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Nina Osborn (Rossi)

This is my friend's garden!!! I want this one😁

Michael McLeod

Sheila: for one thing, I'm happy to learn that I have a professional colleague in the class of '66.

For another, morbid as it may sound, I always liked writing obituaries, and maybe you understand why. People are so fascinating, and an obit done well honors a life, and every life has its particular trajectory. You have that story to honor and to tell. It never felt morbid or overly sad to me. It was....not to sound irrreverant.... rewarding,even fun, trying to get to know them a little, and give someone their due. You had their life story in your hands, beginning to end. I like the usual challenge of being accurate and pulling together multiple points of view. And of course you are helping those who mourn to reminisce, and process their grief. I always appreciated the intimacy of that relationship with strangers in a time of trouble and grief. And of course one final advantage of writing an obit: the person you are writing about will never ever call you up to complain about how you mispelled their name or misquoted them.

One last thing I'd say is that writing obits, though there is no denying the sadness involved, makes death itself feel a bit less intimidating. There's a bit of humility involved in the process. It is what it is, as they say. 

Anyway thank you.

PS: This has nothing to do with what I wrote above - well maybe it does - but , whatever, for some reason I'm in a contemplative mood today and I am reminded of one of my favorite quotes.

It's from the great spiritual writer Blaise Pascal. I do not know if the quote is derived from scripture or if Pascal just took literary license to make his own point about spiritual seeking, in general. I love the sentiment regardless of the source or belief system involved in it. I'm wondering if anybody else has ever run across this quote and been struck by it.  It goes like this:

"Be of good cheer--you would not seek Me if you had not already found Me."

If that is from JC it's absolutely one of the coolest things The Dude ever said. But I am thinking either way the sentiment would apply to anyone trying to make sense of this being human thing.

Sheila McCarthy (Gardner)

Mike: I always envisioned a reporters' table at our reunion: You, me and Steve Hemmelgarn, for starters. I agree with all your observations about writing obituaries. And I grieve a little for "the ones who got away:" retired vaudevillians, nuclear scientists, war veterans, beekeepers, and the like -- people in my community I wished I had met. 

Michael McLeod

yeah Shiela I know about wishing you'd met them.

But honoring them is the next best thing.

My favorite among all the LIVING people I interviewed was Mohammedi Ali.

It was on a film set. He was doing a made for tv movie, had a very small part in it.

Just the coolest guy.

We started talking about race and he said he hated being in a church and looking up at little chrerubs with wings and being pissed off that none of the little cherubs were black.

Mary Margaret Clark (Schultheis)

Mike, I decided to look up Blaise Pascal because I knew nothing of him. I discoved this link to a biographical sketch of him: http://justus.anglican.org/resources/bio/233.html  I learned that 8 years before his death, he had an overwhelming experience of the presence of God. Thanks for giving me a reason to do a different type of research today. 

Michael McLeod

MM that's great. I was familiar with the name but like you knew nothing else of him. Wish I had time to poke around myself but on deadline at the moment.

Janie Albright (Blank)

Janie Albright (Blank)

Most of you should also receive the invite in email today. 
 

This is the list of classmates whose emails have bounced. If you have an updated email on any of these people or are in touch with any of them please let me know!  Watterson1966@aol.com
 

Janie Albright (Blank)

The previous list is of classmates we had an email for and have been on our site in the past but we no longer have their current email. 

This list is for people we either have never found or not in recent times. I'll just put it out there in case any of you are in touch. 

Bain, (Hunt) Donna (NO EMAIL)

Bentz, William (NO EMAIL)

Carrell, William (NO EMAIL)

Clifton, Donald (NO EMAIL)

Coghlan, Charles (NO EMAIL)

Delaney, Karen (NO EMAIL)

Dundon, Mary (NO EMAIL)

Fiorini, Michaellynne (NO EMAIL)

Hawking, Jim (NO EMAIL)

Huntzinger (Van Balen), Margaret (NO EMAIL)

Kiener, James (NO EMAIL)

Kovacs, Ronald (NO EMAIL)

Malin (Hawking), Stephanie (NO EMAIL)

McDaniel (Wilkerson), Teri (NO EMAIL)

Merckling, James (NO EMAIL)

Murphy, Patricia (NO EMAIL)

Neuer (Tweed), Joyes (NO EMAIL)

Nolan, Michael (NO EMAIL)

Overhults, Dianne (NO EMAIL)

Parson (Champlin), Gloria (NO EMAIL)

Pavlick, George (NO EMAIL)

Purnell, Gregory (NO EMAIL)

Rauch (Badger), Judith (NO EMAIL)

Ryle, William (NO EMAIL)

Steahly (Coghlan), Deborah (NO EMAIL)

Tribbie, William (NO EMAIL)

Wickham (Webb), Ann (NO EMAIL)

Michael McLeod

My checks bounce but not my email.

