LJWorld.com

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Hitler Boy Scout

Hey...I just wanted to give you a head's up that there's a lot to celebrate on Friday, so hold on. It will be the 65th anniversary of the death of a not-so-great humanitarian. That's right, this Friday in 1945, holed up in a bunker under his headquarters in Berlin, Adolf Hitler committed suicide by swallowing a cyanide capsule and shooting himself in the head. (Good riddance, you big baby Waa Waa! So you couldn’t face the war tribunal with your grand ideas of a 1000 year Reich. I get it.)

So this Friday evening, join me in holding high a chilled Weihenstephaner Hefeweissbier (a favored German beer) or your favorite beverage, and toast to a Hitler-free Germany and to the death of one of the most despicable and diabolical SOBs ever to vomit his views and violence upon this earth. Toast also to providing enlightenment among those who have sought to emulate Der Fuhrer in like and mind. You’ve heard what has been said about history repeating itself, and there are plenty of examples around us today.

Toast!

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Happy filing today! Just to distract you for a few moments, I thought I'd share events that have occurred on April 15th other than the Federal Tax Deadline. Here are a few I Googled...or is it Topekaed?

2008 Speaking at the bank's annual meeting Richard Fuld Leman chairman and CEO, tells investors that the worst of the credit crisis is behind Wall Street, but that... the environment will remain challenging.

2002 Air China Boeing 767-200, flight CA129 crashes into a hillside during heavy rain and fog near Busan, South Korea, killing 128.

1997 Baseball honors Jackie Robinson by retiring #42 for all teams

1994 Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. (21 days after his divorce) weds Mary Richardson

1991 Europe foreign ministers lift most remaining sanctions against South Africa

1989 Students in Beijing pro-democracy protests

1988 Meteorite exploded above Indonesia

1986 U.S. air raids Libya, responding to La Belle disco, Berlin bombing

1985 South Africa will repeal sex and marriage laws against whites and non-whites

1983 Tokyo Disneyland opens

1978 Great Britain performs nuclear test

1969 North Korea shoots at U.S. airplane above Japanese sea

1970 U.S. 1st Infantry Division withdraws from Vietnam

1964 Chesapeake Bay Bridge opens (world's longest)

1961 "Music Man" closes at Majestic Theater New York City after 1375 performances

1957 Congress gives Post Office $41M; restoring Saturday mail delivery

1955 Ray Kroc starts McDonald's chain of fast food restaurants in Illinois

1955 U.S. performs nuclear test at Nevada Test Site

1952 U.S. performs nuclear test at Nevada Test Site

1947 Jackie Robinson breaks color barrier

1945 President Roosevelt buried at Hyde Park, New York

1945 British Army liberates Belsen concentration camp

1941 1st helicopter flight of 1 hour duration, Stratford, Connecticut

1931 1st walk across American backwards begins

1923 1st sound on film public performance shown at Rialto Theater (New York City)

1923 Insulin becomes generally available for diabetics

1920 Anarchists Sacco and Vanzetti accused of murdering two security guards while robbing a shoe store.

1912 Titanic sinks at 2:27 AM off Newfoundland as band plays on

1900 An early 50 mile race is won by an electric car in over 2 hours

1900 International Exposition opens in Paris

1896 1st Olympic games close at Athens, Greece

1892 General Electric Company, forms and is incorporated in New York

1877 1st telephone installed: Boston-Somerville, Massachusetts

1874 New York legislature passes compulsory education law

1865 Abraham Lincoln dies

1861 Federal army (75,000 volunteers) mobilized by President Lincoln

1850 City of San Francisco incorporated

1783 Congress ratifies peace with Great Britain

1542 Leonardo da Vinci, one of the greatest multitalented artists in our history, is born in the Tuscan hill town of Vinci

So relax knowing you're part of a larger history on April 15th. And, please, stop your whining!

HAPPY TAX DAY!!!

This morning I nuked a cup of coffee, threw on my jacket and grabbed the Sunday newspaper, which was a tiny drift under a snowy drive. Scanning the newspaper has been one of my favorite ways to relax before facing the hubbub of the day.

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Tossing a section aside to refill my cup, I wondered how long it would be before I would be substituting an Apple iPad or some other clone tablet in place of my favored newsprint.

Paul Gillin, technology journalist and online publisher of Newspaper Death Watch, estimates that 95% of American major metropolitan newspapers will meet their doom as a result of the major shifts taking place in the digital media world.

With the improvements in technology (the cell phone is a good example) and the emergence of online vehicles, such as Facebook, MySpace, Twitter and YouTube, bloggers often preempt traditional news sources on major news stories.

We’re at a crossroads and the news for traditional newspaper syndicates isn’t necessarily bad. On the one side are over 100 million people reporting in some form as citizen journalists, though many may lack the basic journalistic skills necessary to provide balanced accounts. On the other side are professional journalists treading the turbulent waters of digital convergence, which is learning to combine different forms of journalism: print, photographic and video, into one piece or group of pieces.

