Levi Stubbs...The Four Tops...

http://www.chicagotribune.com/entertainment/chi-ap-obit-stubbs,0,1348941.story



Levi Stubbs was a singer with the Four Tops from our era. Follow the link to read more. KR

Journey to Tampa, FL

I travelled from Daytona to Tampa on Friday afternoon to attend the National Street Rod SE Nationals which has been an annual event for me since 1998. I've included a few pictures of the cars that were there. After I arrived I turned on the local news and they were talking about the ALCS baseball game between the Tampa Bay Devil Rays and the Boston Red sox. I decided to check on the hotel computer to see if any tickets were available and I really got lucky. I ended up sitting about 20 rows up on the left side of home plate. I could easily hear the ball hit the catcher's mitt. The Devil Ray's home has a domed roof similar to the Carrier Dome at Syracuse University. Here is the wikipedia link which explains more than I ever could after watching my first game there. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tropicana_Field. Sorry I forgot to take my camera with me. I will be returning next weekend for the Syracuse / USF football game in Buccaneer Stadium with Jay Adcook. Send me some information or just let me know what you have been up to over the summer and into the fall. I will post it for you and everyone can see what others have been doing. Thanks.

Mr. Petty

A little late getting this on the blog but when I was back in Fayetteville in September, I stopped at Hullar's Coffee Shop and I ran into Mr. Petty, our earth science teacher at Wellwood. He has had the opportunity to travel abroad and has very much enjoyed his retirement years. He has his garden he tends to albeit who can forget those short growing seasons of central New York. Send me some info to post in your blog here. Thanks. KR

The trip North

Hello to all once again!!! I have returned from a trip back to Fayetteville to see our new grand-daughter who weighed in at 7 pounds 5 ounces in August and is healthy and also see some "old" friends. I also had the opportunity to see SU play in the Carrier Dome but it was another uneventful game as Syracuse continued its losing streak by losing to the Akron Zips 42-28. Next year will be a new coach and a rebuilding year as the current coach just can't get the job done after four years. I stopped at Hullar's coffee shop and I saw Mr. Petty and his wife and enjoyed talking with them for about 45 minutes. He looks well and stays in touch with some of the other teachers from our era. We were in the 'cuse until Thursday when we headed south to stop in Clemson, SC and journey to Memorial Stadium to see the Clemson/ North Carolina State game on a blazing 90 degree day. A big part of the Clemson tradition is Howard's Rock which was brought to Clemson from Death Valley, CA and it provides the stadiums nickname of "DeathValley". The players warm up and then hop on a bus to enter just outside Howard's Rock and enter and slap it for good luck and then continue running down the hill onto the field. It is called "Running the Hill ...the fastest 25 seconds in college football". It was really quite a sight to see. We left Clemson and arrived home late Saturday evening. I guess because schools are open and the gas crunch, the only vehicles on the interstates seemed to be tractor trailers except around the larger cities. Gas prices escalated in South Carolina on Friday and Saturday. One station raised its prices as we pulled in from $3.79 to $3.99 and on Saturday as we left Clemson, it was up to $4.59 per gallon. Who said it used to be $.25 per gallon. I just can't believe that!!!

Jay Adcook and I will be traveling across the state to Tampa and Buccanners Stadium to see SU take on the Univ of South Florida next month. Until next time...

Below Syracuse vs Akron in the Dome.

Clemson vs NC State at Memorial Stadium and Howard's Rock

Only 3 day until school starts...

Remember back to those days of yestayear!!! Labor Day weekend always meant the end of summer as we knew it then, the state fair and the last Tuesday of summer. I guess we always hoped summer vacation would last forever but we knew with the state fair and the Labor Day race on Monday it was just a matter of hours away. The great NY State stock car championship race with all that dirt in the air. The midway, sausage sandwiches, all the livestock and as suddenly as it appeared it was gone. Classes were about to start, football practice was underway and we were soon taking our "scenic tours" to close out practice. Anyone have any special memories of those days. Let me know and we will share them.

Day 4-5-6 TS Fay

Well it's over! Sorry I didn't get back sooner but I just had a few other things to do here that were not storm related. Thursday and Friday were wet and soggy days in Daytona. We had 4-6 inches of rain here but further inland they had probably close to 3 times that amount in the two days and very little wind damage as gusts were down to about 25-30 mph as Fay just stalled out every day and moved slightly under the cover of darkness. I went out Saturday about 7:00AM into a short duration rain and when it stopped the sun came out as it would on any other day and as I write this on Saturday afternoon, we have broken clouds and small areas of precipitation. The blue skies are a welcome sight as I have seen more neighbors today than in the past four days. Overall, Fay never did reach hurricane speed(+75 mph) but because it was so slow moving, it left more water and obviously more flooding than most hurricanes. The Melbourne area and up to the area east of Orlando had severe flooding and it will take months to recover for some. I guess that is it for the storm. Hope to hear from some of you with info to post soon. KR

Day 3-Tropical storm Fay

Wednesday started off with a fairly heavy but short duration rain after which it returned to what can best be described as a "good soaking rain". Throughout the day light rain fell with a few gusts of winds to about 30 mph, I believe. The afternoon gave way to a brighter day as the clouds dissipated some what before getting a medium gray again with the return of light rain. As darkness approached, the wind speeds picked up considerably as did the rain and we are finally expecting the tropical storm to pass by us as it moves north to St. Augustine and Jacksonville tomorrow. We should have rains throughout the night and winds a high as 60 mph but these are suppose to be just gusts. This has been a strange storm as it was stationery most of the day just north of the Cape about 50 miles south of Daytona. It followed the coastline most of the day as it moved along at 3-5 mph dumping close to 15 inches of rain in the Melbourne area. No weatherman/woman has been able to predict the path yet so we will have to wait and see what tomorrow actually brings. Right now we have steady rain falling and pretty good winds blowing.