The first time I sang the Star Spangled Banner as a performer at a MLB game was Game 6 of the 1987 World Series between #MNTwins and #ForTheLou . Unlike San Diego, we had a conductor from the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra and we had an accompanist on organ. We sang with gusto and in just under a minute. Mike would have been proud. youtube.com/clip/Ugkx2t6bWtR…
USA. A Mexican restaurant. We had not yet ordered anything, and the food was already arriving.
Chips. Salsa. Unrequested. Free.
I stopped the waiter. "We have not earned these."
"They just come with the table, man."
They come with the TABLE. In my land, hospitality is a debt. Every gift creates an obligation, weighed carefully, returned in the proper season with interest of feeling. Here, the gift arrives before you have even proven you can pay for dinner.
This is not an appetizer. This is a declaration: we trust you. Eat.
I ate with the gravity the moment deserved. And then — I must report this calmly — the basket emptied, and a new one appeared.
"Did we…?"
"Refill," the waiter said. "It's bottomless."
Bottomless. They have wells of salsa. The supply lines of this nation are beyond anything my ancestors imagined.
My friend warned me. "Don't fill up on chips, dude."
Too late. I had accepted three baskets. Honor demanded each one be finished — an unfinished gift is an insult. By the time my actual food arrived, I was a ruined man.
I was not hungry. I was not comfortable. I had been defeated by a courtesy.
Generosity that arrives before the request cannot be repaid. It can only be survived.
I know the rule now. I have made my peace with the basket. One basket. Two at the most.
Who am I deceiving. There is no number of baskets I would refuse. The trust of a nation is in that salsa, and I intend to honor all of it.
Every year, I share this video of French caretakers who take sand from Omaha Beach in Normandy, and scrub them into the letters to give them the gold coloring.
They do this for all 9,386 US soldiers who died.
France also gave us this land as American soil. #MemorialDayWeekend
Congrats to Senior Joe Ackerman on his selection to the Metro North team! Joe becomes the 14th player in program history to be selected for this event.
The State of Hockey moniker needs to be rescinded at this point. It’s embarrassing as a Minnesotan the stuff Wild fans whine about. Everything they say about #TexasHockey fans is projection.
Wild fans are insufferably soft. The persecution complex is rather stale at this point. And this hasn’t been remotely close to peak SGA vs. the rest of the league.
THIS IS BAD, TRUMP HAS NO CHILL 🧊
$SPY Futures gapping down on the Iran Ship seizure by America. $QQQ and the S&P 500 futures are trying to recover as a Deal continues to be pushed. There is only ONE THING that is bearish for the market.
$META is my TOP setup into Tomorrow👇