cook! I'm the luckiest man in the world!" (from "Hagar the Horrible")

6) "It says here that more Americans are eating something besides turkey for Thanksgiving." (from "Over the Hedge")

7) "Our invitation for tonight is lit up........more than 200 and climbing!" (from "Rex Morgan M.D.")

8) "Very nice?! Are you kidding?! She's world-class!!" (from "Blondie")

9) "I'm still fond of soft-spoken intellectuals" (from "Shoe")

10) "She asked me to put up the holiday lights while she was gone." (from "Dilbert")

11) "When I come back, I'll show you some trout holes you won't believe." (from "Judge Parker")

12) "What are those funny-looking birds?" (from "Hi and Lois")

http://www.wvgazette.com

http://www.grimmy.com

http://www.dilbert.com

http://www.blondie.com

10 People Who Will Decide Election(1 of 10)- Fiddle Player in Missouri

Name: Gary Tate

Hometown: Branson, Missouri

Occupation: Fiddle Player

Age: 72

Will Likely Vote For: Mitt Romney

Wow! We are having lots of tech glitches with this entry. At any rate, this is the start of our series on how one person can decide a state, which can in turn determine the winner of the presidential election. Places like Beckley, West Virginia (George W. Bush 2000), Elko, Nevada (Bush 2004) and Cary, NC (Barack Obama, 2008) have helped determine the last three winners of very close presidential elections.

Today, we focus on the tourist mecca of Branson, Missouri, located off Highway 76. Branson has a population of 10,520, but more importantly the town in southern Missouri near the Arkansas border has popular theatres with mostly country musicians and old-time crooners, such as Roy Clark, Andy Williams,  and Lee Greenwood. Branson also has a theatre run by Russian emigre comic Yakov Smirnoff, who like Greenwood, is known for his conservative politics.

We expect that since Missouri will once again go Republican as John McCain narrowly won the Show Me state in 2008, but President Barack Obama should perform strongly in St.Louis and Kansas City.

DISCLAIMER: Though he shares his name with a pastor in England, Gary Tate is a ficticious person. The image is actually of North Carolina bluegrass legend Hubert W. Watts (1885-1976).

Bonus Road Trip (7 of 10)- Columbia, Mo., to The Indepence Bowl

Since we originally started the Road Trip series back in the spring of this year, we set out to try and cover every state, including Alaska and Hawaii (for the Aloha State, we used a short drive on the island of Maui). And, we think got all the states except for possibly Missouri.

So, we are including the Show Me State here just to be 100-percent certain. Since we are sort of based in North Carolina, this may seem like high treason as the University of North Carolina Tarheels will face the Missouri Tigers for the Independence Bowl in Shreveport, La.

This is actually an early bowl as it will be played on Monday, Dec. 26, at 5:00 p.m./Chapel Hill, NC, time.

For this entry, we chose two Mexican restaurants as our points of destination. La Siesta on North 9th Street in Columbia, Missori, the city where the Tigers are based, is the Mexican restaurant for Mizzou. And, for Shreveport, we have chosen Superior Grill, which also has three other restaurants in Louisiana and one in Alabama. In Sheveport, the restaurant can be found on Lime Avenue.

If you are in Chapel Hill, NC, we saw that our friends at the Turkish restaurant Tallula's on Franklin Street about 15 hours and 30 minutes from the Superior Grill in Shreveport, La.

But, we are looking for the distance between Columbia and Shreveport; and the answer is:

A) 9 hours, 45 minutes

B) 10 hours

C) 10 hours, 15 minutes

D) 10 hours, 30 minutes

E) 10 hours, 45 minutes

SIDEBAR ONE: Lots of books with very long titles are out these days, including this one we saw mentioned in "Rolling Stone" and later at a book retailer in Washington, DC: "Free Ride: How Digital Media Parasites Are Destroying the Cultural Business, and How the Culture Business Can Fight Back" by Robert Levine, who is also a contributing editor to "Rolling Stone."

SIDEBAR TWO: We love headlines from the satirical news publication "The Onion," and this header from today's edition was as always quite funny and very dark: "(Detroit) Tigers Sign Jim Leyland Through His Death in 2012."

