Posted on 06/03/2019 4:45:03 PM PDT by SamAdams76
If you are a country music fan, you might want to consider naming your child in a way that is conducive to being a country music singer. It could very well enhance the chances of your child growing up to be a big country star in Nashville someday.
Yes, your child could have an average 5-7 year country music career with a dozen top 10 hits and 3-4 solid albums that achieve gold or platinum status with the RIAA. Not to mention sold out crowds in stadiums and arenas in which your child may actually be the headlining act!
It's all in how you name your child.
Consider some of the big names in country music history: Waylon Jennings, Emmylou Harris, Wynonna Judd; Hank Williams, Blake Shelton; Dolly Parton and Ricky Skaggs. These are all down-home country music sounding names!
You just don't get a lot of ordinary names in country music stardom. Now you might sing like Loretta Lynn but if your name is Dorothy Sinclair, you got a hard road in country music ahead of you girl. You might want to marry some guy named West and call yourself Dottie if you know what I mean. Dottie West. Now that's a name worth of singing country songs.
If you are a man named Clinton White, that's no good either. But shorten it to Clint and change your surname to Black and well, that's a pretty cool country sounding name. Your singing just got a whole lot better and all you got to do it put on a big hat, a big belt buckle and Nashville songwriters will beat a path to your door.
More great names for singing country music: Travis Tritt, George Strait; Merle Haggard; Patsy Cline; Dwight Yoakam, Tammy Wynette, Toby Keith, Juice Newton, Johnny Paycheck, Shania Twain, Kris Kristofferson, David Allan Coe, Charlie Daniels and the list goes on and on and on.
And you can't get much country cooler than Johnny Cash - The Man in Black himself.
I'm just saying that you are hard-pressed to find an ordinary regular person's name in country music. Oh there's a few. George Jones for example. But the vast majority of big-time country singers have names that put you in mind of driving a dusty pickup through a corn field on a Saturday night with a cooler of cold ones in the back.
Speaking of corn fields, the mosquitoes are going crazy out there! I thought I had bad mosquitoes in my neck of the woods until I went to the Everglades a few years back. Driving down Route 41 - the old Tamiami Trail - I decided to pull over for a spell and check out some of those alligators.
No sooner do I get out of my rental car but a cloud of those infamous Florida jet black mosquitoes instantly surround me. It's as if they spent their entire lives just sitting there in that swampland, waiting for me to come along. Those bloodsuckers are the most annoying things. One of them will be buzzing in your ear - distracting you - while six others are on your arms and legs having themselves a blood feast.
I got to thinking how did people survive living out in the open? Those mosquitoes would have surely sucked them dry overnight, leaving nothing but a dried up skin the next morning for the alligators to scavenge on.
Did some research on this and actually you would need to have between 200,000 and 2,000,000 mosquito bites in one night to kill you. Now that's a lot of mosquitoes and a lot of itching and likely a terrible way to die. But I don't believe there are any records of that actually happening. Even in the Everglades of Florida.
Turns out that the average mosquito can draw only between .01 and .001 millimeters of blood at a time. Thus it would take that many bites to draw the necessary 2 liters of blood that would kill an average human.
So pretty much nobody has ever died of "too many mosquito bites" ever. So unless those mosquitoes are carrying malaria or some other disease, apparently you can sustain tens of thousands and even up to a few hundred thousand mosquito bites overnight and still wake up the next morning for some breakfast. But it probably would not have been a pleasant night's sleep.
So I have this book called "Infinite Jest" by David Foster Wallace that I have never finished. In fact, I find it hard to get past the first hundred pages before putting it down and going to another book. But I always wanted to read "Infinite Jest" because other people tell me it is a good book to read. But I'm starting to wonder if even those people have actually read the book because when I ask them what the book is about, they just tell me to read the book. Which tells me they probably haven't read the book either.
At least three times over the past six or seven years, I have made a serious attempt to read the book. But each time, I start thinking to myself that maybe I better read it when I have more time to devote to it. Then I lose interest and put it down for something else.
Turns out that the web is full of instructions on how to read this massive 1100-page book properly as their are hundreds of detailed footnotes - some of which run on for pages. It just seems so complicated to me. But everybody says that it is worth plowing through so one of these days, I'm going to complete that journey. It just won't be this year because I already have quite the stack of books going.
Speaking of David Foster Wallace, I did read his essay about being on a cruise ship from the "Supposedly Fun Things I'll Never Do Again" book of essays. I thought it was brilliant, because I was on cruise ships myself and I was able to relate to what he was talking about there.
Now some might think this strange but do you know how some trucks have that bumper sticker that says "How's My Driving" and has a "800" number to call?
What is that all about? Am I actually expected to call that number on my cellphone and start talking to a total stranger about how the truck in front of me is driving? I can imagine how such a conversation would go:
"Hello, how may I help you today?"
(Me) "Hi, I'm just a guy driving down the interstate and I saw your bumper sticker on the tanker truck in front of me, asking me to report how his driving is and I thought I'd just give you guys a call."
"OK, thank you very much for calling sir. Can I have the vehicle number on the sticker please?"
(Me) "Sure, it's vehicle # 416OU7"
"Thank you very much, can you now tell me what interstate you are on and approximately what mile marker you are presently at."
(Me) "Well, I'm on I-84 in the Danbury area heading east and I believe I'm around mile marker 12."
"Very good, now can you please tell us some specifics on how this vehicle is currently being driven?"
(Me) "Well we are in the center lane right now going just under the speed limit of 55 but that's probably because there is a lot of traffic on the road currently. I'm pretty sure he was doing 60 or even 65 at the NY border. He seems to be pretty much staying in his lane for the time being. He did throw his blinkers on a couple miles back, like he was going to shift into the left lane to pass somebody, but he evidently changed his mind and has remained in the center lane since.
"OK, very well, that is great to hear. It appears that our driver is operating the vehicle safely and obeying all traffic laws?"
(Me) "Yes, that appears to be the case for the moment. Would you like to continue following him and stay on the line? I'm traveling up to the East Hartford area today so I can stay behind him for at least another hour and keep you updated."
"No, I don't believe it will be necessary to keep you on the line sir. However, feel free to follow our driver as long as you like and please call us back if anything changes. We appreciate your feedback today. Have a great afternoon.:
name him Sue!
Its all the trend nowadays anyway..
Well, at least he was headed east. The nasty part is when you are headed west just past Hartford, and you have the sun in your face in rush hour, and you have to constantly change lanes to avoid being forced off a left lane exit due to the way the merges and exits are over there.
Also, depending on time of day, it might be MORE than an hour depending on what is happening in Waterbury.
Tom Mabe: Hows my driving
From Hartford to Exit 3 (Goshen,NY) is an absolute NIGHTMARE.
As soon as you cross into NY, all the a$$holes head for the left lane and stay there, doing 50 mph.
It clears up right around Middletownk (Exit 4). Then the a$$holes from Pennsylvania take over from the New Yorkers in the left lane.
I think they’re transplanted New Yorkers headed home to property tax Heaven.
I’m sooooooooooo glad to be retired from that rolling circus.
Between exits five and three, there is no peace for thee!
Most stars don’t use their birth names.
” Now you might sing like Loretta Lynn “
She sings much better than Loretta Webb
*sigh*
Why don’t you just borrow a page from Tom Sowell and headline these things as “Random Thoughts on the Passing Scene” or some such.
And better than Loretta Lynch.
OK, but then I might find a use for all those books of unused S&H Green stamps.
Of course, in Tampa we have Malfunction Junction...I believe a Connecticut DOT retiree create Malfunction Junction...
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