WWE's Tiffany Stratton Is A Superstar, Florida Fan Goes Off The Rails During UK Game & Clay vs. Bama Fan War Of Words Heats Up
Couldn't have picked a better weather day for a trip to East Palestine, Ohio
First of all, let me say that I'll post my full field report around noon ET today. Second, the people of East Palestine deserve a special shoutout for standing in the rain for hours Wednesday with the hopes of catching a glimpse of Donald Trump as he pulled into a lot next to the railroad tracks where he thanked first responders for how they handled the February 3 train derailment.
When I say it was a cold day in the rain, it's not an understatement. It sucked, but there were the locals -- and some regional locals -- standing outside a Pizza Hut carryout waiting for a motorcade to come to this town that had never seen such a thing.
One thing I write about in the field report that I want to make clear this morning is that the locals I spoke to don't want your charity. They aren't looking for you to donate to GoFundMe. Guys like Jeff Julian, a First Energy retiree who reminds me of so many Screencaps readers, just wants Norfolk Southern to repair his fractured drywall that cracked after an explosion.
Jeff told me he has the best water in town. It's city water going through a reverse osmosis system and he's proud of that water. Jeff also wanted to make it clear he's just ready to get back to living life, but adding that Norfolk Southern better make things right.
I'll have several bulletpoints on the trip and quick-hitter observations from what I saw. Also, I sat at the local bar for over an hour talking to the locals. It felt like a real-life Screencaps conversation. Just Americans sharing their concerns and stories about life.
On my end, there was plenty of listening. The people of East Palestine had plenty to get off their chests.
My only gripe about the impromptu EP bar roundtable was that the keno machine was down. I was starting to get comfortable hanging out with the locals at the Roadhouse, the only bar and grill in the town -- where they serve Busch Light cans and Wednesday is .85 Wing Night.
Ashley and Brian have a message to share:
You want to see 'Do Hard Things' in the wild, well this just might be the visual definition of what Indy Daryl's talking about
• Once again, Mike T. in Idaho, but from Europe this winter, had his head on a swivel and caught this one today in Naples, Italy.
And look at this. Mike T. has been telling me for weeks about how he was going to crush pizza in Naples. It looks like he's a man of his word.
How do you prevent your kids from becoming soft?
• Millennial Jeff in Anoka, MN is fired up today:
I'm sitting at work with a less than full clinic of patients due to "snow-magedon" in quotes because it is nothing like the media and government officials hyped it up to be. Roads were fine. I'm not surprised because the plow drivers do a great job here in Minnesota. They always have. I'm 36, so not that old, but kind of old. I'm a millenial. I remember getting 2 feet of snow one morning when I was a 17 and my Dad was deployed. I shoveled the drive way. We made it to school and work on time. We were not even 2 hours late to school. Today and tomorrow school was cancelled preemptively across the whole Twin Cities metro area.
In short, the world is getting increasingly soft.
That brings a great opportunity for discussion, how do you prevent your kids from becoming soft?
I have 3 sons, ages almost 7, 3.75, and 21 months old. As a father to three sons, would be a concern if I had daughters as well, I have a fear of my boys growing up to become soft. I'm a PA. My wife is also a PA. All 4 grandparents are/were hard workers. My wonderful father-in-law passed away unexpectedly on today's date 3 years ago. He was a great man. We had a great relationship. He was an extremely hard worker. He and I even had opposing political views and we got along like best friends. Just a quick shout out to him!
Two of my strategies: Back to my topic, being tough is culturally important in my family. It is an ethos we value (as I alluded to above). My oldest son plays hockey (hockey is another strategy). We have 7 am practices on the weekend. I love it! We went to Monster Jam all day Sunday, had a great time. Met our favorite drivers. Made it back in time for Sunday night hockey, and my oldest skated hard for one hour despite being hungry, tired, and dehydrated. I was and am proud.
What are other strategies that parents are employing to prevent softness? I'd love to hear logical and creative solutions.
I'd also like to push back on lib lib Jedd in Ohio. If that is even his real name. I don't know any Jedds, but I suspect not many guys named Jedd are liberal. I digress. Screencaps is political. Get used to it or move on. We on the Right come to outkick as reprieve from ESPN, CNN, Fox News, MSNBC, basically all the usual left of center websites and news sources. I cannot think of anything more pretentious than defining his form of liberalism as "bleeding heart."
Which means, he votes the same as celebrities, elitists, and socialist. Good thing you are an imbecile that fell pray to false altruism. You support policies that hurt your fellow man much worse than helps him. We don't slam on being woke for clicks. We slam on it because there is literally nothing beneficial about wokeism for society. I challenge Judd to explain just one benefit of being woke. Let's keep being ourselves, which is occasionally political. If the lib libs cannot take it. They can click on almost any other site that is already far left of center.
