Back where I come from, where I'll be when it's said and done.

  We got together today to celebrate my cousin's youngest going off to Duke. He's going to play football and track. My family has regular get-togethers. There are 56 of us and, as often as not, most of us make. My brother and his wife, of course, rarely come and the same with another cousin and his wife who lives in California. This is the first time we've gotten together since COVID came to town. It's nice to see them all together and I got to meet the brand-new member of the clan.

  Anyhow. I am sick to death about reading conservative states passing bills banning Critical Race Theory or The 1619 Project, especially since it's obvious they don't know what it is. The guy who pushed the bill in Alabama couldn't explain it and sounded dumber than even someone from Alabama should when pressed. The Mississippi bill failed but it said the country was founded in 1775, which is stupid wrong on so many levels. Y'all, the Declaration of Independence is not a founding document, anyway. Jesus.

 I remember when they got all screwy over Common Core and I'm pretty sure they didn't quite grok that one either. Or Shaira law ten or fifteen years ago, same thing. You go back and read about the Civil Rights area, the same people were claiming that integration was just an attempt to "destroy America." America seems awfully fragile if this is all it takes.

 I'm looking into ways to clean and maintain harmonicas. A full-on kit runs anywhere from $120-$350 when it seems all one would need is a light brush and a sufficiently small screwdriver. I got a dozen or so cloths that come with the harps, so that's taken care of. A lot of folks recommend those repair kits for glasses as they have sufficiently tiny screwdrivers. Daddy had a set of those somewhere but one can pick up a set at Wal-Mart for less than $10.

 I don't know what else. I'm still not free of the whatever-it-is that's been sitting on my head since at least April. I've become obsessed with harmonica music, be it blues, country, jazz, pop, or what have you. With rare exception, it's all I want to listen to. This happens from time to time. Sometimes it's rock & roll or R&B or soul music, and sometimes it's specific eras in one genre, like late '60s/early '70s country music.

 Right now it's harp music. I came across a guy I'd previously never heard of, Kid Thomas. He was sort of like if Little Richard played harmonica rather than piano, that same sort of wild, unhinged passion both vocally and his instrument of choice. If you like that sort of thing, you'll probably like this sort of thing.

 Interesting story, too. Things dried up so he did landscaping between gigs. He accidentally hit a kid with his work truck. From all accounts, it was just one of those things. He was brought up on manslaughter charges but was acquitted. A few months later he was in the courthouse answering a driving without a license charge. Upon leaving the courthouse, he was shot and killed by the kid's dad who'd been hiding in the bushes.