Good Morning.
And Happy Memorial Day.
Quote of the Day
“Memorial Day isn’t just about honoring our veterans, it’s honoring those who lost their lives. Veterans had the fortune of coming home. For us, that’s a reminder of when we come home we still have a responsibility to serve. It’s a continuation of service that honors our country and those who fell defending it.”
Pete Hegseth
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Wandering Views 
It’s 8:48, did everyone sleep in today? Where’s Jo? It isn’t a holiday where she is.
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I’ve been up but will be going back to bed. There was a family crisis next door (an unexpected death) that began unfolding around 2 a.m., I think. I debated whether to go over but they had dozens of family members converging on the house within minutes. Considering I’m still pretty sick, I thought it best to stay put and pray, which I did.
Ultimately I was unable to go back to sleep so I did some cleaning up in the kitchen, read a bit and took a hot shower. I’m still very congested and I can’t seem to stop coughing, although I think that’s due to the cough medication I’m taking (I think it’s supposed to make you cough all that gunk out of your lungs).
Please pray for my neighbors, it’s a couple who moved in about a year ago with their adult son and it sounds like it was the dad who was found dead. She sounds extremely distraught. 😦 I’ll know more later in the day I’m sure.
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Oh Donna how awful…I will be remembering your neighbors in my prayers. Praying for you as well…that you will find relief and cough that stuff right out of your body!!
I hear the pitter patter of feet coming down the stairs…gotta go… 🙂
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I have slept late the past two mornings. I has been wonderful and greatly improved my disposition. Yesterday was a cookout with real live veterans. Today it will just be my own personal one and me. Not sure what we will do.
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Where’s kBells these days?
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Donna, so sorry about your neighbors. Death is tough no matter what.
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I have wondered about kbells, too.
Sorry, Donna, that you have the cold AND whatever has happened regarding your neighbors. Also, the horrible thing that happened at the Santa Barbara campus and yhat one of the deceased victims was a friend of Michelle’s daughter.
Lots to pray about. In heaven we will have lots to praise about and not these kinds of bad things to pray about.
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This morning, one of the Y coaches, who had been a Marine, made a Memorial Day talk.
And he mentioned current servicemen and veterans.
I was talking to a guy, another vet, and mentioned that after I left the AF, I didn’t think about being a veteran until I retired and reflected on things I had done. I was just too busy living life to consider much about anything in my past. But then, I mentioned that when I left the AF, I enrolled in USCarolina under the GI bill, I got a GI loan for my first house, (It was “guaranteed” by the government which gave me a point or so on my loan. It never cost the government anything.) And I got five points on the Federal Service Entrance Exam I took. Overall, I benefited greatly from the 3.5 years I served in the Air Force. Joining the Air Force was one of the best decisions I made in my life.
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Who holds the vast majority of the debt of the United States? I contend it is the Vets who gave or risked their lives defending our freedoms and way of life. I thank every one of them from the bottom of my heart.
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I was cogitating about this past comment and decisions I made and decided to put them on paper (computer).
In thinking about these decisions, I consider that I made four life changing decisions in my life. All of them were good. I did some dumb things along the way, but all of the big decisions turned out good. I thank God every day for the ways I have been blessed.
The first decision was to join the Air Force. After graduating from HS, I messed around all summer trying to find something. In July, my best friend, Bobby Murray, talked me into joining the Air Force with him. We went to the recruiting office. I failed the physical because I was under weight. The guy told me to go home, eat some bananas and come back. I did, and on August 2, 1949, Bobby and I boarded a train for Lackland AFB, Texas. I was just a poor, dumb kid who never had any money of his own, no prospects and had been out of SC once, to NC. Three and a half years later, I was a S/Sgt who had been to Europe, Africa and Arabia and had money and I lost my lack of self confidence.
The second, and most important decision was my decision to trust Jesus Christ. It wasn’t so much about “salvation” at the time, but my direction in life. I had made a decision while on leave in Jan 1, 1950, but I really had no idea of what I was doing,. I partly fell away but did attend base chapel and when we were flying back with two engines out, I made God lots of promised I didn’t keep. But in my second year at Carolina, Al Tolley asked, “Are you a Christian”. I said, “Yes”. He said “great” and invited me to the InterVarsity Christian Fellowship meetings. It’s a long story after that, but it completely changed the direction of my life.
The third, I’ve told you about before; how I met and married Elvera Collins. It was an arranged marriage, but neither of us knew it at the time.
The fourth, I haven’t mentioned much. Leaving out much detail, I went to Southwestern seminary out of college, and graduated. I thought I was going into the ministry. I graduated in January of 1962. By the summer of 1963, lots of wise pulpit committees didn’t call me. I decided to get a real job and took the FSEE (Federal Service Entrance Exam), and with the addition of five points, aced it. The Army Map Service hired me as a GS-5 cartographer and I moved my family and house trailer to Virginia.
