One of my favorite things to do is to buy and sell things at auctions and on Facebook Marketplace. Although I don’t utilize Facebook for anything else, I do use Facebook Marketplace (for now). I buy a lot of things online at a local auction house as they do weekly online auctions. The auctions usually end on Sunday evenings which doesn’t always work out in my favor as I tend to have a few cocktails on Sunday and then I decide to watch the auctions begin to close and I look for things that I think I can buy and resell to make a few bucks at.
Well a couple of weeks ago, I thought I made a real nice investment on a “Mason & Hamlin” Piano. I’ve done well at the auction buying vintage Schwinn Bicycles, lightly used books, even scored a great WWII era Wilton Bullet nose Vice but when I woke up Monday morning and realized I was the proud owner of a Piano, I was less than happy with myself. Have you ever tried to move a piano? Sell a Piano? Give away a Piano? I wouldn’t recommend it and it is definitely not an item that you want to buy to “flip”. Luckily I didn’t pay too awful much for it and I decided to donate the proceeds back to the auction house so that they could resell it so someone else that really wanted or needed it so they could be the proud new owner of a used piano.
That is a completely off the wall topic but it led to me realizing that while alcohol is a great way to relax, cheer you up, etc. it is not something to take lightly when money or important decisions are involved. I recently had a physical as I approach my 50th birthday at about the same time I bought that piano and based on my doc’s advice to control my cholesterol and lose a little weight, I have adjusted my diet completely, stopped drinking (at least temporarily) with a bit of a Sober October challenge and joined a local health center so I can work out and exercise a few days a week. It is amazing how much better you feel after just a week or two of eating better, exercising and not drinking. I tried it last year about this time and I made it 32 days but slipped back into my old patterns. I realized looking back at it that I wasn’t ready last year to make any changes in my lifestyle but this year felt different and I feel better about it. We’ll see how long I can keep it up.
This has been a very interesting and stressful year for a lot of people. 2020 came in a like a lion with this Pandemic, Covid-19 of which most of us never heard of. In a very short time, it completely changed the way all of us lived. We all went through the shock of it, the unknown of it, the lock downs, the face mask mandates and yet here we are in October and it still just doesn’t seem real to a lot of us. I know many people get sick and some unfortunately die and I don’t underestimate it at all but it is still so weird to see everyone wearing masks when you go in a business or everyone staying 6′ apart with X’s on the floor designating where you are supposed to stand. It’s just still weird to most of us, for others it is life and death. Hopefully a vaccine is invented, manufactured and approved soon so that we can get back to a new normal, whatever that entails.
I’ve covered this in previous posts but 2020 has had many other caveats that I would have never dreamed. Along with the onset of the pandemic, professional sports was almost completely shut down and while we were all locked down or in quarantine, many of us just learned that there was life outside of professional sports. When the protests began happening throughout the country, it got even worse. When pro sports did finally resume with limited fans or in a bubble such as the NBA, many of the athletes decided that their uniforms, their field or their floor was a good place to showcase their support for various causes or cultural/political change. Once that happened, I learned to live without sports completely and I haven’t went back.
I am not opposed at all to sports figures or other famous people using their popularity or influence to support a cause but whether I agree with what they are promoting or not, I definitely don’t want to see it on their uniforms, on the their arena floor or any other area that is part of the sport. See people like us watch sports for entertainment, not to be fed any political or cultural message. We are surrounded enough by these things in our everyday life so why do we need to have it shoved down our throat when we are watching TV or attending a game.
I have given up everything that I had anything to do with professional sports as I refuse to give them any of my hard earned dollars. I dropped my NFL Sunday Ticket and my MLB package on DirecTV. I deleted all sports apps, I deleted all twitter feeds of sports and in my new sheltered worlds, I really don’t know they exist. I was one of the biggest Packers and Brewers fans there was until this year, now I couldn’t tell you a week later if they won or lost. Sorry NFL, NBA, MLB you lost me and it will be hard for me to come back.
All of that gets us around to what I primarily do, short track auto racing. We had to delay our season at Lucas Oil Speedway for about a month and a half as the pandemic hit but once we started up on May 9th, we haven’t looked back. We have been able to get almost every scheduled event in filling in our previously scheduled off weekends or Wednesday nights with events and haven’t lost a single one due to weather. We have had great crowds at all of our events not only in Wheatland but across the country at our other events. People had an urge to get out and to be entertained as there was no sports, no movies to go see, bars and restaurants were closed or at reduced capacity but outdoor venues like ours have done well as people could spread out and enjoy the events.
We are thankful to be located in a state with a great Governor who understands how things should be and he lets the local municipalities dictate the policy based on their individual situations rather than a state wide mandate that doesn’t fit all areas. People have done a great job to social distance where they can, wear masks where needed, sanitize constantly and stay safe. It has been refreshing to see a lot of new people at our events and I know a lot of them have returned or plan to return because it is an escape from the rigors and stresses of every day life.
As we conclude our 2020 season this weekend with our annual Monster Truck show, there is still a tremendous amount of uncertainty not only in the country but in Missouri where I live. The upcoming elections, the confirmation of a new supreme court justice, the ongoing pandemic, and protests throughout many of our cities are just a few of the things that weigh heavy on people’s minds.
Hopefully, on November 3rd things will settle down and people’s lives will matter again and not just politics. I know which way I’m voting and I can’t wait to cast my ballots at the local, state and national levels. Your vote counts and makes a difference, get out and vote.
In the meantime, I urge you not to get drunk and buy a piano, it won’t turn out well.
DR
RacerDan’s Ramblings 