Edith Head must be turning over in her grave, or a lookback at the royal wedding

Now that the big event is history, check out this Royal Wedding Fashion Report Card (19 photos in all) put together by the folks at Yahoo.

Included are the good (Kate Middleton, Pippa Middleton, Tara Palmer-Tomkinson), the bad (Princesses Beatrice and Eugenie), the bland (Duchess of Cornwall), and the downright ugly (HRH Princess Anne, who, in my opinion, looked like a charwoman gussied up for a day at the racetrack).

The peacocks were out in full regalia as well. The British are always top-notch at pomp and circumstance, but among the men this much spit, polish, brass, and military froufrou has not been seen in one location since the Battle of Trafalgar.

This has been another non-controversial post by rhymeswithplague.

We few, we happy few.

The nuptial day of the new Duke and Duchess of Cambridge is apparently an even happier occasion than we thought. Either that or the groom’s family arrived already sloshed.

In what is surely a stroke of journalistic brilliance, at the exact moment when the next Prince of Wales was saying, “I, William Arthur Philip Louis, take thee, Catherine Elizabeth,” and the eyes and attention of the entire civilized world were fixed on the happy couple, our roving reporter today turned and pointed his camera at another part of Westminster Abbey and managed to capture the reaction of his grandmother, father, and stepmother.

The late Queen Victoria, however, the great-great-great-great-grandmother of the groom, in an attempt to maintain a modicum of royal decorum, issued a statement from beyond the grave through her publicist, saying, “We are not amused.” This is hardly surprising, as she died in 1901 and thus is unable to grasp fully the complexities and nuances of maintaining the monarchy in the twenty-first century.

Sharp-eyed viewers will note that although Her Majesty and the Prince of Wales sat upon exquisite Royal Blue Portable Wicker Thrones created especially for the occasion by Thrones ’R’ Us, the Duchess of Cornwall was relegated to a Royal Aluminum Lawn Chair. The Duke of Edinburgh, typically, was nowhere in sight. Perhaps he slipped away to find more bubbly.

Quote of the day (Easter Sunday)

St. Paul wrote the words, but click on them and you will hear the Mormon Tabernacle Choir* sing them with a little help from Handel:

For since by man came death, by man came also the resurrection of the dead. For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive.
..............................................................-- I Corinthians 15 : 21-22

* P.S. -- I am not a Mormon or a fan of their doctrines, but I know great music when I hear it. -- RWP

Died He for me, who caused His pain?

This painting, known as both Cristo de San Plácido and Cristo crucificado, was painted in 1632 by the Spanish painter Diego Velázquez (1599 - 1660). The original, done in oil on canvas, measures 248 by 169 cm (67 inches by 98 inches) and hangs in the Museo del Prado in Madrid.

The computer image above is too small to see Velázquez’s painting well. Click on it, then click on the next image also, and examine it in greater detail.

It is a fitting way to spend some of your time on this Good Friday.

[P.S. -- It is probably an indication of my great sin and depravity that although I looked at the enlarged painting for a long time yesterday and thought, “How horrible, how painful” I looked at it again this morning and thought, “It really doesn’t look so bad.” Of course, we moderns have the entertainment media to thank for that. We have all been desensitized by such television programs as NCIS and CSI: Miami and Law and Order SVU (for Special Victims Unit and which my wife keeps referring to as Law and Order SUV). Even though our culture now turns to blood and guts and gore and violence for relaxation, I think the version of the crucifixion presented in Mel Gibson’s The Passion is probably much more likely to resemble what actually happened than the stylized, almost antiseptic by comparison, portrayal in the Velásquez painting. --RWP, 4/22/2011]

Happy 175th anniversary of the Battle of San Jacinto!

If you’re saying, “The battle of whaat??” then read this.

Two years ago today -- on the 173rd anniversary of the Battle of San Jacinto -- I wrote a post entitled “Rules to live by: (1) Always post a sentry during the afternoon siesta; (2) Choose your underwear very carefully” that is also about the Battle of San Jacinto. You can read it here.

