Legacy @ MindSay 
family
Joel Himelfarb writes that President GW’s twilight months left in Office is beginning to mirror Slick Willie’s twilight months in Office.
Both are guilty of attempting last minute diplomacy to establish a memorable legacy.
Slick failed with North Korea and Palestinian terrorists.
GW is attempting to do the same thing while apparently leaving the problem of a nuclear Iran to the next President as Slick left Osama bin Laden for GW.
JRH 4/1/08 (Hat tip Don Moore – Blind Conservatives)
Randy Pausch, professor at Carnegie Mellon, was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. He gave his "Last Lecture," and it was nothing short of symbolic of the life he's led/contributions he's made. In one word, "Amazing." No doubt, despite a very discouraging diagnosis, he will live on in the work he has done, lives he has touched and in the family he has built.
His lecture made national/international news.
I've posted a reprise he did on "Oprah" of the lecture as well as the full version of his lecture. The full version is long, but worth watching.
Short Oprah version:
http://video.stumbleupon.com/#p=ithct48cqw
Full Version:
http://www.taudiobook.com/closed_caption/randy_pausch_full/
Randy Pausch's website:
http://download.srv.cs.cmu.edu/~pausch/
This is one of his projects to teach kids about 3d programing - Really Cool:
http://www.alice.org/
N E X T~ V I G I L: WEDNESDAY, February 27th, 2008 ~ 9PM~10PM Eastern Standard Time.
HOW TO PARTICIPATE: Light the Fire of Awareness once a month by placing a vigil candle in the front window of your home, on your porch or in the window of your place of business OR on your office desk. This symbolizes your support of our national efforts for greater abuse awareness, prevention, intervention and a demand for immediate victim recovery. The actual vigil hour is from 9pm-10pm Eastern Standard Time. Now is the time to unite together for the sake of those who can not help themselves. We need campus crusaders, child advocate groups, local communities and national businesses will vigil with us. We will persist until this nation is moved into greater awareness and aggressive action on this matter. Vigil Candles are available at the STOP~WATCH and Respond web site.
N E X T~ V I G I L: February 27th~ 9PM~10PM Eastern Standard Time.
PLEASE NOTE VITAL INFO:
The #1 Killer of Children Under the Age of 4
STOP ~WATCH & Respond! Now is the time! Witness Change... Do something more! We saved 5 lives in August 2007! We need NATIONAL Volunteers to get involved... The children of America NEED you adults to protect them! It is our responsibility. When we reduce crime against children, we produce children who become adults against crime! Be one of the many who offer greater hope for the children of tomorrow. We can't let them down! We MUST do something more.
Please... I am shamelessly begging!
H e l p ~ T o d a y.
www.stopwatchandrespond.com
Even in Jane Austen's time there was often a territorial war after a death in the family. The most colorful one in my family was over the collection of really tacky hummel plates my mother collected and had hanging on the kitchen wall.
All massed they were a little kitschy and I even threatened to hang one up in my kitchen but since some people might think I actually LIKED the thing I refrained. My sister and a grabby nephew didn't like them either, but they were - in total -worth a small amount of change. My sister in law had turned my mom on to these oddity in collecting and I advocated for years that Margit should get them when my mother died. My mother was mentally distributing items for decades in the hopes that it would keep us from abandoning her- (the silver punch bowl was the only I coveted but that was spirited off while my mother was hospitalized by a nephew who shall be discussed later). My mother never considered that simply being nice to her offspring might be a more effective way of keeping family together. . And so I told my mother finally that I would be willing to take the plates and she was happy someone would have them. But I digress.
soooooooooooo when my mother died - weeks later at a memorial service to which one sister and one about to be mentioned beloved nephew did not attend- we had all the hummels put in the trunk of my rental car to transfer to my brothers car to go to his wife. and then she decided she didn't want them. I tried the three times offer and she still didn't want them so rather than leave them in the hands of the poor greedy evil embezzling sister (PGEES) I took them to a UPS store early one november morning and shipped them to myself from long island to montgomery alabama. good thing too because when i met the PGEES for coffee she said she would take them off my hands and I could honestly say I just shipped them to bama and watch her face fall. with age comes such grand sensibility.
well as relations deteriorated - and I am legally bound not to discuss the settlement we made - my sister discovered I was selling the plates on ebay for anywhere from 50 to 300 a plate. was she ever pissed. so she started bidding on them and then blantantly refused to pay and left scurious feedback about me. I was able to get that expunged and even had her ebay rights revoked for a few weeks till she opened an acct in her daughter's name. But she got the message and stopped bugging me. Then about 18 months after my mother had died I get a phone call from a nephew I had never met. one of the brood my older sister produced. she gave birth 4 times each under total anesthesia and R was one of the later ones I never met.
He said he was just "touching base" and then proceeded to explain that he would be 40 minutes from montgomery at an auburn football game and could come by for the plates. Conversation:
Me: "Well R, the plates are mine now."
R: "But grandma promised them to me."
Me:"Your grand ma made many promises that turned out to be contradictory."
R: "But she said I could have the plates."
