Welcome to the 'hood

I suppose one could devote a whole picture book to the subject of signs that give slightly altered messages when they're missing words or letters.

• A friend got me a USB turntable for my birthday, one of those that you can convert your vinyl LPs to MP3/CDs.  The first records I've converted are Michael [Martin]¹ Murphey's Lone Wolf and Peaks, Valleys, Honky-Tonks & Alleys, from 1978 & 1979, neither of which had been reissued digitally.  PVHTA features a live, sing-along version of Geronimo's Cadillac, in which Murphey admonishes the audience : "...come on and sing now, y'all sound like a bunch of Methodists!"
• True.
• McCartney's performances on SNL last night were very good.  Maybe not great, but still very good.
• Attended the office Christmas party Friday night.  A good time was had.  Especially the Chinese gift exchange.  I always feel better if the gift I give gets 'stolen', and it did.  The one I received did not, which was OK, too.  Many of the guest brought their kids, but I didn't have mine this weekend.  :-(
• Louis Charles "B. W." Stevenson attended the same high school in Oak Cliff as Michael Murphey, though I can't tell that they ever recorded together.
• On RPM's blog today, he recounts a youthful episode of train-hopping as a prelude/tie-in to a news story about a hapless stowaway who tried to catch a ride from Charlotte to Boston in the wheel well of a 737. 
• Bad decision.
• The story did remind me, however, of a line from Canadian Gordon Lightfoot's Early Mornin' Rain.  I became familiar with versions of the song by Peter, Paul & Mary and The Kingston Trio before Lightfoot's version.  The PP&M YouTube has better [B&W] video and audio, but I liked the KT version better, from a 1967 Andy Williams special.  Lead vocalist here is John Stewart, who later penned Daydream Believer for the Monkees (also covered by Anne Murray), and had a minor hit, Gold, in the '70s, assisted by Stevie Nicks & Lindsey Buckingham, who claimed to have learned to play guitar from listening to KT records.
• I have sometimes thought it would be fun to ride a freight, but it probably wouldn't be a bright idea [for me].

¹ Murphey later began using his middle name in 1981 when the movie Hard Country which he co-wrote came out, to distinguish himself from another actor with a similar name.