Happy Saturday from Imperial Polk County!

A few random blubs as I start a week's well deserved vacation time...

It's hard to believe that we still have this type of discrimination in 2004, but the state is suing a motel in Perry after complaints that the owner put African-American customers in inferior rooms and told black customers they could not use the pool, and immediately put chemicals into it after black guests used it. The owner is not your cookie cutter white redneck racist...he's originally from India.

I was born and raised in Mississippi during the Civil Rights era. To this date, at the front of the Jones County Courthouse in Ellisville, there are two concrete water fountains that have not been used in decades...one in large letters says "WHITE"; the other, in smaller letters, says "COLORED". They remain there for the historical significance, and probably as a reminder that we should learn from the errors of the past.

Getting off the soapbox, I see from Sticks of Fire that Cheap Trick played in Tampa Thursday night. Great band, but unfortunately it hasn't been the same since Rick Nielsen left. Now the bands I REALLY want to see are Chicago and Earth, Wind, & Fire, scheduled to play the new Ford Ampitheatre at the Florida State Fairgrounds in Tampa July 27. That should be one heckuva show!