Texan to the end (though not a native -- I was transplanted there at the age of six from Rhode Island and left for Florida when I was 20), I cannot resist letting you know that the San Jacinto Monument near Houston is 55 feet taller than the Washington Monument in Washington, D.C.

I reckon I done done my duty as a Texan, and I’m glad. I’m also glad I never learned to talk the way my classmates did.

[P.S. -- I once heard actress Betty White, who has lived in California most of her life and is an actual graduate of Beverly Hills High School, say “San Hah-cheen-toh” on television. While this is the correct way to pronounce it in Spanish, Texans don’t say it in Spanish. They say it in Texan: “Sanja Sinta” it is, now and forever, world (or at least the Lone Star State) without end, Amen. --RWP]

From the archives (April 18, 2009): Listen, my children, and you shall hear...

...Of the midnight ride of Paul Revere
On the eighteenth of April in Seventy-Five,
Hardly a man is now alive
Who remembers that famous day and year...

One if by land, and two if by sea,
And I on the opposite shore will be,
Ready to ride and spread the alarm
Through every Middlesex village and farm...

You can read the entire poem by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow here.


Seventy-Five, of course, refers to neither 1975 nor 1875, but 1775. This statue of Paul Revere stands in Boston, Massachusetts. If you look closely, you can see in the background the spire of the Old North Church, which played a prominent role in the famous midnight ride of April 18-19, 1775.

[end of 2009 post]

When I was still employed, I always greeted people in my little corner of corporate America with “Happy Paul Revere’s Ride Day” (April 18) or “Happy St. Swithin’s Day” (July 15) or “Happy Texas Independence Day” (March 2) or “Happy Bastille Day” (July 14) or whatever was appropriate for the day. It drove everyone absolutely bonkers.

Mission accomplished.

My memory may be a bit fuzzy

Here, in my opinion, is one of the most beautiful houses in America.
It is (or was) the residence of Franklin D. and Eleanor Roosevelt in Hyde Park, New York, where they lived for many years before moving to the state house in Albany and later to the White House in Washington. After Franklin died in April 1945, it was to this house that Eleanor Roosevelt returned to spend the rest of her days, leaving it only on those rare occasions when she needed to sit with the U.S. delegation to the United Nations or make television commercials for margarine. I remember one that began with her saying, “When you think about the starving people of the world...” and until she said that I hadn’t thought about the starving people of the world at all.


From 1965 until 1968 we lived just a few miles away from Hyde Park in Poughkeepsie, New York. Here are my two oldest children and their two cousins from Florida sitting on the front steps of FDR’s home. My older son is on the left and my younger son is on the right. In the middle are their cousins. From left to right, these four individuals are now 46-1/2, 46-1/2, 45 (today is his birthday), and 45 (his birthday was a couple of months ago), respectively.

Here is a slightly closer view, and a little more off-center.

The fuzziness, of course, is in my cell phone, not in my memory. I used my cell phone to take photos of a snapshot, and you see the result. The dadblamed phone simply would not focus. Actually, you now know how I see everything when I’m not wearing my glasses.

Here is how I see things when I am wearing my glasses:

This is not my children and their cousins from Florida. This is Jethro, my dog. I do not know if his memory is a bit fuzzy, but everything else is.

She’ll be comin’ ’round the bok choy when she comes

Today’s post is short, but you won’t forget it.

When Katherine DeChevalle down in New Zealand isn’t painting one of her incredible canvases, she finds incredible videos of things you wouldn’t believe exist if you didn’t see them with your own eyes.

Here’s one.

----------------------------------------------------------------------
P.S. -- The title of this post is my feeble attempt at humor by substituting a Chinese vegetable in the title of one of the first songs children in the U.S. learned in days gone by. I don’t know whether they learn it any more. It was sung around camp fires, at kids’ parties, and in schools. I have no information on its origins, although it sounds like it could have been a fiddle and banjo dance tune in our rural areas at one time.

