David's senior pictures:

I don't know why this one came out so small but there doesn't seem to be anything I can do about it.  It's one of my favorites so I'm including it in a small version.

There are several others.  It'll be a tough choice as to which one gets into the yearbook.

He's been busy filling out college applications lately, in addition to an intense class schedule and two part-time jobs. 

Senior pictures have surely changed since my day, circa 1954.  Back then the girls had to wear a white blouse with a collar.  Boys had to wear a suit, white shirt and tie.  The only pose was head and shoulders.  Black and white.  No variations allowed.  I like the new way better.    

VETERANS DAY 2009

God bless all the veterans of all the wars, and God be with the families of those who didn't come back

On February 14, 2002, Colin Powell was asked how he felt representing a country commonly perceived as "the Satan of contemporary politics."  Here is part of his reply:

Far from being the Great Satan, I would say that we are the Great Protector. We have sent men and women from the armed forces of the United States to other parts of the world throughout the past century to put down oppression. We defeated Fascism. We defeated Communism. We saved Europe in World War I and World War II. We were willing to do it, glad to do it. We went to Korea. We went to Vietnam. All in the interest of preserving the rights of people.

And when all those conflicts were over, what did we do? Did we stay and conquer? Did we say, "Okay, we defeated Germany. Now Germany belongs to us.  We defeated Japan, so Japan belongs to us"?  No.  What did we do?  We built them up.  We gave them democratic systems which they have embraced totally to their soul.  And did we ask for any land?  No, the only land we ever asked for was enough land to bury our dead.  And that is the kind of nation we are.

I woke up at 4 this morning and couldn't get back to sleep.  I turned on the TV, and after sorting through all the infomercials and reruns of Roseanne, I came upon a retrospective of Carol Burnett's career.  It wasn't new or it wouldn't have been on at 4 a.m., but it brought back to me what a comic genius Carol Burnett is.  I remember her on the Garry Moore Show back in the '50s, and then the eleven years of her own variety show.  The whole cast of the Carol Burnett show was brilliant.  The program pointed out that her show came at the end of the Golden Age of TV.  I won't bore you young sprouts with all the great TV shows of the past - but I could .  We will not see their like again. 

Carol seems to be a genuinely nice person who has overcome much in her life but still maintains her "regular person" charm.  And she's unsurpassed as a comedian.

The program showed the priceless clip from the skit "Went With the Wind" where Carol (as Scarlett) rips the drapes off the window and comes down the steps with them on and the curtain rod still in.  Harvey Korman (as Rhett) compliments her on it, and she says, "I saw it in the window and I just couldn't resist it."  Surely it's THE funniest TV scene of ALL TIME!  I found the whole skit and laughed out loud several times.  Here it is if you want to see it.  Actually it's Part 2.  Part 1 is available on the same page. (By the way, Melody is played by Dinah Shore - a singer from the era when popular music was worth listening to.  Pardon the editorial.  And the Union solider looks like Robert Goulet to me.)

What priceless TV that show was.  I surely do miss it.  It was worth being awake at 4 a.m. to see some of it again.

Is it just me, or are there more annoying commercials than there used to be?  I've always been able to ignore commercials, but lately there are some that get through my mental barriers and annoy me to death.  Two of them are local.  One is for a place that buys gold.  They've had several commercials in the past year and each is worse than the one before.  I can't reach the remote to mute the sound fast enough as soon as I hear the words, "This is a rubber chicken."  Another one is for a local children's clothing store called the Plaid Giraffe.  I about kill myself lunging for the remote when that one comes on.  Sometimes the two commercials run back to back.  More's the fun.  Twice the aggrevation.  

Among the national commercials that drive me berserk (or "bejerk" as my family used to say) is one that has an English woman with a horribly high voice coming out of a loose piece of asphalt.  I don't even know what it's selling because I've never been able to listen to the thing the whole way through.  Another one is for (I think) a place that checks financial ratings and has a trio or quartet of young men singing a song that makes me want to kill all young men who sing.

And while I'm being cranky, let me ask if it's me losing a bit of hearing and having sounds bounce off my eardrums differently or are there more squeaky-voiced women on TV news these days?  I think I would share most of Greta Van Susteren's views and would enjoy listening to her guests, but I just can't handle her voice.  Another one is "the Money Honey" on a financial channel.  About half the women on Bill O'Reilly's program have voices like chalk on blackboards.  None of it bothers Sam in the least, so it has to be me. 

Anyone agree? 

MONEY SAVING IDEA FOR THE HOLIDAYS

Thanks to Barb for this