On the South Side

I had the great pleasure of watching one of my all time favorite movies with Marty last night. She was alot of fun to watch it with because she also has a great appreciation for movies in general and this one in particular. The Man Who Shot Liberty Valence is absolutely one of the best movies I've seen. I know others will scoff at this; that's OK. There are so many poignant moments in this movie, I wouldn't know where to begin. My main point to make is that the film-maker is saying that both men shot Liberty. One was brave enough to face him in the street, the other brave enough to give the woman he loved what she wanted by saving the life of the man she loved. The murder of Liberty is beside the point. As John Wayne put it, "Murder, pure and simple; but I can live with it. Hallie wanted you alive. You taught her to read; now go back in there and give her something to read about." The movie sums up the mythic Wild West where the combination of the law book and

I'm slowly getting back to normal. It's been a whirlwind month so far. Pretty much non-stop since the 1st. But, now I'm back to work and back to church and back to whatever else I was doing or supposed to be doing. What am I doing? Well us St. Louisans are ready for a World Series. We have possibly one of the best Cardinal teams in history. The 1985 Cardinals were in this category too. They lost the Series to the Royals that year. This year it'll be the Yankees of course. The Cardinals are the only team that Joe Torre used to manage that he hasn't beaten in a World Series. He'll be disappointed this year. I was just looking at Stats from 1985. Vince Coleman was earning $50,000 a year! In 1994, his last good year, he earned $ 3,312,500! He didn't play in the '85 series because he was run over by a tarp. Here's an exerpt from the Baseball Library : With light rain falling on the field, the Busch Stadium grounds crew prepared to roll up the

Since this is the home of the Blue Angles we got to see them practice for free down at the base. It was pretty hard to get a good shot of them, I was surprised that I got this one. You know, it's hard writing about vacation. What would you rather do? Be on vacation or write about vacation?

View from our balcony.

We're here! We had a wonderful trip down. Tropical Storm Bonnie blew through the panhandle with hardly anything to speak of. Hurricane Charlie, of course is another story, but it didn't affect this area at all. We started off this morning (Sunday) with a great church s ervice at Gulf Breeze United Methodist. We went to the contemporary service at 9:30. It was great, lots of people, lots of great songs. It was very moving. The weather is simply unbelievable. So far it's been no hotter than 85 degrees. The water is just perfect; green and shallow out about 50 feet. Sharks, jellyfish, you know, just perfect. Emily and Maria have been out several times already and they're talking about going para-sailing some time this week. I'll be posting some pictures tonight sometime. We've taken quite a few already. Hope everybody is doing well. Marty, we're praying for your health; don't think that we've forgotten about you just because we're having th

Here's the girls and me. Left to right: Becky's the oldest though she looks like the youngest, Jennifer, the youngest though she's decided to let the gray show a little, and Lisa, the second oldest who wouldn't be caught dead with gray. Emily says I should do something about my gray beard.

Tomorrow we leave for Pensacola, FL. We'll drive first to Mephis where we'll stay the night with Annette's sister Jane and husband Gary. From there we'll all head out Saturday morning for Pensacola. We should arrive there late afternoon Sat. By then, Charlie is expected to be in North Carolina. That is if he travels as predicted. I'm sure he'll behave himself, right? I am so looking forward to this vacation. I love Pensacola. 'can't wait to sit in the hot tub and watch the Gulf of Mexico roll in. I'll write some from down there...if I feel like it!

This was waiting for me on my keyboard when I got to work this morning. After a few seconds of childlike euphoria, I knew there was only one person who could've pulled this off. I turned around and asked, "Loretta, did you do this?" She smiled. I don't know what to say. She found it at an estate sale. It's in much better shape than mine was when I last saw it . I promptly put it in my right front pocket and went about my day. But every now and then I would reach into the pocket at feel it and think, "Oh yeah."

I'm please to have all three of my sisters in St. Louis for a while. Becky's the oldest and she lives here. Lisa is next and she lives outside Sacramento. Jennifer, the blogging sister , is in from Woodland Park CO. It's always very comforting to be in the same room with all of them together. Like laying your head in your mother's lap. At the same time, we have Vacation Bible School all week through Thursday, so it's very busy; with us catching up with them after 9:00 pm each night. Luckily, they're still here after VBS is over. VBS is tiring, but fun. We had at least 50 kids tonight. The little ones are the most fun, they really get into singing and dancing. Don't know how much I'll be writing over the next two weeks, but I'm going to try.