She’ll be comin’ ’round the mountain when she comes.
She’ll be comin’ ’round the mountain when she comes.
She’ll be comin’ ’round the mountain,
She’ll be comin’ ’round the mountain'
She’ll be comin’ ’round the mountain when she comes.

She’ll be drivin’ six white horses when she comes, etc.

And we’ll all go out to meet her when she comes, etc.

And we’ll all have chicken and dumplings when she comes, etc.

Ever the teacher, I remain,
RWP

I forgot to mention...

Carolina in Nederland and Jinksy in England and Silverback (ditto) and Daphne (ditto) and Helsie in Australia and Vonda on her Little Egg Farm in Oregon and Richie in Arkansas and so many others, like Mimi Foxmorton (The Goat Borrower) and bARE-eYED-sUN and kreatifitas kehudipan (whose language I have yet to determine) and Дарья Анаськина (Daria Anaskina, who uses the Cyrillic alphabet because she is Russian and lives in Russia) and Brian (an Englishman transplanted to Catalonia in Spain) and....

If you don't care to learn about my followers (some are not followers but they are regular readers), do yourself a favor and click on the little thumbnail photographs of your followers sometime. Reading their blogs can be downright fascinating.

If you build it, they will come...

I see by the old clock on the wall that Feedjit thingy in the sidebar that my audience is growing by leaps and bounds, relatively speaking.

Whereas a little over a week ago the 50th-most-recent visitor had been sucked into the vortex arrived 34 hours earlier, today the 50th-most-recent visitor (the last time I checked, which was a couple of minutes ago) was caught in my web arrived a mere 17 hours ago.

Also, there are now 58 people and a dog named Baron following my blog, up from 42 and no dog a few months back. Of course, this number pales into insignificance when compared with Grumpy Old Ken (who had 1078 followers at last count) and The Pioneer Woman (Ree Drummond) (who must have millions) but I’m okay with that. We few, we happy few, will muddle on walk confidently together into whatever awaits us in the future.

Also, I am gratified that our little group gets along so well. No mass murders have occurred yet and no policemen have come knocking at the door in the middle of the night to tell me that you have been arrested for public intoxication lewd and lascivious conduct inciting a riot some minor infraction and are being held in the local hoosegow until I can get down there and post your bail. Of course, Yorkshire Pudding is off teaching school in Thailand for a few months, so that helps keeps things calm and collected around here. Putz still insults me occasionally, but only in the comments section of his own blog, so I thank God for small favors. Pat in Arkansas has vacated the premises temporarily to travel with her daughter. Snowbrush is in the hospital having surgery on his shoulder. Katherine in New Zealand is probably trying to transfer the colors of autumn onto a canvas before the light fades.

We do have an occasional defector to what must be greener pastures, but, hey, water seeks its own level. My high-school science teacher, Mr. Noble Steelman, told us so. My vocational agricultural teacher, Mr. Ben Barber, told us that cream rises to the top, but other than providing links to Grumpy Old Ken and The Pioneer Woman (Ree Drummond) I don’t know how to work that fact into this post.

And then there’s you. My peeps. The quiet backbone of all things bright and beautiful. The silent majority. The ones who know it’s better to keep your mouth shut and be thought a fool than to open it and remove all doubt.

I never learned to do that.

We Bring A Program

In Fort Worth, Texas, television station WBAP-TV (We Bring A Program) went on the air around 1948, and before much time had elapsed our family owned a television set. We didn’t have an indoor toilet or hot and cold running water, but we had a television set.
I’m so glad my Dad had his priorities straight.

Since I seem to be lost in the fifties lately, here are some vintage clips of a few sketches from Your Show of Shows, that wonderful program with Sid Caesar, Imogene Coca, Carl Reiner (the creator of The Dick Van Dyke Show and co-creator (along with his wife, Estelle, the
Older Woman Customer in When Harry Met Sally who uttered the line, “I’ll have what she’s having,”) of Meathead Michael Stivic actor/director Rob Reiner), Howard Morris (who later played Ernest T. Bass on The Andy Griffith Show and whom I saw onstage with Patrice Munsel in Naughty Marietta at the State Fair Musicals in Dallas one year; I also saw Kay Armen as Bloody Mary in South Pacific, but that is another post), and, yes, even an opera singer, Marguerite Piazza. Your Show of Shows lasted from 1950 until 1954.

