(photo by Leon Hammack)

It is August 3, 2009, I am laying over at the Kauai Marriott on Kalapaki Beach, the NASCAR race was postoned til Monday morning at 6am Hawaii time.  So I set my alarm to wake up early this morning to watch the race live!!!  As I turn off my alarm, wipe “the sleep from my eyes”, go to the bathroom, and do all the morning stuff that has become “my morning ritual”  I turn on the TV and find the channel associated with ESPN on the hotel cable.  To my surprise, that channel is BLANK!  B_L_A_N_K!!! I have ESPN2, ESPN Classic, all the other channels are working fine…….BUT NO ESPN!!    How can this be?

So I call the front desk to report the malfunction. After 45 minutes they tell me that it is problem with their cable provider.  Well fire the cable company, don’t you know!!!  We can send a man to the moon, rescue our failing economy, lead the world in all of  technology, but the cable company can’t fix the satellite feed for ESPN to their cable customers!!!  Flatly, I can’t have ESPN on my TV!!!   Again how can this be???  Here I am sitting a  four star Marriott resort and I can’t even watch a NASCAR race from Pocono!!  Needless to say, this ol REDNECK was and is still LIVID!!

So I have come up with an excellent idea!  The picture of the Kauai Marriott weather station at the beginning of this article needs to updated.   Is is located between the pool and the beach on a very cool walkway that everybody uses. I am going to alter the sign  so that it is absolutely correct.  I will add another line to the bottom of the weather station that will read…….

IF THE COCONUT IS BURNING, A REDNECK DIDN’T GET TO SEE THE NASCAR RACE FROM POCONO!!

ALOHA!!