Don Negus

Dang it. It's dinner time on a Tuesday night, I'm hungry and I'm a day late starting my column. When I am hungry, I tend to have the attention span of a raccoon. I should be writing or at least thinking about writing while my marinara de la Negus percolates. Instead, I'm staring blankly at the pair of goldfinches on the feeder outside my kitchen window.

Scotland. Alba. Caledonia. Kinrick o' Scotland. Land of the Scoti, as the Romans knew it, and a place many members of the Negus clan call home.

Before I launch into this week's righteous screed, I want to give a big shout out to a couple of my readers who sent me a great card last week. I don't do snail mail and I don't know their email address so this is the best way to say: Thanks.

Don't even pretend I don't hear some of you out there: “Negus must've finally run out of stories by now about his so-called interesting life. ‘Life of High Adventure,' Haw-haw, right! Snort!”

If you hadn't picked up on it by now, it's a lot of work coming up with 700 words that at least make a modicum of sense, on a weekly basis. I decided to write about the Beatles today after overhearing that tired old chestnut a short while back: “Who is greater, the Beatles or the Rolling Stones?” So, with no further ado, (and really, haven't we had enough already?)

One of the more exciting escapades on my Harley Fatboy, took place shortly before I joined Deb and Michael, back in Michigan, 30 years ago.

I have only a limited amount of experience with bears. I was fishing the Pigeon River in northern Michigan one day back in 1979, when a medium-sized black bear came stampeding across the river just upstream from me and crashed into the cedar swamp. The first thing that entered my head, once I recovered the ability to form thoughts, was, “Smokey is a lot scarier in person,” and my second thought was “Well, now there's no point in fishing THAT hole.”

In past columns, I've regaled you with the stirring details of derring-do which nearly resulted in my demise. Week before last, I chronicled Debbie's front page above-the-fold in the Bay City Times adventure on July 4, 1980, wherein she saved a family of four, plus our daughter and herself, from either burning up on a flaming antique wooden Chris-Craft or drowning in the waters of Saginaw Bay but I don't think you've heard this next one.

So people, if you have been following along, you'll recall last week's screed, wherein your humble narrator, while emigrating from Michigan to the Golden State, took a side trip through Idaho.

My name is Don Negus and I am a Vinyl-holic. An Audiophile. An Audio-Philanthropist. A Vinyl Archivist. A Crate digger . . .