Good Morning All on this last day of Summer!
Here’s to my brother, Matt, and his wife, Val, as they are on quite an adventure trekking across northern Spain along the Bay of Biscay. They’ve sent many a beautiful picture back from their travels. Beautiful coastlines, colorful cities & towns and grand countrysides all along the way…I can tell from their pictures that they are having the time of their lives on this adventure together. I’m enjoying living vicariously through their pictures and notes on Facebook.
Happy Birthday to my friend, Joanna in Chicago—wife, mother and children’s Christian education director extraordinaire; and to my friend Mike in Spokane—husband, father, grandfather, spray service & landscaping company owner & church pastor/mentor extraordinaire; who celebrate their birthdays today! Here’s to you two! And here’s to high school friend and classmate, Nelda in Olympia WA, who celebrates her birthday tomorrow!
Prayers are lifted up for my friend Elizabeth in Texas, who is battling a nasty infection; and for my friend Kari in Spokane, who is fighting cancer and an infection. May God give wisdom & discernment to their health care providers and that all goes well for them! These two are bright lights in our world! Prayers are also lifted up for my better half (and a bright light in the world as well!), Judy, who continues to make great progress recovering from her recent hip replacement surgery. She is walking so well on her new hip! Hooray!
Well, last night’s football game between our beloved WSU Cougars and the UCLA Bruins just goes to show that “it ain’t over until it’s over” and boy, did that game prove that adage! Who would have thought that the Cougs would have “Couged it” with a 25 point lead late in the third quarter at home in Pullman, no less! Well…guess what?…they did! It was perhaps the craziest football game I’ve ever seen! Lots of mishaps by the Cougs paved the way for an inspired comeback by the Bruins. I think everybody (Coug fans & Bruins fans) got their money’s worth last night, for sure! There goes dreams of a “final four” appearance in the National Football Championship this year! It’s a wide open race for the Pac-12 championship. The Cougs will have to work on their defense! Here’s to our friends, Pat & Jan in Los Angeles, who I called after they said they were going to bed early because they couldn’t stand watching their beloved Bruins getting annihilated by the Cougars…and they proceeded to get out of bed and watch the rest of the game…and boy, were they rewarded!
Speaking of football, I came across the 1969 Topps Football Card for a placekicker with whom I was very familiar as a kid watching the NFL in the 60s & early 70s….Bruce Gossett who played for the Los Angeles Rams and then the San Francisco 49ers from 1964 to 1974. I always thought he was one of the best placekickers in the NFL at that time. He was born in Canonsburg, Pennsylvania in 1941. He attended Ferrum Junior College in Ferrum, Virginia, a school known to help high school athletes prepare for major college football, under the leadership of legendary coach Hank Norton, a three-time national junior college coach of the year. He played college football at the University of Richmond. While in the NFL, he was in the Pro Bowl twice and scored 100 points in six of his seasons. He was named to the all-NFL team in 1964 & 1966. He scored 1,031 points during his NFL career. While playing for the Rams, he resided in Fountain Valley, Orange County, California, where he was a charter member of the Kiwanis Club chapter there in the mid-1960s. In his 11 year NFL career, he never missed a game, playing in 154 consecutive games. After his football career, he lived in Rancho Murieta, California and managed national advertising for a Bay Area television station. A golf tournament he started, the “Bruce Gossett Celebrity Golf Tournament,” benefited March of Dimes and ran for 14 years. Here’s to Bruce Gossett and the Rams’ and 49ers teams of the 1960s & early 1970s!
I always marvel at the story of Betty Greene, one of the intrepid women pilots during World War II that would ferry war planes across the Atlantic Ocean to Europe from America to aid the war effort. After the war, Betty dedicated her flying skills to work as a missionary pilot in the service Mission Aviation Fellowship (MAF). She was the first woman ever to be granted permission by the Sudanese government to fly over their country. How about that! She devoted much of her flying career to flying in Africa to aid Christian missionary efforts. Here’s to Betty Greene and all the intrepid, pioneering women aviators!
Here are some thoughts for the day:
“I have really enjoyed this wonderful opportunity in relating to you a few of the reasons, though not all of them, why I confess to my perpetual, enduring bond to America and the gracious American people. If asked, I would delight in prescribing a dose of patriotism rather than the prevailing polarization. Whilst professing to the efficacy of protest, I would rather promote amity and empathy rather than apathy and antipathy. As only a few days has lapsed since the 243rd anniversary of he Declaration of Independence, what better time to inculcate the rising youth to that spirit and energy that led to the titanic struggles and sacrifices that the founding generation devoted themselves to, by keeping that famous American dream a continuing work in progress. It seems to me that the only real way for America to be hurt can be by hurting themselves and not fully appreciating where they have come from and where they have arrived at. I confess to being, perhaps too much, at least for an Englishman, head over heels in love with America, but there are way too many who appear, unjustifiably, out of love right now. It is a fitting time to reconnect.”
—Tony Simon (retired British expatriate business), “Head Over Heels In Love With America”, “Address to the “Summer Senate” at the Minnesota State Senate Office Building, July 12, 2019 (a copy of this address was provided to me by my friend Dave Racer of St. Paul MN).
“If you cannot get rid of the family skeleton, you may as well make it dance.”
—George Bernard Shaw, British writer & playwright
“…but those who hope in the Lord will renew their strength. They will soar on wings like eagles; they will run and not grow weary, they will walk and not be faint.”
—Isaiah, Chapter 40, verse 31
Here’s to a great Sunday and lots of love always!
Press on,
Papa ‘a (Dad, Uncle Mark, etc.)