“This Is Your Story” (10:56) (a spoof of This Is Your Life)

“The 1812 Overture” (1:11)

“The Clock” (7:11)

“The 3 Haircuts” (5:33)

If you’re not old enough to remember this loony gang that came into our homes every Saturday night for 90 minutes, you missed a lot of happy times.

Most of all, I remember Mama...

On April 10, 1910 -- one hundred and one years ago yesterday -- my mother was born in the borough of Jenkintown in Montgomery County, Pennsylvania, a suburb of Philadelphia. Thirty-one years after that, she gave birth to me, and sixteen years after that, on October 4, 1957, she died.

One of the things our family did every week from 1949 until 1957 was gather around our little Philco television set (12-inch screen, three channels, black-and-white pictures only) on Friday nights and watch a program called Mama. Please do not confuse it with Mama’s Family starring Vicki Lawrence, which didn’t come along until decades later. (It would be difficult to confuse the two programs; they could not have been more different.)

Mama starred actress Peggy Wood, who probably is remembered chiefly nowadays for her role as the Mother Abbess who sang “Climb Every Mountain” in the 1965 film The Sound of Music. The television program Mama was based on a 1944 play by John Van Druten called I Remember Mama that ran for 713 performances in New York and included Marlon Brando in a supporting role in his Broadway debut. The play, which was made into a 1948 film starring Irene Dunne and a very young Barbara Bel Geddes, had been based on a book called Mama’s Bank Account by Kathryn Forbes.

This particular Mama’s family lived in a Norwegian-immigrant community in San Francisco around 1910. There was “little sister Dagmar” and “big brother Nels” (played by the then very young Dick Van Patten who later played the father in the TV series Eight Is Enough) and, of course, “Papa” (played by Judson Laird). But most of all, most of all when Kathryn (the narrator) would think back to those days so long ago, most of all, she remembered Mama.

Mama was one of my mother’s favorite television programs, and it became one of mine. Television was different in those days before Dancing With The Stars and American Idol and Desperate Housewives and Celebrity Apprentice, not to mention all the stuff available on cable and satellite. Mama seems quaint today, almost like local community theater, and nothing at all like what today’s audiences crave. In spite of the many inventions and improvements and medical advances that have taken place, I think that our society as a whole and the individual family in particular are not better off as a result of the changes in what passes for entertainment.

In 1957 the days were simpler, quieter. Mama didn’t have a laugh track or a studio audience or even very many commercials. In fact, in the entire half-hour programs there were only two commercials, one at the beginning and one at the end. The days depicted, those even-earlier days of 1910, were quieter still, simpler still. And they were something else, too. They were sweeter.

Below is an early episode of Mama from 1950. Although the children are all quite Americanized, the adults speak with Norwegian accents (“Make yourself at home, Yenny; I’ll be with you in a yiffy”). No one was more surprised than I to hear Peggy Wood speak without that accent in The Sound Of Music. It ranks right up there with my surprise at discovering that Jean Stapleton’s natural voice is a whole octave lower than the voice she used in her role as Edith Bunker on All in the Family.

I realize that there is no fool like an old fool, but cut me a little slack during my mother's birthday week and let us all now hearken back to the days of 1910 as seen through the eyes of 1950. Let us all say a prayer for what has happened to our society.

And even if she is nothing at all like your own mother or mine (although I’ll bet she may resemble her more than you suspect), let us all remember Mama (28:55).

Spring has sprung

So once again Holland has fields of tulips:

and Puyallup, Washington, has fields of daffodils:

(Photo by The Frugal Fraulein)

and Victoria, British Columbia, Canada, has the always lovely Butchart Gardens:

and Atlanta, Georgia, has dogwoods and azaleas in profusion:

but what Canton, Georgia, has outshines them all!

Canton, Georgia, has . . . (drum roll, please!) . . .

