Birthday boy on the Media Tour

I don't know what year it was, but it was the 1990s, and we were on the Winston Cup Media Tour in Charlotte. We went to Kyle Petty's shop — I think he was driving for Felix Sabates' team then — and the date was Jan. 8.

We hadn't started the program yet, so I went up front to wish Kyle happy King's birthday. No, it wasn't Richard Petty's birthday; it was Elvis Presley's.

Kyle knew about it, of course, and he and I led the front two rows of sports writers in singing a couple of Elvis's songs. It only lasted a couple of minutes, but we all came away in a good mood.

Kyle has a pretty good singing voice; so do I.

Contact: I can be reached at tgilli52@gmail.com or nc3022@yahoo.com. Also, my Twitter handle is EDITORatWORK.

More entries from TARJ

• Angel in Black: Remembering Dale Earnhardt Sr.

(a book of great stories about the Intimidator)

• Then Junior Said to Jeff...

(the book of great NASCAR stories)

• My best day as a sports writer

• Jeff Gordon's milk toast to Dale Earnhardt

• Wayne Auton: A life in racing

EDITOR@WORK blog entries 

• You really DO need an editor

• Reminders for would-be novelists

• What I charge (it's a deal) and what I edit

• What I do when I'm editing

• Slogging through the Internet

• J-school: More eyes on your stories

• J-school: Go out and learn•

Entries from The Dog Blog

• Katie cried

• Growl and pull

• 12 years with my dog Lady

• ... said the spider to ...

• The Dog Diary (2014)

• YIP! YIP! The stereo-sound huskies

• What Lady and Michael Jackson had in common

More blog entries by Tom Gillispie

• Resume for a writer and editor

• An editor's views on powerful writing

• Advice for be and would-be novelists

• Links to TG's stories online

• Favorite quotes

• What I do when I'm editing

Anecdotes by Tom Gillispie

• Wipeout at Death Valley

• Days with rainbows

• A desperate writer working in the dark

• Yer outta there!