Started reading Anita Thompson’s “Gonzo Way” A Celebration of Dr. Hunter S. Thompson. It’s a slim 106 pages.

“As I write this it’s been two years since Hunter died.  During the first year, I wrote letters to him every day, trying to make sense of the loss. Because I was terrified to lose contact with him, I’d write about everything I could remember.”

Although I’m only on page 40, I know that I want to hear more from Anita.

Today’s tip for better living: Live like a champion!

NEW YORK (AP) – Brooke Astor left her 83-year-old son a who’s who guest list for her funeral – and a will that pits him against other mourners who have accused him of going for her money while she lived in squalor.

Brooke Astor died Monday at 105 at her Holly Hill country home in Briarcliff Manor, had been planning her funeral since 1979. The service, scheduled for today at 2:30 p.m., is expected to draw an A-list of American celebrities to St. Thomas Church on Manhattan’s Fifth Avenue at 53rd Street.

Names on Astor’s list include Martha Stewart, Harry Belafonte, Renee Fleming, Whoopi Goldberg, Caroline Kennedy Schlossberg, Nancy Reagan and former President George Bush and his wife, Barbara.

Astor died of pneumonia. She is to be buried in Westchester, in Sleepy Hollow Cemetery, near her estate by the Hudson River.

In her will, she wrote the epitaph to be inscribed on her tombstone: “I had a wonderful life.” But as she approached death, the drama involving her family was far from wonderful.

No mention of the funeral home handling the arrangements.

From the Archives:

“Does This Mean You’ll See Me Naked?” by Robert D. Webster, a Funeral Director reflecting on 30 years of “serving the living”.

This book was plucked from the pile of summer reading material because it had the word “Naked” in the title.

Webster’s personal accounts of a 30 year career in funeral service was fascinating. I respect the fact that Mr. Webster is conducting serious business. Hats off to the funeral professionals especially those that take the time to re-live and share those moments.

However, near the end of the book I grew weary of his chastising the media and public for improper use of industry jargon. The book began to feel like a vanity statement and a plea for respect.

Example: “Coffins” versus “Caskets”. According to Mr. Webster “coffin” is an outdated term used by the uninformed and says he can “almost forgive the casket buying consumer for such uninformed terminology” and “media types” should know better.

“Visitation” versus “Wake” Mr. Webster takes himself very seriously. He goes on to admit that:

“Perhaps my thoughts on this subject are much ado about nothing, but I feel that the services I perform daily should be described with the utmost correctness, if for no other reason than respect.”

Highly recommended is “Remember Me”, by Lisa Takeuchi Cullen who liberally uses the “c” word (coffins) and even put one on the cover! Cullen explores the changing world of funeral service from an outsider’s perspective. Remember Me is a winner.

Busy busy in the garden. We’re digging out some old unfinished posts and working them over.

Tim Totten wrote an interesting post on color. We study color here in the garden as well. Last time we checked Blue was still America’s favorite hue.

Regarding funeral service, the color is changing. From darkness to light.

In the urn world, we noticed that the ladies love shades of purple. So we offered a line of purple urns and are one of the few distributors to do so. They sell well! When we expanded our line of pet urns, we wanted to offer stylish urns in blue and purple, so we manufactured an exclusive line, our True Blue and Violet Inspiration. They are one of our top sellers.

If I examine my own purchasing power, I scan the shelves on the health and beauty aisle for the purple packaging of the Aussie hair care products. My gym bag, Nikes, bedspread, hand soap, scissors…..All various shades of purple.

Love it or hate it- the symbolism of the color Purple:

Royalty and Spirituality: Purple is royalty. A mysterious color, purple is associated with both nobility and spirituality. The opposites of hot red and cool blue combine to create this intriguing color.

Nature of Purple: Purple has a special, almost sacred place in nature: lavender, orchid, lilac, and violet flowers are often delicate and considered precious. Because purple is derived from the mixing of a strong warm and strong cool color it has both warm and cool properties. A purple room can boost a child’s imagination or an artist’s creativity.

Too much purple, like blue, could result in moodiness. I read where purple can also symbolize mental illness and violence!

Culture of Purple: The color of mourning for widows in Thailand, purple was the favorite color of Egypt’s Cleopatra. It has been traditionally associated with royalty in many cultures. Purple robes were worn by royalty and people of authority or high rank. The Purple Heart is a U.S. Military decoration given to soldiers wounded in battle.

Brooke Astor, New York City’s unofficial first lady died on Aug. 13 at age 105. She was known as establishing her presence in both the luxury apartments of Fifth Avenue and the tenements of East Harlem, using her inherited millions to help the less fortunate.

Mrs. Astor’s money came from her third husband, Vincent Astor, who was heir to the fortune of John Jacob Astor and who when he died left about $60 million to her personally, and an equal amount for a foundation “for the alleviation of human suffering.” She decided that because most of the fortune had been made in New York, it should be spent in New York, and her grants supported museums and libraries, homes for the elderly, churches and other institutions and programs.

She enjoyed quoting the leading character in Thornton Wilder’s play “The Matchmaker,” saying, “Money is like manure; it’s not worth a thing unless it’s spread around.”

For the past year, the handling of her affairs and her care have been the subject of controversy and court battles, in a sad footnote to her long and storied life.

Over the mantel, there’s a shrine of sorts to the first dog Sam Simon, co-creator of the Simpsons, really fell in love with. Lono was actually part dog, part wolf – and all trouble.

“Here’s the picture of Lono. He’s just torn apart a down pillow. It looks like a snow scene,” Simon says, pointing out a photo of Lono surrounded by feathers.

It got worse. There was the time Lono went to the back yard and tried to bury Sam’s computer. “And I could see the corner of my laptop sticking out of the ground,” he remembers.

