The large campus of students gathered on Thursday at a university of Utah. Numbers were estimated around 1,000+ and they were exciting to see Charlie Kirk. All over the world, people are mourning his assassination.
What can I say about Kirk? He was not afraid of truth.
He was tremendous. He was an honest, factual, open and helpful. Kirk traveled from campuses and around America, sharing his faith and belief to studentd were welcomed to talk to them, ask questions, express their thought and opinions.
Charlie Kirk asked questions and answered them with his wealth learned through his Relationship with God. He was a warrior for Christ. Hard to describe but he was bold, unafraid, and knowledgeable.
But, guessing from the reactions from liberal politicians, he rubbed them the wrong way. He didn't take their criticisms or nasty insinuations seriously He answered their questions, and many walked away thinking about the answers.
All over the world countries are holding commemorating Charlie Kirk. He is with God, and God's plan set this all in motion. There will be many people who come to these to celebrate his life and salvation.
Bob gasped, gaping at
his computer and at the dreaded blue screen. What the heck?!
His second thoughts were, Oh no!
My dashboard, my blogs!
The previous re-bootings
and warnings had seemed inconsequential at the time. Then, blue screen
panic appeared to be more TV and its tendency toward sensationalism than
truth.
All the bloggers' mayhem
and panic about the hackers who called themselves “the Atomic Crashers”
had finally hit his precious computer. Damn
them!
Humbled, Bob considered
the options. Being non-denominational
when it came to tech repair stores, he tossed a coin: Heads—Best Buy. Tails—Staples.
Every Wednesday, Delores at Under the Porch Light provided
bloggers with six challenging words with which to create a short story,
poem, prose, or whatever. The underlined words above were August Wednesday week's
challenge. Let me just say, these were not easy.
Delores handed the baton over to other bloggers. The Wed. Words are a challenge now continued by:
For as long as man has lived along the California coast, cliffs have risen high over the sandy beaches, age old cliffs. Now, out on the waves, surfers swim out and surfed in while beaches were busy with families, sand castles, and swimmers. It is the typical California heaven, of which the Beach Boys sang.
Meanwhile the cliffs became a place for the wealthy to perch their mansions. It was a primo place, highly desired.
Decades ago grains of sands that drifted from the cliffs to beach became hunks of sandstone. Bit by bit, the crumbling began. While the cliffs were disintegrating, the El Nino effect hit the beaches hard, worldwide. The cliffs crumbled at an accelerated rate, from the beach up, the cliffs down where they would meet.
At that time, Dept of California Beaches mandated that beach goers are required to be a distance away from the cliffs. These areas are marked and give warnings. Beach goers are careless and ignore signs. That is why 3 were killed and several injured just ten days ago. Nature happens and extracts its toll.
Large ocean storms have pounded the shores. High waves carved out the base of the sand cliffs, forming shallow deep caves. The caves collapse and rockslides happen. This is a tragedy that has happened seven or eight times a year.
Cliffs do not obey the money of the rich. Slowly, the cliffs fell until edges were eight feet from the patios, then six feet. The rich owners paid big bucks to prop the whole mess up with steel, concrete, and pilings. But time is time, and they know it.
Well, dang it! All those pre-emptive strikes of hoisting up the houses has failed, failed miserably. The rich homes came tumbling down as the caves collapsed. Many still remain but are on precarious footing.
Those who build their houses on shifting sand? It doesn't make sense, and people do not possess common sense. For the ground bound, who would ignore warning signs and settle onto the shade of the cliffs? From those people who also lacked common sense, some lounged, looking up to the sky and out to the ocean, not thinking the cliffs behind them were crumbling, grain by grain. Why this subject erupted is that we went on a bus tour of Malibu yesterday. Off, high up on the cliffs, we could peer at the underside of patios, held in place by timber and steel. Shifting sand.
January 13, 1982 was the day when an Air Florida plane crashed into the frozen Potomac River on the edge of Washington D.C. The water was 31 degrees F., one degree below freezing. Massive ice flows and slushy water paralyzed most of the passengers, resulting in a loss of 74 passenger lives. Four other people on the overhanging bridge also were killed.
Six people were still alive and clinging to the tail section of the plane, the only part above water.
Six people, but only five were rescued. One man, Arland D. Williams, Jr., age 46, did not survive.
Why not? Each time the life line with a float was lowered, Mr. Williams passed the ring onto someone else. He swam to one woman whose arms could no longer hold onto the ring and secured her in the device.
Five times Arland Williams, Jr., passed the ring to other passengers, helping them to be pulled to safety. When the ring was lowered a sixth time, Mr. Williams had disappeared into the icy water.
Back in 1983, my husband John and I went on “Date Night” to see a movie, called “Terms of Endearment”. Not knowing much about the film except its strong acting cast, we thought it would be excellent. Which it was, of course; it won best film, best actress, best supporting actress, and maybe best director.
Shirley MacLaine plays a strong-willed, vain mother whose daughter, played by Debra Winger, develops cancer. Ms. MacLaine is helped through this horrific experience by her neighbor, played by Jack Nicholson. Mr. Nicholson plays a former astronaut, who is thrown into helping this family during this heart-wrenching time. Jeff Daniels plays Debra's unfaithful, but likable husband.
Heart-wrenching, sobbing-tears, and nose-blowing. That is what half the theater was doing during the entire movie, once Ms. Winger’s character goes into the hospital. Oh, I was probably the noisiest and most prolific when it came to the sobbing and blowing. All my tissue, which was an ample supply, disappeared into a sodden mess in the empty popcorn container.
Half the theater, did I say? Yes, all the women in the theater were crying buckets of tears. The men? A few of them had moist eyes, discreetly wiped; my husband was one of them.
During the biggest scene of all, when Ms. Winger’s character is in the last moments of breathing, and silence reigned in the dark theater, there was a sound. It cut through the air like a buzz-saw in a timbered forest.
ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZzzzzzzzzzzzzzz…snort, snark, and hiss…zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz
The source of the sound was behind me, and I turned to see a man in his 50s. He was completely asleep, head thrown back, mouth open, and arms crossed. The buzz-saw sound was erupting from his slack mouth. His wife saw me watching him, along with every woman in a twenty foot radius. She gave him an elbowing that must have bruised straight to the ribs. He jumped up, saying, “What? What? Where?”
As Ms. MacLaine welcomed the grandchildren into her home, and we were supposed to be prostrate on the movie floor, sobbing with grief among sticky popcorn, we instead were busting with laughter.
I guess every tragedy needs some comedy. A big THANKS goes to the A-Z Blog Team! Check out the link below: http://tossingitout.blogspot.com
