Some straight talk straight from The Landmark family.
Every one of us at The Landmark wishes all our readers a very happy Thanksgiving and hope you get the chance to break bread with the ones you care about this week.
We are grateful that you include us in your weekly activities, whether it be by subscribing, picking up a print edition at one of our many retail partners, or checking out our stuff online. We’re working for you.
You know I love pumpkin pie on Thanksgiving.
Not necessarily humble pie for the holiday, though, because I feel the need to boast to you about our audience numbers. Speaking of online, The Landmark is averaging 252,000 visits per month to plattecountylandmark.com. We also have the largest social media presence of any area media outlet, with 8,000 followers on Facebook and more than 3,000 on Twitter (X).
The Landmark is coming at you earlier than normal, as we hit the streets with our print edition on Monday this week in hopes you’ll have time to read the paper and peruse those Black Friday flyers that are inserted in this edition from advertisers like Bass Pro Shop and Dollar General prior to Thanksgiving.
Taking a trip out of town for Thanksgiving? No, I’m not, but thanks for asking.
However, according to the website GasBuddy, many Americans are. GasBuddy released results of its annual Thanksgiving Travel Survey, revealing that more Americans plan to hit the road for the holiday this year. Forty-one percent of respondents said they plan to take a road trip this year, which is an 8% increase from the 2022 Thanksgiving survey.
GasBuddy says the national average price of a gallon of gas this Thanksgiving is $3.25. Heading into Thanksgiving week, gas is at $2.75 in Platte City, home of your Landmark headquarters. You can find lower if you’re out and about. I’ve noticed gas at Sam’s Club locations–at least the one at Legends–is typically somewhere around 15 cents lower per gallon than prices in Platte City.
Overall costs for a typical Thanksgiving meal, including the usual fixings, are also modestly lower compared with 2022, when prices hit a record high. We can thank a turkey for that.
Thanksgiving dinner for a family of 10 will cost an average of $61.17, according to the American Farm Bureau Federation. That’s down from $64.05 last year but an increase from $53.31 in 2021. Those figures include the cost of typical side dishes such as cranberries, dinner rolls, green peas and sweet potatoes.
That’s not bad, considering Guy Speckman’s Thanksgiving meal will include $61 worth of Bud Light.
I have less than zero percent interest in owning an electric vehicle but I think it’s great if you want one. Our Rambling Moron columnist Chris Kamler has one and speaks highly of it, which you know if you read his column last week. Anyway, GasBuddy’s national survey shows 39% of Americans said they are more interested in owning an electric vehicle than they were last year.
Have you been following along as Swifties and other sources are digging up some old Travis Kelce tweets? This has turned out to be somewhat entertaining. The Tonight Show host Jimmy Fallon even put together a song of Kelce tweets. This much is evident after seeing Kelce’s tweets: Travis is not gonna win any spelling bees, you guys, but we all have our strengths and our weaknesses. After all, none of us in this conversation are future Hall of Fame tight ends like Travis. We all have different skill sets, is what I’m saying.
My favorite Kelce tweet they’ve found in the archives is this one posted by Kelce on April 14, 2011. Kelce would have been 21 years old at the time. “I just gave a squirle a peice of bread and it straight smashed all of it!!!! I had no idea they ate bread like that!! Haha. #crazy”
While writing this column I just straight smashed half a box of Hostess cupcakes. I would say no one had any idea I ate like that but that’s not exactly true.
There are some other oldies but goodies out there. Google “Travis Kelce old tweets” and see what comes up for you.
Also, remember in his college days at the University of Cincinnati, 2010 to be specific, Kelce was suspended from playing football for a year after testing positive for marijuana, which may or may not help explain some of the excitement he had about a “squirle” smashing bread.
Kelce’s problems with spelling and such in his tweets really angered some of the girls on The View, apparently. To be fair, I should point out it wasn’t just his bad spelling and slang grammar that ticked them off. Back in the day Kelce also tweeted extremely harsh comments about the physical appearances of some of what he called “ugly” women he would meet, which isn’t cool. Anyway, Joy Behar says she loves Taylor Swift and doesn’t want Tay Tay to get “stuck” in a long-term relationship with Kelce. “I’m a Swiftie,” Behar declared. “I love her because she’s getting young people out to vote so I don’t want her to be stuck with this idiot.”
Ouch.
(Go ahead and straight up smash a piece of bread this Thanksgiving. Tell Foley about it via email, ivan@plattecountylandmark.com)
