Merle Haggard, one of the finest singers (and songwriters) in American popular music history, died today, on his 79th birthday. Here are a couple good songs.

Alcohol plays a large role in everyone's life. We use it to clean our many wounds, and we add certain percentages of the stuff to our gasoline, within certain states where that's required by regulations. Some of us even drink alcohol, for pleasure or otherwise. But you can count me out of that last group. For all of this year, so far, I have been "on the wagon."