We needed tough lessons as children. An occasional playground fight was expected as the norm, and if we complained to our mother that we were being teased, we were treated to this glorious aphorism: “Sticks and stones may break my bones, but names will never hurt me.” My mom used to say that all the time, one of the seemingly endless adages she had at her disposal to deal with any of life’s problems. To this day I think long and hard about the practical application that dogma had on my life.
The idea that you could actually choose whether or not to be hurt by words: that was huge for me. Even though it has been repeated ad nauseam for generations, “sticks and stones” really is a powerful bit of philosophy to a kid. That’s one of the great things about being a parent: you can spout nothing but clichés, and yet, to your child, you come off as one of the great thinkers in Western culture.
–from MEAN DADS FOR A BETTER AMERICA, by Tom Shillue
I thought I might beat Michael to this post. Look at this video how often do you do this? I recorded all our entrances including Greg and then I went around the panel to show all the people who are on tonight- then I pressed the button to stop but I wasn’t taping (i do this a lot)
Thank you for reminding me. I wanted to talk about our post-show hangout in Memphis and here it is:
“Day 4”
Of the 2026 Cavalcade
972 miles
My beautiful bride is 1 day ahead as she is counting the day we left MBB’s house, I’m counting from the day we rode the ferry and joined US101 (the 101 for you Californians).
We left Beverly bay Campground around 11:00, as we only had 3 hours 45 minutes, and check in at the next park was 16:00.
We made multiple stops to look at the ocean. In one place we had a ‘snacky mcsnack-snack’ as my big sister calls them. Two pieces of Tillamook Cheese, and summer sausage.
We stopped for fuel in the last town before we would get Cape Blanco.
We decided to grab dinner in the small town of ‘Bandon’ OR.
We rode through this neighborhood by accident and it had amazing views. Houses right on the cliff overlooking ‘Haystacks’ or large rocks out in the ocean below cliffs.
We didn’t stop there to get any pictures as it was almost all private properties.
“Day 3”
of the 2026 Cavalcade.
809 miles traveled so far.
Note didn’t have enough bandwidth to post yesterday.
Today is day 4 .
from day 2;- I forgot to mention the Elk doe we saw on the right shoulder of the road eating grass.
Scared the crap out of me. All she had to do was turn and walk 5 feet, we’d be just a memory.
We left Nehalem late, the dew was so heavy that there were puddles.
The sun did finally come out and we used towels to dry the roof of the pop-up in order to fold it up.
Short ride day, 165 miles, although because we kept going through small beach towns, it took 4 hours of seat time.
We stopped at the Tillamook plant and took the self guided factory tour. We then bought some cheese.
We also had some ice cream, it was a creamery after all.
I had a strawberry malt, and my beautiful bride had a single scoop of chocolate coffee.
We are currently ensconced in Beverly Bay state park. Still in Oregon. @The_CINC took pity on me and rented a ‘yurt’ for the night.
So no set up/take ...
