Good Morning All!
Happy Birthday upcoming to our dear friend, Andrea (Andy), college friend and roommate of my “better half” Judy and commercial artist/marketing designer extraordinaire! Here’s to “Unit 23” (her call letters on the McIntosh farm…combine “Unit 23”)! Andy celebrates her birthday tomorrow, April 23rd. Thanks for being a ray of sunshine to all who know & love you!
This past week saw the birthdays of three fellow Olympia High School grads…Dan Lundberg, Tim Tretheway and me! 1955 was a great car model year (who can forget a ’55 Chevy?) and it also produced some great human beings that I’ve had the pleasure of knowing…Dan & Tim! Dan is an accomplished musician (he plays a mean trumpet) and music educator, having served for many years as Band Director at Capital High School in Olympia and of late is the Director of Music for the Olympia School District. He retires this year after a most distinguished career. Here’s to you Dan! My friend Tim Tretheway served with distinction with Mercy Ships for many years and left that ministry a few years ago after having served as First Mate & Ship’s Captain of the Africa Mercy. He now teaches in England, where he, his wife and son make their home. It’s great to share a birthday with these exceptional gentlemen. Here’s to you two!
Speaking of birthdays, I did get a birthday card from my stock broker/financial advisor the other day and it was a hoot…here’s how it goes:
“We’re BULLISH on birthdays!…”Laughter and happiness always produce the best dividends.”
Now that’s pretty clever, don’t you think??
I hope everyone had as great an Easter as our family did! Lots of glorious sunshine and blue skies in Lewiston as we celebrated the best day of the year with family. After the clouds and rain of the previous days, it seemed fitting to have a sunny day to celebrate the Resurrection of the Lord of the Universe. It’s always great to be with Papa Mac & Mama Tosh and enjoy our growing family. It was little Izaak’s (Ike’s) first Easter and he seemed to enjoy his first Easter egg hunt to boot! Isabel (my granddaughter) found the “golden egg” and won $5.00! No Easter dinner is complete without ham and my mom’s burgundy/wine sauce (special recipe)….ummm…gooood! The deviled eggs were delicious as usual. Coming back to Spokane last night on the Palouse Highway, we were treated to a sign along the highway by a trucking company that read “Happy Easter….Jesus Is Alive!”…and so He is! The hope of the world is alive in those who believe in Him in their hearts and minds….reminds me of the song “What a friend we have in Jesus, all our sins and griefs to bear…” Thanks be to a Creator who loves His creation so much that he would give His only Son to die on a cross, descend to Hell and then be risen from the dead, all to be a bridge to cross the divide of sin & death from mankind to their Creator…now, that’s something to ponder…
Speaking of believing in Jesus, I had the privilege of attending the memorial service for a remarkable woman, Mary Sundberg, this past week. She was 98 years old at the time of her death. Mary and her husband, Sunny, lived in Spokane for many years and Mary was instrumental in starting our church’s benevolence fund or what we now refer to as our “Care & Share Ministry” to help folks out with car payments, mortgage payments, food, other necessities when tough times come. It’s been a huge blessing to so many over the years. Mary was born on January 22, 1921 to Harry & Margaret Harwick in Rochester MN. Her father was one of the founding physicians of the Mayo Clinic and the Clinic closed its doors to honor him when he died (it’s my understanding that this is one of the only times the Clinic closed during normal business hours). Mary graduated from Carleton College in Northfield MN and received her Master’s in Social Work (MSW) form the University of Minnesota. She met her husband, Sunny, while he was taking his fellowship at the Mayo Clinic. They were married in April, 1944. Sunny was a Captain in the U.S. Army Medical Corps during World War II, serving in Europe from late 1944 until 1946. After he returned, they lived in Rochester for three years before moving to Spokane in 1949, where Sunny began a medical practice in nephrology (kidney treatment)…as I recall. They lived in Spokane until Sunny’s death in 2008. Both Sunny & Mary were the “best of the best”. Sunny helped get my son, Jake, interested in golf and I credit Jake’s sweet golf swing in part to Sunny’s advice to him during one of the visits to a local driving range when Jake was a small boy. Mary was well versed in so many subjects and could carry on a fascinating conversation no matter what the occasion. Her home was like entering a library…so many books on so many subjects. She gave an effective Christian witness and was an inspiration to so many. We’re missing both of them, for sure…but our loss is Heaven’s gain!
Do any of you have any “pet peeves”? I would imagine that most of us do. Well, I have a couple that come to mind…Have you ever noticed that even with all of the driveways that are available, neighbors like to park their cars on the street creating a maze to navigate when you’re driving down a particular residential street?? It never ceases to amaze me to see so many cars lined up along the street with so many driveways empty of cars…maybe people think they get a head start in the morning if their car is parked on the street or maybe they are so proud of their cars they want everyone to see them…and how about all the trash you see along the roadways and highways? Don’t people have some sort of garbage bag in their cars and wouldn’t it be just as easy to put the trash in the bag instead of out the window? It sure makes things look unsightly as you drive along looking for something pretty to see. There out to be a law against that sort of thing, but wait…I think there is, but how do you enforce that kind of law?? Shouldn’t people be naturally inclined to keeping Creation looking good….but maybe that’s another reason why Jesus did what He did? What do you think???
I’ve been enjoying a couple of books recently…one is “Hollywood Godfather” by Gianni Russo. He played the wife abusing son-in-law in “The Godfather”. I thought I knew the “Most Interesting Man In The World” (the man on the Dos Equis commercials), but if you believe everything Gianni Russo says in his book, you’d have to conclude that he is the most interesting man in the world or the weaver of a series of extremely “tall tales”…everything from being the messenger for the Mafia during its involvement in the JFK assassination to running money from the U.S. to the Vatican as part of a Mafia money laundering operation, to being intimate with Marilyn Monroe and knowing the true details of her death, to killing a member of the Columbian drug cartel and living to tell about it…and the list of fantastic adventures goes on and on. If you want to read an entertaining book with no footnotes and no matter how farfetched the tales, then you’ll want to pick up a copy of this book. After reading this book, I was searching for a word that would describe what I just read and it would have to be the great word from one of my favorite movies, “The Princess Bride”…inconceivable!!!! (But maybe it’s all true!!!…who knows???).
