Joann Foley

Friends want to go to Six Flags for the day next Saturday. I’ve never been. Six Flags sounds like fun, but I’ve never been on many thrill rides.And it is very expensive for just one half day of “fun.”

There used to be a little carnival that would come around to the mall parking lots. And the state fair always has some. But I feel stupid admitting that the biggest ride I’ve been on was the big ferris wheel at the state fair a few years ago. So this should be an adventure if I go.

This weekend we had a Crawfish Boil downtown that featured several different bands that played one after another for the entire day and well into the night. The festival is usually held downtown on the riverfront. But all this rain has caused the Cumberland River to overflow and Riverfront Park is mostly underwater. So they moved it to the parking lot south of LP Field, where the Tennessee Titans play football.

I have to admit that most of the bands were too obscure and too strangely alternative rock for my taste. But it was good to have some different music offered besides country, and the crawfish was a nice treat for this seafood starved city.

For a couple of years I was reading the weekly free newspaper because they ran a somewhat regular column by a local home inspector named Walter Jowers. I really like his writing style and his storytelling skill, and he makes good points about home construction, maintenance and repairs. But then he disappeared from that paper.

Well, by chance I was looking at a different alternative paper and found that his weekly column has found a new home. He will be writing for the City Paper every Thursday, which is extra cool because I can read that online and don’t have to go pick up the actual printed newspaper to read Walter’s columns.

This made me laugh because my dad and stepmom had a big papasan chair exactly like this one. Even the orange cushion was the same. We used to love that chair. Once you get in it, the chair and cushion is so comfortable you don’t want to get up out of it.

Tonight I want to go to the movies. I just found a theater that has dropped their ticket prices to just $1.50 – yes, that just a buck fifty! They have a movie I really want to watch, starring Clint Eastwood. The movie is called Gran Torino. My dad used to have a 1971 orange Gran Torino and he looked a lot like Clint Eastwood, except taller and my Dad’s hair was much darker. So I want to see this movie.