Tagged: nascar

On NASCAR Drivers Getting Suspended for Social Meeja Activities

A NASCAR driver was suspended the other day for “liking” a post which changed the word “sea” to “knee” in the Little Mermaid song “Under the Sea” and overlayed these lyrics to the infamous picture of the one and only, and murdered, Mr. George Floyd.

Here’s the apology as recorded by the young man.

“I am disappointed in myself for my lack of attention and actions on social media,” Gragson posted Saturday. “I understand the severity of this situation. I love and appreciate everyone. I try to treat everyone equally no matter who they are. I messed up plain and simple.”

I enjoy a challenge. So I’m challenging myself to apologize/react better. Not just to coach him as he was clearly coached here, (despite the tone sounding kinda genuine), but to actually step into his shoes and tell the truth. (I say his reaction was clearly coached as it contains the self-flagellation bit: “disappointed in myself”, the particular sin: socially unacceptably unaware of “severity”, and irrefutable defense of general character: “I love everyone”, and restatement of remorse: “messed up”. In short, authentic talking doesn’t sound like that. Nor does that “apology” actually mean anything. So I want to see if I can walk in his shoes and react to his suspension in a way that both gets his job back and is bounded by the truth.)

Here goes.

****

“I am not going to change the way I live because of this suspension. You want me to explain? Here it is.

“If you took a moment to look at my life, you’d have to conclude I am living my dream. There are hard days, sure. But mostly, I just go by instinct and it has proven successful. To be clear, you all would be gravely mistaken if you took me for a thinker. Hell, I barely ever read. I just ‘do’. And this happens to make me good at racing cars.

“In any case, I don’t want to be a thinker. So I’m not going to change. Someone will pay me to race.

“Oh, and, if you think my having thoughtlessly ‘liked’ a post on Insta reveals some sort of character flaw, that it is evidence of some deep, dark, shameful belief system that is bad for me and is yet another black cloud for NASCAR on the topic of Dee-Eee-Ayye, then you should know that, again, I think you are the one in error.

“That’s the end of my thoughts on the suspension. All this thinking is starting to make my head hurt.”

****

Whaddya tink? Scale of 1-10, ten being tops, how’s my effort hit ya?

The Miniature Van

People don’t remember that twenty years ago the first minivans had two bench seats.  And just one sliding door.  And no TV screens.  Worse yet, the speed limits were slower.  Road trips, coast-to-coast family vacations took longer.  It was quite miserable having to spend time with your family.

Only then came bucket seats.  And CD players.  And space.  And younger brothers.  Soon, everyone sat in their own seat.

But there were occasionally short moments, usually right after a sack lunch at a rest area, when the trip would become bearable.  And in those moments, the family played car games that involved talking to each other.  Single words became phrases and phrases became conversations.  Conversations, of course, became love.  And love blossomed into memories.

A simple, yet fun, way to prolong the sugar high was a game where players had to name cities which began with the last letter of the previous city.  Bismark, led to Kansas City, which led to Yorkshire, to Edmonton and so on and so forth.

Anyone who has played this game can remember that after a few rounds, everyone seemed always to get stuck on cities that ended in “y”.  Not the youngest brother.  Receiving New York City, he quickly returned Yukon.  Oklahoma City became Yonkers, and Sioux City led to Yorba Linda.  Wait, what?  Yorba Linda?  How did Sam know Yorba Linda?

As one, father, mother, sister, and brother all turned back to see how he was doing it.

Looking up towards the silence, young Sam feigned ignorance to the rules of the game as he closed the giant road atlas and its alphabetical index.

That reminds me.  The first minivans didn’t have GPS either.