So how will we harness the reach of citizen journalists with the balanced accounting of professional journalists? When will the two converge into a new paradigm? What will that paradigm look like?

As for me, I’m about to roll up the paper and gently shoo the cat off the kitchen counter.

http://media.lawrence.com/img/blogs/e... Come on. You knew this was coming. On the LJWorld blogs, we've been reading about what to name the last decade and what milestones have occurred over the past decade. What we haven't read about is your New Year's resolutions.

Here are my top 3 resolutions for 2010:

1. Live in the moment with my family. In other words, how do I show my family that I love them, especially when time is short and I'm harried by work into emotional oblivion?
   

2. Read a fictional novel a month. I don't care if I've touched a classic on the Harvard University reading list or I'm just drawn in by the latest crime novel. I want to read to escape but also to be reminded on what it means to be fully human.

3. Write a Flash Fiction story each month. Flash Fiction, by definition, is a story of 1000 words or less. It's easy to blather on about one's life, but it's more interesting to leave out whole segments to get under 1000 words.

How about you? What do you want to accomplish in 2010? Don't worry that you'll change the world. Concern yourself, rather, on being engaged in your world while contributing to the learning of others.

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Regardless of your faith or epistemology, have you ever had an experience you couldn’t explain? Call it coincidence or divine intervention, but something or someone who saved you at the moment you needed saving?

Let me give you example.

We were driving the 750 miles back to Lawrence after visiting relatives in Michigan this summer. Several hours later, driving south on highway 35 at night I began to have difficulty breathing. Nothing serious at first, but as the miles ticked by I realized that I was beginning to get less and less oxygen into my lungs. I have asthma, but I haven’t had an attack in years. I wasn’t panicked yet, but I began to feel as if a wet blanket were laid over my lungs causing me to labor more and more to get air.

I rolled down the window and took a deep breath, but it didn’t help. After another 30 miles on a desolate highway south of Des Moines, I told my wife that we would need to find someplace to stop and fairly soon. As my throat constricted I felt the panic rise inside me. I stopped the car and stood on the roadside trying to catch my breath. She said she was going to call 911, but I told her to wait a minute to see if the outside air would help.

Now here’s the miracle: it was 11:30 P.M on a Sunday evening and we had been driving over 600 miles. I was hopeful we might find an emergency center in Kansas City, but that was over an hour away and I wasn’t sure what condition I would arrive in. As I stood outside deciding what to do I looked up and saw a sign for Cameron that I hadn’t noticed before. From where I stood, the wind was blowing a tree branch away from the sign so I could read it for a moment until the branch swayed back to occlude the sign. If was as if the branch were swaying back and forth to be noticed.

It was only a few miles away so we decided to drive there to seek help, and if none were available, to call 911 if I got worse.

Within a mile of driving, however, we saw a well-lighted exit sign for Cameron Regional Medical Center. It was a sprawling oasis amidst a dark, rolling prairie and just a stone’s throw off the highway. I was rushed in, given a mixture of gases to inhale, and two shots to reduce the inflammation. Soon we were on our way and both amazed at the convenience and sudden appearance of the facility, which seemed to materialize out of nowhere only moments after we had made our emergency decision.

There have been other examples of intervention that have happened to people I know and love, but none so recent and personal as this life-giving breath was to me.

How about you?

Recently, I took off a weekend to surprise a high school buddy on his 50th birthday celebration in Florida. His sister and wife had contacted me through Facebook to suggest the idea. I hadn’t seen him since he moved to Cape Coral, Florida in 1982. Still, we were close friends throughout high school and for a couple years of college.

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As we sat at a lounge sipping mint mojitos and overlooking Fort Myers beach, we began catching up on our lives. After talking high school, college and family, and recalling many stories and the ensuing belly laughs they evoked, we finally made our way onto the topic of work.

He asked what I did in my job.

I told him about working in human resources for a stable company - - one that was very fiscally responsible - - and how I was involved in a major project of hiring and training employees for the start up of a new manufacturing plant. I added that at corporate, my job was filled with many, varied projects and that while these were intrinsically interesting to me, everything added together kept me almost too busy at times.

He said that sounded interesting and then asked if I were involved in firing people.

“Sometimes,” I said.

His response, slowed by a pensive sip on the rum drink, was simple…

“I never took you for a corporate guy.”

“I’m not.” I said all too quickly.

The answer didn’t surprise me, but the quickness of my reply did.
We both took a sip on our drinks then and I wondered if I had turned into the man in the gray flannel suit.

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How about you? Do you ever feel like the guy or gal in the gray flannel suit, where the pursuit of conformity and safety supersede your need to be an individual? If so, how did you cope?

Do you ever have those days of ennui when your thoughts are lost in the future or trapped in the past, instead of being alive in the present?

Similar to the movie's resolution with Gregory Peck, I have accepted the responsibility that goes with family and finances; I have accepted my profession. Still, I wonder what might have been if my choices had been different.

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One of my favorite movies is the Shawshank Redemption.

