Give me mashy taters, or give me death (or something like that)...

The Liberty Bell.  Walking Liberty half-dollars.  "The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance".  Liberty Sound.  Ah, yes, Liberty Sound!  I spent a good amount of time in there back in junior high and high school!  In the mid- to late-eighties, Ma was going to SMSU (it will always be "SMSU" to me, and not simply "MSU" - they'll have to pry that extra "S" outta my cold, dead hands!) to get her Masters in Guidance and Counseling.  She would drive up to Springfield (a little over an hour's drive) a couple of times a week in the evenings, after having worked a full day already!

Occasionally I got to go up there with her, and when I did, the first place I made a beeline for was Liberty Sound, a hip little record store across the street from campus.  I would spend hours in there, poring over the rows and rows of cassettes, just about memorizing every single album cover.  I lived for that place, because the only other place I could get music was either Wal-Mart, the Columbia House or BMG mail-order music clubs (12 cassettes for a penny? Hell, yeah!), or the once-in-a-blue-moon trip to a mall somewhere.  None of these places, however, were anywhere near as hip as Liberty.  I wouldn't find another place that was better until I moved up here and discovered Vintage Vinyl!

I remember one time in particular in which I spent my usual couple of hours in the store, and I found two tapes to buy: Van Halen's "OU812", and "Meat Bob" by comedian Bobcat Goldthwait, one of my favorite comedians to this day. 

I had my handy-dandy Sony Walkman with me, and I'd already heard most of the Van Halen stuff on the radio, or via someone else's copy, so I popped in Bobcat's cassette and started walking across the campus to the Bear's Den (the student union) to grab a soda and wait for Ma.  Just a helpful hint:  if you're still in high school, walking around a college campus, listening to a really funny album is not the best way to try to look cool.  I was just walking along, laughing like a hyena - everyone's just looking at me like I was a total weirdo.  Great. 

Anyway, I thought about all of this today because it is, as you probably know, Veteran's Day.  I used to never really think about Veteran's Day - at least not that much.  Kind of took it for granted.  In recent years, however, I've learned more about some of the things that my Grandpa and Uncle Mike had to endure in World War II and Vietnam, respectively.  Not to mention the many friends that I have now, from high school, college, and work, who have served in Iraq and Afghanistan.  My hat really does go off to all of the men and women who fight and have fought in the past for our freedom, our liberty.  Kudos!  I dedicate today's red, white and blue stroke to you!