Rhymeswithplague Gardens:

I know. It’s pitiful, isn’t it?

But there’s a story behind this splendor, or lack thereof. About seven years ago, a neighbor gave us a handful of tulip bulbs in October.
I made a little flower bed and planted them. The following spring a nice little row of tulips gave us their all. They bloomed their guts out.

And what thanks did they get? Benign neglect is too good a term for what happened next. I let things go completely. I forgot about the tulips. Eventually grass invaded the flower bed and took over.

We never saw another tulip. Each year a few leaves would pop up through the grass to remind us of what could be if we only paid some attention and helped things along, but not one single flower ever appeared again.

Until now. After six long years, these two guys showed up. I consider them a tribute to the dogged determination of things horticultural.
I have no intention of cutting them and putting them indoors in a vase, though. I want them to live their entire lives planted in terra firma.

I have named my new friends Pinky and Lee.

Speaking of which, here (if you can stand it) is a whole episode of The Pinky Lee Show (28:09) from 1954.

And the crowd goes wild!

My 15-year-old grandson, quite an athlete, has been a basketball star since he was six (can you say three-pointers? wicked hook shot? six-foot-one and still growing?) and a football star since he was 11 (can you say pass interceptions? team captain? crutches?). A year ago he began playing baseball also. This spring, as a ninth-grader, he earned a spot on his high school’s JV (Junior Varsity) team.

Last Saturday, he hit his first home run ever and his team’s first home run of the season in the last inning of the first game of a double-header on a sunny but very windy afternoon! And he was credited with two RBIs to boot! Unfortunately, his team still lost 9-5, but it sure was exciting there for a minute or two!

He’s a lefty and the ball cleared the right field fence, at least 308 feet away according to the big sign in the corner. His little brother was quite impressed when I told him that was longer than a football field. Encouraged by a whisper from another player’s mom, little brother darted away and returned a few minutes later with the trophy ball for big brother’s room, making the moment even more special for Mom, Dad, and Grandpa.

This isn’t my grandson. It’s some other fellow. But he better watch out.

(2006 photo by Kevin Rushforth)

It’s been a quiet week in Lake Rhymeswithplague, my hometown...

Not.

This may bore you to tears (I hope it doesn’t, of course), but I am fascinated by the little Feedjit Live Traffic Feed Thingy over there in the sidebar. When you click I click one clicks on the words “Real-time view” you can I can one can see the 50 most recent visitors to your blog my blog one’s blog.

I don’t know what else you or one can see, but here’s what I can see:

I can see that I am not exactly overrun with visitors (50 in the last 36 hours), but I am pleased nevertheless. I can see the beautiful flags (vexillologists of the world, unite!) of my visitors’ homelands -- United States, Portugal, Spain, Tanzania, Finland, Argentina, Brazil, Canada, United Kingdom, France, Netherlands (is that you, Carolina?), Germany, Ireland, Saudi Arabia, Algeria, Australia, Indonesia, and India. Wow, 18 countries in 36 hours! Pretty good, huh? I can see my friend Pat in there (Cabot, Arkansas) and my friend Putz (Manti, Utah). And because the flags of New Zealand and Thailand are absent, I can see that neither my friend Katherine DeChevalle (not her real name) nor my friend Yorkshire Pudding (not his real name, either) dropped in during the past 36 hours.

Below are the facts, just the facts, ma’am or sir, as they were at the time I put this post together* except that I have replaced Feedjit’s beautiful flags with the bracketed names of the countries they represent. I started with the most recent visitor and worked backward in time to the 50th name on the list.

If I examine the entries a little more closely, I can see that some people are interested in Flannery O’Connor and her peacocks, some people want to quaff (oh, quaff) Edgar Allan Poe’s kind nepenthe, some people want to welcome sweet Springtime and greet her with song, some people want to sing a song of sixpence in Malaysian, and some people just want to A B C D goldfish.

Which leads me to the thing I can see that is the most important conclusion of all:

I can see that people are pretty much the same everywhere, and that we are much more alike than we are different, national boundaries notwithstanding.