Another book I’ve been enjoying is one from my Dad’s collection of books entitled “Images Of South Sound”. It’s a collection of old photos from life in South Puget Sound and the greater Olympia area, my hometown. Among the gems in the book is a photo of M.E. “Pete” Petersen and his White Holland turkey from the 1940s. After purchasing the Bud Shincke place on Sincke Road and 46th Avenue in 1947, Petersen established a turkey farm which he operated for several years. Pete and his wife, Evelyn (she was a teacher) attended our church in Olympia. They were both dear people and I loved Pete so much. He loved kids and would bring his poultry (chickens, turkeys, etc.) to church for various events…all the kids loved him. His granddaughter, Cheryl, carried on his legacy of loving animals. She and her husband fell in love while visiting our first home in Reno NV. They went on to operate the North American animal exhibit at the San Diego Wild Animal Park. Unfortunately, our lovely friend Cheryl died of breast cancer way too young (there is a memorial plaque for here at the Wild Animal Park). Pete was honored by having the Poultry Barn at the Thurston County Fair named for him. He was active in the Fair Board for many years. Pete was certainly one of the “good guys” in this life.! Here’s to him and to his memory! I also found a picture of the Velodrome (bicycle racing venue) in Olympia that was dated 1900. Come to find out the Velodrome was located a block or two from our house on Governor Stevens near the corner of Capitol Way & Carlyon Ave. that my folks purchased in 1962 or thereabouts. The Velodrome (an inclined race trace made out of wood with a large grandstand for fans/onlookers) hosted many bicycle races and was also the scene of many circuses & fairs around the turn of the 20th century. I didn’t know anything about that until I saw the picture in the book! How about that! If any of you are interested in South Sound/Greater Olympia history, you’ll want to check out this book!
Speaking of interesting reads, I came across the 1969 Topps Football card for Dick Butkus of Chicago Bears fame. He was born in 1942 in Chicago and played for the Bears for all of his NFL career (1965-1973). He was the third overall pick in the 1965 NFL Draft out of the University of Illinois. He was 6 feet, 3 inches tall and weighed 245 lbs., which was a big man for that day & time. He was named college football’s Lineman of the Year in 1964 and was inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame in 1983. In the NFL, he established himself as a ball hawk with his penchant for forcing turnovers. He intercepted 22 passes, recovered 27 fumbles (a record when he retired), and was responsible for causing many more fumbles with his jarring tackles. His tackling ability earned him both admiration and trepidation from opposing players. According to Hall of Fame defensive end Deacon Jones, Butkus “was a well-conditioned animal, and every time he hit you, he tried to put you in the cemetery, not the hospital.” In 2009, the NFL Network name Butkus the most feared tackler of all time. Butkus is credited with having defined the middle linebacker position, and is still viewed as the “gold standard by which other middle linebackers are measured.” He was inducted in to the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 1979 and his No. 51 jersey is retired by the Bears. He came from humble beginnings…he was a large baby, weighing 13 pounds, 6 ounces at birth. His father John, a Lithuanian immigrant to Ellis Island who spoke broken English, was an electrician and worked for the Pullman-Standard railroad company. His mother, Emma, worked 50 hours a week at a laundry. For four years starting at age 15, Butkus worked with his four brothers as a mover. After his NFL career, Butkus became a celebrity endorser, broadcaster and actor. He married his high school sweetheart, Helen Essenberg, in 1963 while they were students at the University of Illinois. After his retirement from football, Butkus moved to Florida, and then to Malibu, California. He remains an avid fan and frequent media image for the Bears. He suffers from football related injuries and, in August, 2001, he underwent quintuple bypass surgery to remove blockages in his arteries. After the surgery, he co-authored a book titled “The OC Cure For Heart Disease” with Lawrence J. Santora, the doctor who performed the procedure. Butkus established The Butkus Foundation, which supports many charitable causes. These include The Dick Butkus Center for Cardiovascular Wellness in Orange County, California which provides a cardiac screening program that uses specialized testing to help identify those at risk of heart disease and sudden cardiac death; and The I Play Clean Campaign which addresses the use of steroids among high school athletes. The campaign educates and encourages high school athletes to train and eat well, without resorting to illegal steroids and performance-enhancing products. Here’s to Dick Butkus!
Here are some thoughts for the day:
“Washington is Hollywood for ugly people.”
—Joe Scarborough, former U.S. Congressman from Florida and co-host of MSNBC’s “Morning Joe”
“The average Hollywood film star’s ambition is to be admired by an American, courted by an Italian, married to an Englishman and have a French boyfriend.”
—Katharine Hepburn, multi Oscar-winning actress
“The Christian is in a different position from other people who are trying to be good. They hope, by being good, to please God if there is one; or—if they think there is not—at least they hope to deserve approval from good men. But the Christian thinks any good he does comes from the Christ-life inside him. He does not think God will love us because we are good, but that God will make us good because He loves us; just as the roof of a greenhouse does not attract the sun because it is bright, but becomes bright because the sun shines on it.”
—C.S. Lewis, “Mere Christianity”, as quoted in “C.S. Lewis’ Little Book Of Wisdom: Meditations on Faith, Life, Love, and Literature (2018)
Here’s to a great Monday and lots of love always,
Papa ‘a (Dad, Uncle Mark, etc.)