Maybe Lono was jealous of the computer.

And there was the time when his other dog Casey got sick, that Sam took Lono to pay his respects to the vet. It was a big mistake.

“I guess the dog nut really is coming out in the conversation, because I wanted him to meet the doctor that saved Casey. That that would be a meaningful experience for him. So you know, he bit the doctor that saved Casey,” Simon remembers.

Like all dogs, good and bad, Lono finally went to heaven. And Sam kept his earthly remains in a pet urn.

“I engraved the urn. And it says ‘Good friend, Bad dog,’” Simon explains.

And Simon is not just any dog nut. This one runs the grandest dog shelter in the country, a five star, six acre spread in Malibu, perhaps the most desirable real estate on the planet. Here, among the waterfalls and the manicured grounds, the Sam Simon Foundation gives stray and abandoned dogs a new lease on life, literally.

“We rescue dogs and we train them to be service dogs, which helps people with disabilities,” he explains.

Source CBS News- 60 Minutes

We’re linkin’ it up to the Granny again for the response from Cecil Sinclair’s partner regarding the High Point Church funeral fiasco.

SAD.

To me personally, I have no problem with the church turning us away. My problem is with the method in which they did it. I happen to know several other members of that church who are also gay, and they had no idea that their church held that opinion on this topic either. If they had told us right away, or even on Tuesday that they were not comfortable with the service, we would have been more than willing to try and come to some sort of compromise, or we could have changed venues.

We were never given that option. Someone in a position of power made the decision to cut us off, and didn’t even have the moral courage to tell us the truth to our faces.

Thanks to Granny for the tip.

Mr. Cecil Sinclair, 46, died Monday. He was a native of Fort Worth, a Navy veteran who served in Desert Storm helping rescuers find downed pilots, and a singer in the Turtle Creek Chorale. He did not belong to a church.

Sinclair’s brother was a member of the Arlington mega church HighPoint.  On Thursday, church officials volunteered to host a memorial service on Thursday, feed 100 guests and create a multimedia presentation of photos from Mr. Sinclair’s life.

HighPoint then reneged on the invitation when it became clear the dead man’s homosexuality would be identified in the service.

“Some of those photos had very strong homosexual images of kissing and hugging,” he said. “My ministry associates were taken aback.”

And then, he said, the family asked to have its own people officiate the service. “We had no control over the format of the memorial,” Mr. Simons said.

After the church decided it would not host the funeral service, it offered to pay for another facility, Mr. Simons said. The family declined and found a local funeral home to hold the event Thursday night.Even so, the church sent over food and the video – minus the images church officials found to be offensive.

The event placed High Point Church in the cross hairs of an issue many conservative Christian organizations are discussing: how to take a hard-line theological position on homosexuality while showing compassion toward gay people and their families.

Full story here. 

We enjoyed fish and coleslaw last night. But don’t feel like fighting….

3 Good Things About Waking at 4:30 AM

1. Strolling before sunrise
2. No siren activity
3. The Sounds of Silence (maybe a dog barking)

And knowing that Gerald Carnahan will go down. In more ways than one. His first court appearance is at 9:00 AM today. We’re sending love signals to the family of Jackie Johns. Bill Johns is 80 years old, Jackie’s mother died two years after the murder. Grief ate her alive.

KY went to the archives and dug out the old video, Jackie’s blood spattered Camaro, and….Leann Gregg. Today, there’s maybe four people in the newsroom that were at the station in the 80’s. That’s pretty good.

This is for the locos. Remember these girls?

Circa 2003.

And those crazy coal miners in Utah. Pray for their safety.

Today’s deep thought:

1600 ft. underground.

Four miles from the exit.

Air quality is good…no methane.

Update: they’ve supposedly drilled through to a pocket where they are supposedly located….. no sounds of life.

Utah is using the room and pillar technique. “It’s the most dangerous type of mining that there is,” said Tony Oppegard, a mining lawyer and former federal mine safety official.

As opposed to using the safer power mining technique, Longwall mining is a method that dislodges such tremendous volume of earth with such force that it causes quake activity.

What happens is after they’ve cleaned out a vein and move through the mountain, pulling supports, set up and start the process all over the mountain can collapse. The ultimate power tool. You can move mountains!

Tip of the hat to Chaplin Don. We love a good dog story!

Canine scout keeps soldiers company in Afghanistan
By Mark St. Clair, Stars and Stripes, Mideast edition, Wednesday, August 8, 2007

His name is Tank, and the U.S. soldiers have no idea where he came from, nor do they care. All they know is that he’s one heck of a scout here in eastern Afghanistan.
Sure, he’s got the standard allotments of unconditional love, dogged loyalty (he is, after all, a dog), and infinite patience. He gives those to the grunts in spades.
All the enemy sees is the feral beast within.

“We’ll be at an observation point, and Tank’ll hang out with us. Every once in a while, he’ll run around the perimeter sniffing and marking his territory. Any time we go on patrol, he’s with us,” said one 173rd Airborne Brigade Combat Team soldier from Task Force Rock. “If he hears anything, he’ll just keep barking. He hates the [enemy].”

It’s tough to tell how old Tank is, with his lopped-off ears and wheezy breathing. Put him next to a team of infantrymen, and it’s anyone’s guess who’s dirtier. His bark-box still works, though — so much so that one company commander told his troops to either have Tank removed from the base or he would “be removed.”

The men got him out on a convoy the next day. Three days later, he showed back up, having walked for miles in the summer heat. As soon as he made it, the soldiers said he fell over from exhaustion.

One paratrooper had given him an unopened water bottle; Tank still managed to get a drink, happy to be with young soldiers who treat him as one of their own.