Good Morning All!
I hope everyone had a great 4th of July celebration yesterday! We had a fun time at Joel & Amy’s home yesterday. Joel prepared some awesome pulled pork and we all enjoyed each other’s company out on the deck. I asked my family members to name their greatest American and the majority said Abraham Lincoln. A good choice, don’t you think?
Speaking of great people, Happy Birthday to our friend and photgrapher extraordinaire, Tyler, who celebrates his birthday to today! Here’s to you! Also, Happy Birthday wishes go to singer/songwriter Huey Lewis of “Huey Lewis & The News” fame, who is 70 today; to former major league pitcher Goose Gossage (do you remember his signature mustache?), who turns 69 today; and to Julie (Nixon) Eisenhower (do you remember her marriage to David Eisenhower, grandson of President Dwight Eisenhower?), who is 72 today. Here’s to all of you, too!
A brief topic of conversation at our family 4th of July gathering was the current embarrassing state of our Presidential politics. Is this really the best that our major political parties (Republican & Democrat) can do…Trump or Biden? What a travesty for our country. I’m still holding out hope that the Republicans and Democrats will come to their senses and nominate different candidates between now and the general election. Not only that, I’m wishing for a strong centrist third-party to emerge and nominate someone that our country can get behind to move us forward. We’re in need of some “fresh blood,” for sure! The current Congressional leadership in both major parties is horrible…it’s time for those folks (McConnell, Schumer, Pelosi & McCarthy) to move on and give some new leaders a chance to see what they can do. We’ve had enough of career politicians, don’t you think? Speaking of that, what do you think?
I saw a great article in the Flathead Beacon the other day entitled “We’re All The Chamber Of Commerce”. Here are some excerpts:
“When you were a kid, at some point you probably receive some advice from a family member who advised you not to do something that would embarrass your family—and especially not your grandma.
Back when I was a Scoutmaster, there was a similar thought process in place. One of the things we’d do during a troop outing was make sure we left a place better than we found it. Normally, that meant picking up trash we found (as well as our own) and hauling it back to the green boxes in town. In some places, we might cut up some downed snags or larger branches to replenish firewood someone had left for the next camper.
For the same reason that we didn’t want to do anything to embarrass grandma, we knew it wasn’t a good idea to embarrass our community…
…You might not care what people think of your actions. Understand that a fair number of your neighbors care about what makes people decide to visit somewhere else instead of here. Most of us know at least a few people whose mortgage depends on tourism dollars, though this isn’t solely about tourism.
These actions can impact how a potential employer feels when they look at our area and evaluate how good a match we are for them. Perhaps they have the intention of building a facility and hiring some local folks for good jobs that don’t necessarily depend on tourism…
…Our reputation among ourselves is much like the roadside campsite trash that doesn’t find its way into the dumpsters by itself. Someone has to pick it up. Our actions work the same way. The actions we take as part of our community make us either better or worse as a whole. Very few are meaningless enough to leave things as they are…
…This applies not only to our behavior around town and elsewhere, but to our school sports teams, our businesses, our employees, our government entities, and many others, including newspaper columnists. Each of us sets the tone that forms the impression the rest of us have as we live our lives here.
All of us are the Chamber of Commerce.”
Mark Riffey, “Business Is Personal: We’re All The Chamber Of Commerce,” Flathead Beacon, June 24, 2020, page 36.
Here’s the funny Police Blotter entry for June 20, 2020, courtesy of the Flathead Beacon newspaper:
“4:21 p.m.: Three suspicious young men were seen carrying heavy cloth bags over their shoulders. They were later spotted at a laundromat.”
Here’s the trivia question for the day:
Q: Which person was presented with a key to the city of Detroit…Saddam Hussein, O.J. Simpson, Osama bin Laden or Adolf Hitler?
A: Saddam Hussein was awarded the key to the city of Detroit in 1980. Saddam’s bond with Detroit started a year earlier when Reverend Jacob Yasso of the Chaldean Sacred Heart Church publicly congratulated Hussein on his presidency. The compliment didn’t go unnoticed. In response, Saddam sent the church $250,000. A year later, Yasso traveled to Baghdad as a guest of the Iraqi government, and was invited to Saddam’s palace. Yasso presented Saddam with the key to the city, courtesy of then-Detroit mayor Coleman A. Young…and now you know!
Here’s the word definition for the day:
Susurrus (soo-sur-us): A mid-19th century Latin word meaning “Whispering, murmuring, or rustling.”
Here’s the thought for the day:
“Out on the hills of glory land, so happy and free at God’s right hand
They tell of a place of marvelous grace…On heaven’s bright shore.
Pilgrims on earth someday will go, to live in that home forever more.
Trusting in Him who died for sin, and rose from the grave.
On heaven’s bright shore…on heaven’s bright shore,
There’s going be no more dyin’…over there.
Not one little grave…not one little grave,
In all that fair land…that wonderful land.
Not even a tear will dim the eye, and no one up there will say goodbye.
Just singing His praise through endless days…on Heaven’s bright shore…
On Heaven’s bright shore.”
—Alison Krauss & Union Station, “Heaven’s Bright Shore”
Here’s to a great Sunday and lots of love & good wishes always!
Press on,
Papa ‘a (Dad, Uncle Mark, Mark, etc.)