I love Millie's apparently now defunct cubana1 email. que divertido.

More on the flower front:

We had 4 o'clocks in our yard, actually alongside our front porch on east north broadway between indianola and the rr tracks, pretty pink blooms in cute little well behaved low-lying clusters.

on a trip to columbus years ago I collected seeds - they're black, perfectly round, look kinda like big bb's, and planted them here in my fla. backyard -- and now they are frigging monsters, four frigging feet tall, so big and frigging gangly I don't like them, like when cute little children turn into obnoxious teenagers.   

and no i'm not posting pictures of these ugly ass monsters.

Still have so much to learn about gardening in Florida.

My nomineed for the number one rule: shade is precious.

David Mitchell

1)  Can't wait to be there for this upcoming "Birthday Party". I hope you all bring me a really cool present .

(Oh, Oh, I see. Well maybe just the thought will count.)

2)  As for Donna Bain's email. I sure wish someone could find her. I would love to see her. I once spoke with her on the phone about 30 years ago, from the phone bank in the basement of the Watterson convent, during one of my many sessions on the annual Alumni fund raising "phone-a-thon". We laughed and talked for quite a while and she explained that she came back every summer with her husband for his Upper Arlington reunion. I guess she didn't have a say in the matter.

Note: Donna also shared a family tragedy about the loss of one of her sons in a mountain climbing accident. They lived in Arizona back then. She was the apple of my eye in freshman and part of our sophomore year. But it only lasted about two dates before I lost out to some other guy. 

Similar story for Kathy Shannahan (my fifth and sixth grade crush), who's husband - a Notre Dame alum - thought High School reunions were beneath her.

3) A general thought:  It is getting late. I urge anyone who can make it to come. Especially anyone who has never made it, or has skipped a few years We will begin to lose more friends at a faster rate. Don't miss this opportunity. 

David Mitchell

Mike,

Your mention of Blase Pascal brings to mind an interesting connection with my Marked Men For Christ retreat group. He was convinced that our connection to God was realized more through the heart, rather than through the intellect. That is our understanding also. In fact we focus on the idea that men's intellectual side often blocks our ability to connect with our Creator. After all, we are men, we are capable, strong, self sufficient, and we know better. 

When I attended my first MMFC retreat, one of the stops during the first night "sign in" was a guy with a tape measure. He held it up and stretched it from my forehead to my chest and asked, "Well, it looks like about 14 inches from your head to your heart . Do you think you can make that journey this weekend?" 

I wasn't sure what he meant at that moment. But by the end of the weekend I was overwhelmed by the realization of pure joy.  

   (other classmates have since discoverd this also)

I know God gave us a brain and expects us to use it. Surely a bunch of devoted women in Domincan Habits showed us that. But HIS love is not fully realized through mathmatical formulas, scientific proofs, man-made laws, or legal principals. 

Like I said before, HE is out there, all over the place, hoping we will find HIM.

Joseph Gentilini

David, I also agree that a more sure guide for touching God and myself has to do with our emotions (HEART) than our intellect!!  joe

Michael McLeod

Ok that was a nice little heartful circuit there by way of a mutual tribute to Pascal and his influence and compassion. 

Michael McLeod

Just had a weird little moment in the midst of writing a story.

I've become very attuned to keeping sexist/exclusionary language out of my writing. 

Not just overtly sexist language but subconsciously sexist language.

And I was about to used the phrase "man's inhumanity to man."

I changed it to "humanity's inhumanity to humanity."

It sounds a bit weirder but I'm sticking to it.

I'll see if my editor changes it or asks me about it. 

David Mitchell

Oh MIke,

Say it ain't so. The former expresion is as old as the hills. Let is be what it is.

Michael McLeod

yeah you may be right Dave.

thanks for the response.

now if only one of the chicks around here chirped up about it. 

Joseph Gentilini

Mike, I like the new language.  joe

Mark Schweickart

Mike -- Maybe you would get a few more female responses if hadn't referred to them as "chicks" who "chirp up."  
Oh wait a minute, did I perhaps miss the fact you made this request with your tongue clearly pressing against your cheek? My bad.
Or to quote one of my favorite movies from back in our day, 1965's A Thousand Clowns  -- "Oops, I missed the funny part." 
Which, by the way, is my second favorite quote from this movie behind the one that I always find handy to quote in many a situation -- "There's oddness here, Murray. Oddness!"
A great film!