There were other important decisions along the way, Purdue, Naval War College, no more children (after a miscarriage), etc.,but those are the big ones.
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Very interesting life, Chas. I was once in an early morning Bible study that Dr.Henry Blackaby does. In the chapel of his son’s church. He said to take a look at those kinds of points in your life when God was most active and see the direction He is pointing you in as to what you are suppose to be doing for the Lord’s work assignment. This is a group called Marketplace and it meets at 6:30 a.m. I have not been in a while so not sure if it still meets. He is a grest teacher, and my friend and I got to meet his wife who is super nice.
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I’m so sorry to hear about your neighbors, Donna. How sad.
And the tragic deaths in Santa Barbara, as well, with Michelle’s daughter’s friend and others. Very difficult, frightening and heartrending.
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Reading Chas’ story, it’s a reminder that we so often only see God’s hand in retrospect, how many little decisions rolled into becoming one big decision that took us in one direction or another, that had our paths crossing with this person’s and not someone else’s — but that he was orchestrating our steps all along.
I grabbed a couple hours of sleep — still a lot of angst going on next door, not unusual after these things; crying, arguing, you name it. Everything just bubbles over when something like this happens (and the wife is Latina, so little is held back). So I’ll wait before approaching, they’re still in the process of trying to absorb it all.
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Donna: Sorry about your neighbors.
Chas- Jo and I were on the 24th’s thread this morning before AJ posted this one. Now I see he posted this at the same time I posted. It must have been later, though, since I refreshed the screen a few times after the 8:33 post I made, and I see a couple fo the ladies were conversing later on that thread.
Ann- you should post the song on this thread.
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I’ll repost here the video of the song Ann mentioned on yesterday’s thread.
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Can any one else open it? For me, it says “this video cantains content from UMG. It is restricted from playback on certain sites. It directs me to YouTube.
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Is the picture from Arlington? There is also a military cemetery at Quantico, but I haven’t been there.
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I just finished reading The Lost Spring: US policy in the Middle East and catastrophes to avoid. In interesting book by Walid Phares. Phares was the national security and foreign affairs advisor to Mitt Romney during his campaign and the book has to be read with that in mind. He is extremely critical of Obama and this link has to be considered. Yet, he makes persuasive arguments about the conditions and the Muslim threat.
He obviously knows what he’s talking about. It isn’t an easy read because of the Arabic names and the situation in the various countries is too convoluted to follow. Too many underlines to quote here, but a couple of the highlights are:
The Muslim Brotherhood has penetrated the Obama administration and has much influence inside the Beltway. I would have to take that assertion with skepticism, except I am also reading, on my Kindle and my spare time, a book called, The Brotherhood, America’s Next Great Enemy by Erick Stakelbeck. He also makes a credible argument that the Brotherhood has operatives in the White House and State Department.
The chapter on “The Weapons of Lawfare and Islamophobia” are interesting. The Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR) is a major weapon in this conflict. CAIR resisted help to the Iranian revolt against the Mullahs, and the separation of South Sudan from the Islamic north. It worked in the case of the Iranian revolt.
As I said, not an easy read, but worthwhile if you want insight into the Muslim world jihad and Washington’s connivance in its efforts. Connivance it is.
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Regarding the video, Chas, I don’t have any trouble opening it. I just click on either arrow, and it plays right here.
There’s something I just noticed that I’m curious about. What is the significance of the numbers in parentheses in the sidebar under “Archives”, AJ? I see there’s a pattern, a certain order, rather (the last number is 69, preceded by 83, by 83, by 76…), but why is there always one fewer number than the previous month? And what will happen when we get to June? Nothing? July? What then? 😯
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Is anyone having trouble with Firefox? It stopped working on our computer a few weeks ago. I had had some sites bookmarked in Firefox, and some in Chrome, but nothing happens anymore when we click on Firefox, so we can’t access our bookmarks now (unless we’d also bookmarked them in Chrome, which I had done with my more frequently-visited sites). My husband has only ever used Firefox, though, so he apparently lost all his bookmarks (for car repair, parts-ordering, etc. types of sites). 😦
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Thanks for posting the link to the song, 6arrows! I first heard that song when I was a brand new Christian and have loved it ever since! I used to belt it out when I was driving alone in my car. My favorite line is, “It means I’m holy and blameless and free.”
Scott and Becca should be home in about an hour. It’s raining here today, so they decided to come back a little earlier than originally planned.