Me: "She said I could have the plates too. and they are mine."
R: " But I want them."
Me: "No can do, sorry. They are mine. Anything else?"
stunned silence
Me: "Well I hope you have a great time at the game, Bye."
click. great satisfaction and laughter ensues
Yesterday this same said nephew tracks me down via google and sends a snotty little note about finding interesting sites. and being the very self controlled girl that I am I quickly double delete his note because I am sorely tempted to write this slimey little twerp..." You were an asshole then and you are an asshole now so please leave me alone." Ah, the joys of family life. click and they are goners. Life should be so easy huh?
Today, I opened a precious package from the mailbox. . . . and sang, and cried for over an hour. . . .
I missed the annual family reunion in northwestern Pennsylvania this year. Truth is, I've only attended a total of 3 times since I've been married. Last year we traveled across country. . . . to spend a few days in the comfortable presence of relatives I hadn't seen in decades. And, as always, when the plates had been pushed away- the singing began . . . We sang songs that I learned from my father- lyrics that were modified and personalized by family tradition in some cases- weaving in the lilt and attitude that I learned from him..... "Who sang that song?"... I don't know... probably wouldn't recognize it if I heard it on the radio~ I sang songs that ONLY he knew.... I sang songs with Scottish words I could barely pronounce and don't know the meanings of... and I felt at home. Here is a link to an entry made in memory of my father
At this year's family reunion there was a book of songs and a CD distributed. Preserved voices that none of my generation will forget- the brogue, the hymns, the laughter of yesterday. . . the songs that I heard only my dad sing, sometimes... for we lived in Arizona.... and I only gathered once a year at the most.... I didn't even know where he learned songs that he sang and whistled so freely. Many of them are here- with other familiar voices singing them.... I sang along... and added my dad's favorite lines of harmony additions...
Here is one song from the CD that made me feel like I was there... you can hear the conversation, the voices picking up in the chorus, the harmony, the laughter....
Ain't gonna need this house no longer
Ain't gonna need this house no more
Ain't got time to fix the shingles
Ain't got time to fix the floor
Ain't got time to oil the hinges
Nor to mend no window pane
Ain't gonna need this house no longer
I'm gettin' ready to meet the saints
Oh, when the saints go marching in,
Oh, when the saints go marching in,
Lord how I want to be in that number
When the saints go marching in
As I contemplate the influence of music on my life, I realize that it played a major role even in the final hours of my father's life.... when he was non-responsive, while we sat by his bedside.....
I offered to bridge the miles between him and his family by holding a cell phone to his ear so his sisters could talk to their baby brother one final time. ... it was late at night.... I drove to the nursing home and entered his darkened room.... I could tell only by the change in his breathing that I had waken him from sleep... I told him who was on the phone and that they wanted to talk to him... I could hear their voices through the quiet of the room.... after greetings and expressions of love the announced that they wanted to sing to him... Scottish songs, perhaps lullabies that their mother had sung... familiar songs that they had all shared voices in..... two or three songs, laughter, sentiments... and a final "goodnight".... ..... and for the only time in the three days I sat vigilant.... he showed a response... mouthing "goodnight" in return.... he died the next day... there were no other acknowledgements of consciousness.
..... I was even moved to sing at his bedside in his last hours.... words I can only whisper now through tears, as I relive the moment in the lyrics. My daughter held my hand and sang with me that day.... I think he heard us... somewhere in time he joined in.....
What song, you might wonder, would be appropriate to sing at the bedside of my dying father?
Perhaps you know it, it was a favorite of his... and it seemed to fit the moment
Lucky Old Sun (click the up button to scroll the lyrics)
And it seems appropriate to end this entry with a final song.... or at least, the lyrics- another family favorite to pick up and sing - and as I read the lyrics I hear my dad .... and his family, and I know they are all planning on
singing together again ..... someday.
I remember when I was a lad
Times were hard and things were bad
But there's a silver linin' behind every cloud
Just poor people that's all we were
Tryin' to make a livin' out of blackland earth
But we'd get together in a family circle singin' loud ...
CHORUS
Daddy sang bass, Mama sang tenor
Me and little brother would join right in there
Singin' seems to help a troubled soul
One of these days and it won't be long
I'll rejoin them in a song
I'm gonna join the family circle at the throne ...
No, the circle won't be broken
Bye and bye, Lord, bye and bye ...
Daddy'll sing bass, Mama'll sing tenor
Me and little brother will join right in there
In the sky, Lord, in the sky.
Now I remember after work,
Mama would call in all of us
You could hear us singin' for a country mile
Now little brother has done gone on
But I'll rejoin him in a song
We'll be together again up yonder in a little while.
CHORUS
Daddy sang bass, Mama sang tenor
Me and little brother would join right in there
Singin' seems to help a troubled soul
One of these days and it won't be long
I'll rejoin them in a song
I'm gonna join the family circle at the throne ...
No, the circle won't be broken
Bye and bye, Lord, bye and bye ...
Daddy'll sing bass, Mama'll sing tenor
Me and little brother will join right in there
In the sky, Lord, in the sky.
In the sky, Lord, in the sky
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