James Hamilton, M. D.

Periodic Pictures from Past and Present

As promised in Post#12761 .

"Up, Up and Away in My Beautiful Balloon" - 1967 song sung by the Fifth Dimension.

Charles "Dewey" Reinhard died last week. He was 93 years old.

Some of you may remember that in 1977 he and his co-pilot attempted to cross the Atlantic in an 83 foot tall helium filled balloon, the Eagle, but encountered one of the worst storms ever off the coast of Nova Scotia and ended up in the ocean. The gondola under that balloon which he had built for the journey saved their lives.

Dewey was from Colorado and was quite famous around Colorado Springs in that he began a yearly event in 1976 which has grown each year since then. It was originally called the "Colorado Springs Balloon Classic" but is now known as the "Labor Day Lift-Off".

On that holiday in September,1979 I decided to mingle with the crowds in Memorial Park and photograph the action.

I used Ektachrome slide film in my Minolta SRT-100 camera so I scanned those slides into digital format and cloned out (with Photoshop) some of the dust that I was unable to remove from the slides with a brush.

I am not sure but, based on the name of the balloon, I think that last image may have been Dewey in the basket on the right.

Jim

P. S.

And speaking of holidays, here's wishing you all a happy and safe Independence Day!

Don't overdo the food or the adult beverages. Back in the day when liquor stores were closed on federal holidays, one of my wife's uncles once quipped that "if you want a fifth on the fourth you'll have to buy it on the third"! 🥃

Joseph Gentilini

Great pictures, Jim.  Thanks for sharing them.  joe

Michael McLeod

thnx 4 the pics, doc

Just a little disappointed you didn't provide the sound track.

David Mitchell

Slow day, nothing much going on - almost!

I had an easy, lazy Monday with nothing much to do, but I felt the need to attend a funeral. It was at the all Black "Campbell Chapel" where the new friend I mentioned a while back, Rev. Doctor Jon Black, now serves as pastor.

The service was to honor a legendary pastor and educator who passed at 93 last week after years as principal of Hilon Head grade schools and later the High School - followed by years as the founding pastor of this old church in Bluffton. I went out of a need to honor the memory of the first time I went to this church and the deceased was then the first pastor that I heard back then. I was one of about 6 or 8 white people in the church today and I got several hardy hand shakes and hugs from my friends in this congregation. My memory of that first time, and the sermon given by (then) Pastor Isaac Wilborn was fresh in my mind. Pastor Wilborn gave a terrific sermon on a beautiful Mother's Day - starting with light hearted jokes, but then finishing with a roaring emotional ending. I never forgot it.

But today, after a number of dull, barely audible comments by four other Black Pastors  from neighboring churches, (and a drummer that is too loud) my new buddy, the Reverend Dr. Jon Black got up and laid one on us I shall never forget - comparing how the deceased was always seeing the best in him as a young inexperienced pastor years ago, with the way Jesus always saw the best in (weak, stubborn) Peter!  

Wow! this man has a way with words that is rare in my experience. I felt priveleged to be in his presence today.

So finally back to the house for a nap. But not long.

I decided tonight to drive out on the Island and see a movie. And It was a doozie!  

I urge, no,,, beg you all to see "THE SOUND OF FREEDOM" staring Jim Caviezel. (he played Christ in "The Passion" and later, a cop in "Person of Interest" on TV.

Sound of Freedon is based on the true story about Tim Ballard, who works in the U.S. Inteligence community to combat Human trafficking in Cental America, and it is intense! 

And the little boy and girl will melt your heart.

(why wouldn't Netflix or Amazon run this film? And why did it take 5 years to get it in the theaters?)

Have a great 4th.  I have had a full week already in one day.

Michael McLeod

Thanks for that Dave.

Props for having the heart to do that and the generosity to share the experience,

I've often found myself on stories that put me in the middle of a black community and I always feel privileged and honored for the opportunity

 I'm sure I've already told my Muhammedi Ali story. Such a gentle spirit.

Celebrate your independence today. And I mean that as an individual. 

NEVER take yourself for granted.NEVER diminish your worth, your potential, in your own eyes, or allow anyone else to do that. 

Mary Margaret Clark (Schultheis)

Happy Independence Day! 
"One flag, one land, one hand, one nation evermore." Oliver Wendell Holmes 

Here is how my 2 year old granddaughter embraces this message 🇺🇸🙂