Fizzling and soaring

One year in the '90s, we were at Charlotte (or Lowe's) Motor Speedway for the fall race, and the PR folks told us that two guys had won a contest to sing the national anthem for the Busch race on Saturday.

They must have won the contest in a bar, because they were terrible. When they reached the part about the rockets' red glare, they fizzled.

On Sunday, a man from UAW-GM sang the Star Spangled Banner, and he was tremendous, with a beautiful, powerful voice. When Tony (that was the name they told us) got to the rockets' red glare, his voice soared with the rockets.

I can't imagine more of a bad-to-good (or bad-to-great) than that.

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!