Lindsey’s at Algebra tutoring. She has her final in that course tomorrow. We went ahead and signed up for Geometry tutoring for next year as that is Lindsey’s weakest subject. She only goes to tutoring for an hour a week, but it changes her grade from a “C” to an “A”, so it’s the best $45.00/week I spend! Fortunately, we were able to get a weekday time slot for next year, which will be so much better than her current tutoring time of 2:00 on Sundays. Her tutor usually has a waiting list. She’s a retired math teacher from our district and is really good.
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Nice banner photo, AJ, is that something you took yourself? We had the usual fly-overs here for the big Memorial Day program at our large cemetery. They do a very nice job usually but I’m glad I didn’t sign up to cover it this year as I’m still enough under the weather that it would have been miserable.
I was running low on pet food, though, and my gas tank was literally on empty, so I did have to go out this morning for some of that. I also stopped by the grocery store and picked up a large platter of fresh melon and other fresh fruit to take to the neighbors; chatted a bit with the son, his mom was with another family member in a pretty intense discussion in the backyard so I told him I’d catch up with her later. Other family were there around the table, they have a lot of relatives.
But those abrupt losses are just so hard to process, it leaves everyone in a state of shock. 😦 They had gone out to eat last night and this was an apparent heart attack that happened after they got back home. It apparently was very swift, and he hadn’t been having any major medical issues, it was quite a blow.
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You’re welcome, Ann. 🙂 And I’m glad to hear of the good results with Lindsey’s tutoring. Sounds like a much better time slot for it next year, too.
Donna, yes, abrupt loss is so very difficult to work through. Praying for your neighbors.
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I can’t imagine what it is like to lose someone so suddenly. Any time I have ever lost anyone, I had a little warning of what was coming….it doesn’t help much either, but it has to be better than a sudden death. Perhaps if it is appropriate you can tell your neighbor that a lot of your friends are praying for her during this difficult time.
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I will pass that on to them, Kim — the wife is Catholic, not sure about the husband. I’ve been through both kinds of death with my parents, my dad was sick for several years before dying and my mom went in a flash.
For ourselves we’d all like the “flash” kind of death, I think, but it is harder on those left behind. When someone is ill and not expected to live, much of the processing and even grieving goes on beforehand so that when it finally comes it is somehow a feeling of relief in some ways. It’s still hard to accept that you’ll never see that person here again, but you’ve braced yourself for what had become the inevitable.
The abrupt deaths just leave your head and heart spinning. I overheard the son last night (one of my windows was open) say something about how it felt “surreal,” and I guess that’s as good a description as any. Very hard to grasp that someone who was here and seemed fine is, in a blink of an eye, just gone.
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I have said before that my Dad was a veteran and served in the 101st parachute troops. He did not want a service of any kind so we just had a family get together at his house. It was hard as there was no real good-bye. The only special part was that as folks were getting ready to leave, my son took his trumpet out to the deck and played Taps. Very fitting.
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Jo, that sounds very honouring.
We’ve been without power for over 6 hours now. Apparently “crews are still having issues” Husband says “there are counsellors for that” 🙂
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Yay, we have power again! 🙂
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kare2012: Glad you have power again!
Scott and Becca are home. Connie’s staying with us for a couple of nights, which we all really enjoy.
The only person I’ve lost with whom I was really close, was my “adopted” grandma. She had been sick for awhile, but it was still painful when she passed. My husband’s father died from brain cancer and it was a slow, painful demise. It was hard on his kids to see him suffer so much, but it did give them all the opportunity to say goodbye. When his mom was diagnosed with melanoma which had metastasized to her brain three years ago, everyone was so apprehensive about what was to come. But, miraculously, they were able to shrink the brain tumors through an experimental treatment and she’s had no new tumors since then. She is doing remarkably well–still plays nine holes of golf a couple times a week and frequently travels. We are so grateful she is still with us and is in such good health.
Jo: I think it is very hard on those left behind not to have a formal service. I think funerals are important for the living — they provide the beginning of closure.
Donna: Praying for your neighbors and that you’d feel better soon.
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I went to the office today and was gone for about five hours. Bosley was happy to see me when I got home. I am still wondering if I should try to take her with me or not. When I go to the office. I could tell it stormed while I was gone so I hope she was not too frightened alone. We heard thunder at the office, but got no rain there. Got two reviews posted on several sites.
Bosley has grown bigger and is having trouble fitting in the bathroom sink to position herself to lap up water drips and little streams when I turn the water on slighly? Her head along with her body can no longer get angled properly to drink. She really seems pitiful in not understanding her situstion. She is a creature of habit and mostly will only eat dried cat food pellets. A few foods she will eat from my hand.
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Here are 110 photos of the Pacific War and adjacent theaters.
http://blogs.denverpost.com/captured/2010/03/18/captured-blog-the-pacific-and-adjacent-theaters/#more-1547
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Those photos … wow.
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