Have a great day. Stay tough. Thanks to everyone ffor the great community.
Kinsey:
Boy, now here's a topic that should result in a massive pile of emails. I'm actually very excited to hear a wide variety of perspectives on this subject.
Let me throw out some ideas off the top of my head:
We have some impressive readers who've spent their lives coaching kids, teaching kids, taking kids into wars. Hopefully we hear from them. And I have a feeling they're going to be pro-hydration.
One of the Screencaps originals is back
• Guy G. has been busting his ass and finally has a chance to chill out for a minute:
Good morning Joe. It’s been a long time since I’ve even been able to read. 6 straight weeks on the road, as trade show season is in full swing. I get to be home until ConAg in March, and it’s as busy as ever. With a late jump on tapping our maples, we should get our first batch of syrup for the year.
I’m curious if Tom H. is using gas to boil out? As a wood burner, I always wonder how many others do it like we do. While everyone around us is using vacuum lines and gas to boil, we are old, old school. We tap around 500 trees with old tin buckets, haul it around with our old snow cat, and boil in Amish made evaporator tables.
I’m pretty sure we drink more beer than we make syrup, but, in very odd times, we’ll keep making it as potential trade bait. When sugar becomes too expensive to purchase, we’ll just make our own.
Looking forward to getting ScreenCaps back in my daily routine.
Speaking of Screencaps originals, here's a TNML original checking in
• Sean C. in Granger, IN writes:
I’ve been enjoying Screencaps all winter, and have to say, it’s been a great winter. I’m glad to see you “retire” certain individuals after a good, long run (see: Gracie Hunt). Sometimes overexposure isn’t good. And it seems like there’s always a new superstar on the horizon. Bright Emily has become a new favorite. And alena_alena featured yesterday has kind of an Oliva Culpó thing going on. There’s certainly room for old and new, but I appreciate the variety.
A couple of semi-long running topics over the last couple weeks. Pizza Hut. That used to be the “special night” out as kids. It’s a place where my parents could take 3 boys and still enjoy pizza and a beer. It was the first place I got to play the countertop version of Ms Pac-Man and Galaga. There isn’t one Pizza Hut with a dining room in our area left. It’s all take out. However, in my travels to Canada, you can still find plenty of lunch buffets. Of course, it’s still the early 2000’s in some parts of Canada. Outside of the greater Vancouver area, I think they’re still on 1G internet.
Train derailments. South Bend, where I’m from, has been getting a lot of attention lately due to a certain cabinet member having called this home and stood as the Mayor for 8 years. He recently mentioned all the “disasters” he dealt with during his tenure. The only real disaster was the 8 years he spent as mayor. Now, I’m not saying he’s the cause of any of these train mishaps, but his response (or lack thereof), is indicative of his time here.
The crime rate in South Bend (both violent and non-violent) saw constant increases during his time as the “leader” of the city. There are too many references to site, but trust me, google “South Bend crime rate” and you’ll see it ranks more with the likes of Oakland, CA, Tenton, NJ and Gary, IN than other small, college towns of a similar size. His time as mayor saw the continued decrease in public school enrollment in the city, with his hand-picked successor continuing the trend with 1-3 more secondary ed schools on the chopping block in the next couple years. He was mayor of a town of around 100k people and he’s losing the young people.
You lose the schools, you lose the city. It’s been a while since I’ve seen someone fail UP as much as him. It’s no surprise you’re heading to East Palestine before him. If there was a pride parade there, I’m sure he’d find a way to be there….probably with a big fur boa.
Finally, my input on the opening night of the TNML. I think our situation is similar. Our March is pretty erratic, even though this has been one of the most mild winters I can remember. But before the grass starts growing and the buds appear on the trees, we need some sun, which has been very elusive this winter. I don’t see us getting too many sunny days in the 60’s until early April.
Which means, I’m thinking the first Thursday of April could be a good date to look at. That’s usually the first week of baseball, and I feel the TNML runs pretty parallel to the MLB season. Any mow before that might just be to bag some leftover leaves or dead grass. Just my thoughts.
I did get a TON of winter dog crap picked up over the last couple weekends, so I’m getting ready. I guess just like the ball players, I’ve reported to spring training!
And that's it. I have at least 4-5 things on my blogging agenda. It's time to get after it as the world goes through the final Thursday of February and we dry out here in NW Ohio. BTW, SE Michigan was hammered with ice yesterday. You're damn right we missed out on that.
Go give 110%. Get after it and let's get to the weekend.
Email: joekinsey@gmail.com