Saturday, September 03, 2016

Welcome to Jukebox Oldies

I keep trying new things with this blog, which was originally Room 210 Discussion and was set up at the urging of some of my former students who wanted to continue discussions about the kinds of topics they had written papers on when they were in my class.

For a time, it was used as part of a class called Encore at East Middle School, and had articles and practice essay tests over those articles to help students prepare for the annual MAP tests.

The last time it was used for any classroom purpose was 2010. After that, I used the blog, plus other blogs I had started and seldom updated, to promote my books and signings.

Unfortunately, I failed to remove the message at the top of the page that said the site was for East Middle School students. As far as I know, none of them even knew it existed by 2013 when my promotion of my book No Child Left Alive gave Joplin R-8 Superintendent C. J. Huff the pretext to fire me saying I was promoting and assigning obscene material to my students.

Since then I briefly tried turning the blog into Inside Viral News and Inside Politics, but I wasn't really much into viral news and most of my writing on politics stayed on the Turner Report.

At the same time, I wanted to keep this blog alive because of the connection it has to my personal history.

So I am ready to try something new. As some of you are aware, from the beginning of 2002 through December 2012, I was a member of the band Natural Disaster, which played oldies, primarily those from the late 1950s through the 1970s.

I have always loved the music from that era, rock and country, and in the new blog I plan to write about that music, telling personal stories, plus sharing videos, trivia and occasionally, news about the musicians and songs of that era.

I hope you enjoy it.,