Here's the plot:

In 1967, Red is finally released on parole after serving 40 years at Shawshank. Red is afraid of "the outside", dreading living in fear, worried that he would end up committing suicide once outside of the prison's strict regime. Red recalls his promise to Andy, his friend who had been paroled earlier, and heads to a place Andy told him about. He finds a small metal box containing money and a letter from Andy. In the letter, Andy reminds Red: "Hope is a good thing, maybe the best of things, and no good thing ever dies". Red then violates his parole and travels to Mexico, eventually reuniting with Andy on the Pacific coast. Both of them are elated and hug each other when they meet.

While redemption in your life doesn’t have to be nearly as dramatic, if you’re human and alive, you’ve had opportunities for redemption. Whether or not you’ve chosen to act upon them is another story.

Here’s a redemption example from my past. When I was 18, I made a poor choice that included drinking and driving. After a party, I drove on a desolate highway over 200 miles into Northern Michigan and dimly remember the honking of an oncoming car when I drifted across the divider line. The car swerved and drove on and I parked and exited my car. I remember the snow flakes floating around me as if to say, “I cover the living and dead alike.” I walked in the countryside for several hours until the sun rose and I was reasonably sober. I promised myself then and there that I would never again find myself in a similar situation in the future, and I haven’t since. That was over 30 years ago and it still rings as fresh as Traverse City cherries in July.

Perhaps I haven’t earned the credit, but my kids have turned out – so far into their teens -- as decent citizens and wonderful people. They have been exposed to the same risky behaviors as I was, but have chosen to make their own, healthier choices.

That’s my redemption.

What’s yours?

As defined by Wikipedia, an epitaph is a short text inscribed on a tombstone or plaque honoring a deceased person.

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After a quick Google search, I found a few of my favorites:

The best is yet to come - Francis Albert Sinatra

There goes the neighborhood - Rodney Dangerfield

Called back - Emily Dickinson

I had a lover's quarrel with the world - Robert Frost

And away we go! - Jackie Gleason

Now he belongs to the ages - Abraham Lincoln (by Edwin M. Stanton)

Excuse my dust - Dorothy Parker

I told you so, you damned fools. - H. G. Wells

After reading several epitaphs, I began thinking what I might write for my own grave marker when I pass beyond this world. Here’s one I wrote when I was eighteen and struggling with my own religion. The writing strikes me now as adolescent, but I still like the message which was one of healing:

The pale translucent moon

a ring through laden cloud

glows brighter in the heavens

beyond its earthly shroud

Here’s an alternate epitaph, “A Heated Assignment,” which I wrote for a humor e-zine awhile ago:

Here lies a writer

inspired with words

tho' seldom a story he'd sell

Now he's productive

with Satan his agent

and endless assignments in Hell!

How about you? If you had to sum up your life in a few words, what would they be? Go for the clever or the contemplative, but share the words with us that would characterize you in this life…and beyond.

Congratulations - AGAIN - to Donovan and Emma...who are shown with the treasure in front of the mushroom-shaped bushes at Memorial Park Cemetery.

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They are a seasoned crew of pirates who have found 3 of 8 treasures this summer, 1 during the winter, and 3 of 10 the previous summer. By my account, that makes a grand thievery of 37% of all treasures hidden.

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So please help me congratulate them as we raise a mug or two of our favorite pirate drinks in their honor!

The clues are revealed below:

Mark the site of the FSH (Free State Hotel is the original name of the Eldridge Hotel. The site plaque years add up to 9440, which includes the 1940 at the bottom. Divide that by 5 and it equals 1888.)

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a nearby bank’s founding (1888 is the year the Watkins National Bank was erected, which is now the Watkins Museum. Sum the years, all of them including the Lawrence City Seal, and it equals 15,284. Subtract 13,767 and it equals 1517. Pair that with 15 and you have the address for Memorial Park Cemetery.)

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2 mushroom bushes (The treasure was hidden in the lower branches of the bush on the right.)

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Now let's hear from you. How did the hunt go? What ideas do you have for future hunts?

Thanks again for a wonderful Summer of fun!

Congratulations to Donovan and Emma...who are shown standing in front of the 'V' at Conrad & Viola McGrew Nature Preserve with Oliver's treasure

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It was a close chase for riches, however.

As Donovan, Emma and their father were leaving the park, they met another group of pirates heading in. Arrg! While disappointed to see the treasure in young Donovan's hands, they were happy that they had made it to the right place.

Here's the story and riddle Donovan and Emma had to solve: Treasure Hunt # 7 - Oliver (The Great)

The answer to the riddle follows below:

CLXXI totale (171 total sidewalk squares counting from the North side of Conrad & Viola McGrew Nature Preserve.)

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tre pause (Oliver is Italian, so this is translated as "3 pauses," or walking bridges on the trail that interrupt or pause the total count.)

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a V (Italian for "at V," which is two tree trunks growing out in a "V" shape.)

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Congratulations again to Donovan and Emma, who are no strangers to solving my treasure hunts!

Apologies to jonas_opines, who suffered a wasp sting during a brave search for the treasure.

Check back next weekend for another hunt, all of you scurvy scallywags!! Yar!