A Brief Bio A Few of My Interests About This Site
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

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 Russell (age 16, seated center) and his cousins on motorcycles at Papa Bond's

July 1970

Russell 16 (seated center) and his cousins on motorcycles at Papa Bond's (July 1970)_web crop.jpg

Welcome

I have for many years wished to put a few things in writing, sharing some of my thoughts, experiences, and some of the pursuits and interests I enjoy most, and doing it in a way that would engage others with similar tastes. Of course, a blog will do all that–it’s not a new concept–but my earlier hesitations to starting such a project have been manifold: I don’t have time for it, maybe when I retire. There are thousands of blogs out there–probably millions; do I have anything to say, and who would want to read it? Well, I am now retired (twice retired, in fact) and I have the time. Yes, there are beaucoup blogs in the blogosphere, some are really great, well-written and creative, many are quite dreadful, a few are wonderfully mediocre but providing a needed release for their creators and maintaining a small but loyal following. My blog probably won’t generate a nickel’s worth of attention, but if it falls into that latter category, I’ll be okay with that—I can handle mediocrity. Truth is, I’m doing this for myself. Plus, this coronavirus-quarantine-thing of late has cast a whole new layer of impetus on my nagging notion that I should do this now.

But where to start such a project? With only a few poorly thought-out ideas for content and a format, I read through a small text file I keep on my PC’s desktop simply called “I Love…” It’s a file I created a few years ago, and have sporadically updated since, where I write on each line a short statement about an item that interests me. There are well over a hundred little snippets in this file that to some degree help to encapsulate who I am and what I’ve been thinking. Many entries relate to music, many to wordplay, others to my favorite books, movies, podcasts, and pastimes. More than a few entries hit more than one of these buttons simultaneously (for example, “I love the wordcraft in the lyric phrase ‘hurry-home drops on her cheek’ in Chuck Berry’s song Memphis”). Some are silly and some are too personal to share here. With this file as a jumping off point, along with a few old family photos and some of the reminiscences of my youth, I hope to find enough fodder to sustain, for a while, at least, an outlet for my urge to create something. And if someone else might find it interesting, well, all the better.

Russell Lott
March, 2020

Featured Post:

Featured
Solitary Man
Solitary Man

It doesn’t take much to bring to mind a sharply-focused memory from the long-ago past… It was hearing Neil Diamond’s “Solitary Man” in my iTunes shuffle that triggered something within the deep recesses of my subconscious that caused a poignant memory to percolate to the surface of my thoughts. It was the image of my 13-year-old self lying in the rear-facing, third seat of our family’s Chevy station wagon as Daddy and my brother Keith and I were traveling home late one school night from a basketball game on the coast.

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Most recent posts from the Blog:

Featured
School Bus
School Bus

My wife, Gena, and I had lunch a couple of days ago with our friends, Dick and Mo. When we get together, our lunch conversations always cover a wide range of topics, and this day was no different. I’m not sure now how it came up, but someone mentioned an incident in the news involving a school bus. Mo commented that it must be awfully hard for school districts these days to get competent drivers. She said that she couldn’t imagine who would want to take on such a responsibility. At which I responded, “Well, back when I was in school, we had high school boys driving our buses." Mo was aghast at the thought and had never heard of such. However, she had grown up in town—over in Dothan, Alabama—and had never had the privilege of riding a rural school bus. I then recounted a few of the memories I had of riding the bus to Home School in Big Level back in the late ’50s and early ’60s. That was when the idea for this article was hatched. Thank you, Mo. I didn’t mention it at lunch that day, but one of my most vivid memories is of our “singing” bus driver.

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Mystery Mix 2023 Solution
Mystery Mix 2023 Solution

Mystery Mix #4 is now in the book. As such, I can now reveal the solution and announce the winner. But before I do, I have to report that I’m a little disappointed that I only received a handful of submissions and only one correct response. While several people told me they liked the playlist and were thinking about the possible commonalities, most of those comments where from readers who chose not to submit a guess. Oh, well, c'est la vie. But I thank all of you, regardless. Now for the solution. With apologies to NPR, I’ve called this year’s mystery mix “Small Things Considered,” as the playlist is comprised of songs whose titles and artists’ names contain a synonym for the word “small.”

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