It should be pointed out that the legendary baseball manager Jim Leyland is alive and well; in fact, he turned 67 on Dec. 15th.

Bonus Road Trip-NOLA to Branson

Last year, at some juncture on one of our two blogs, we said that essentially the differences between political liberals and right-wingers here in the USA was a rather simple one. Liberal Democrats are more likely to listen to Gogol Bordello, a Russian-emigre punk band (well, at least those who are younger than 45), and conservative Republicans were more likely to find humor in the dated Cold War humor of Russian-emigre comedian Yakov Smirnoff.

As many folks may already know (well, we mentioned this before), Smirnoff regularly performs shows in Branson, Missouri, which has become a mecca for country music fans, perhaps even ones from as far away as Kiev, Ukraine.

As it turns out, Smirnoff will actually be performing on the road as well in Tulsa, Oklahoma, on Oct. 15th.

On that same night, the historic Preservation Hall Jazz Band will be performing at Aurora University in Aurora, Illinois. But, normally the band plays in their hometown of New Orleans, La., otherwise known as NOLA.

We also checked to see where Gogol Bordello was performing on that night, but their next concert date is not until Nov. 3rd when they will hit the proverbial stage in Burlington, Vt.

Alas, Branson, Missouri, is also where the late country-singing legend Conway Twitty gave his very last performance. But, a tribute band called Twitty Fever Band will be performing at the Oley Fire Company Apple Festival in Oley, Pa., on Oct. 8 from 3:00 p.m. to 6:00 p.m.

So, we are looking at the distances between New Orleans, which is a haven for jazz fans, and Branson, Missouri, and the answer is:

A) 9 hours even

B) 10 hours even

C) 11 hours even

D) 12 hours even

We've got a Neil Diamond's Greatest Hits eight-track tape for the winner (that's a joke, folks!).

Bonus Road Trip (2 of 10)- From Conway, Ark, to Twitty, Tex.

Today, we are looking at the distances between the two cities that were the basis for the stage name of country-music legend Conway Twitty (1933-1993), who alas died during or shortly a performance in Branson, Missouri.

Twitty's real name was Harold Lloyd Jenkins, and his biggest was perhaps "Hello Darlin," which was number one for four weeks on the country charts in 1970, the year I was born. Recently, I found a vinyl copy of "Conway Twitty Greatest Hits, Volume One" at All Day Records in Carrboro (Chapel Hill Hill), NC.

Conway, Ark., is a college town that is home to Central Arkansas University and where the great Southern literary magazine "Oxford American" is based. It is also where one can find Mike's Place on Front Street, which offers (according to its web sites) lots of good steaks.

While there were plenty of places to choose from for Conway, Ark., the same could not be said for Twitty, Tex., as it has a population of 60 people! But, it does have its own zip code which is 79079.

So, we were able to figure out how far apart these two towns that made Conway Twitty's name are.

Is the answer:

A) 6 hours, 30 minutes

B) 6 hours, 50 minutes

C) 7 hours, 10 minutes

D) 7 hours, 30 minutes

Quotes of the Week- Langston Hughes

We are always looking for new people to quote from all the time. But, ultimately, there are always some people we come back to time and time again which means risking the possibility that we have posted the same quote at some juncture before (this particular blog has been around for almost four years now).

One of those people is the great poet Langston Hughes (1902-1967). Today, we found out that he was born just two weeks after another one of my favorite poets Nazim Hikmet (1902-1963) of Turkey who lived much of his later life in exile for political reasons. Hughes was born in Joplin, Missouri, and he died in New York. February 1st is his birthday.

We learned this week that he originally went to Columbia University to study engineering, but outraged his family by pursuing writing poetry instead.

Hughes was a political figure himself as he often wrote about the many injustices that African-Americans dealt with during his lifetime. His work also inspired other literary figures, and he deservedly had his image on a postage stamp several years ago.

Here is our quote from this poetic genius:

"Hold fast to your dreams, for without them life is a broken winged bird that cannot fly."