...and that’s the news from Lake Rhymeswithplague, where all the women are gorgeous, all the men keep their noses to the grindstone, and all the children have left the nest to start families of their own.

*I composed this post on March 31, 2011, but I decided to delay it and published the post about Lorraine Gallucci first. --RWP


The List

1. [United States] Canton, Georgia arrived on "rhymeswithplague". 08:37:08 -- 10 minutes ago

2 [Portugal] Viseu arrived from blogger.com on "rhymeswithplague". 08:13:19 -- 34 minutes ago

3. [Spain] Vigo, Galicia arrived from blogger.com on "rhymeswithplague". 06:25:23 -- 2 hours 22 mins ago

4. [Tanzania] Arusha arrived from blogger.com on "rhymeswithplague". 05:33:55 -- 3 hours 13 mins ago

5. [Finland] Rauma, Western Finland arrived from blogger.com on "rhymeswithplague". 03:46:35 -- 5 hours ago

6. [Argentina] San Isidro, Buenos Aires arrived from google.com.ar on "rhymeswithplague: And now, for a complete change of pace, here’s...". 01:56:59 -- 6 hours 50 mins ago

7. [Brazil] São Leopoldo, Rio Grande do Sul arrived from blogger.com on "rhymeswithplague". 00:30:45 -- 8 hours 16 mins ago

8. [United States] Bristol, Connecticut arrived from bing.com on "rhymeswithplague: And now, for a complete change of pace, here’s..." by searching for alfalfa. 23:23:33 -- 9 hours 23 mins ago

9. [United States] Hillsville, Virginia arrived from google.com on "rhymeswithplague: “Quaff, oh quaff this kind nepenthe”" by searching for quaff oh quaff this kind nepenthe. 23:12:58 -- 9 hours 34 mins ago

10. [United States] Lancaster, South Carolina left via blogger.com from "rhymeswithplague" 22:32:11 -- 10 hours 15 mins ago

11. [United States] Lancaster, South Carolina arrived from blogger.com on "rhymeswithplague". 22:29:53 -- 10 hours 17 mins ago

12. [United States] Kennesaw, Georgia arrived on "rhymeswithplague". 21:34:45 -- 11 hours 12 mins ago

13. [Canada] Castlegar, British Columbia arrived from blogger.com on "rhymeswithplague". 20:00:06 -- 12 hours 47 mins ago

14. [United States] Cabot, Arkansas arrived on "rhymeswithplague".
19:13:24 -- 13 hours 34 mins ago

15. [Canada] Windsor, Ontario arrived from google.ca on "rhymeswithplague: March 2009". 18:38:03 -- 14 hours 9 mins ago

16. [United Kingdom] United Kingdom arrived from blogger.com on "rhymeswithplague". 18:03:52 -- 14 hours 43 mins ago

17. [France] Paris, Ile-de-France arrived from google.com on "rhymeswithplague: February 2010" by searching for sing a song of sixpence lagu tiga kupang. 17:45:01 -- 15 hours 2 mins ago

18. [Netherlands] Voorthuizen, Gelderland arrived from blogger.com on "rhymeswithplague". 17:35:22 -- 15 hours 12 mins ago

19. [Canada] Waterloo, Ontario arrived from blogger.com on "rhymeswithplague". 16:50:32 -- 15 hours 56 mins ago

20. [Germany] Berlin arrived from google.de on "rhymeswithplague: March 2009". 16:22:31 -- 16 hours 24 mins ago

21. [United States] Oceanside, California arrived from google.com on "rhymeswithplague: Leaf by Niggle" by searching for leaf by niggle blogspot. 15:30:45 -- 17 hours 16 mins ago

22. [United States] Manti, Utah arrived from blogger.com on "rhymeswithplague". 15:02:40 -- 17 hours 44 mins ago

23. [United States] Elizabeth City, North Carolina left via youtube.com from "rhymeswithplague: Welcome, sweet Springtime, we greet thee in song!" 14:10:10 -- 18 hours 37 mins ago

24. [United States] Elizabeth City, North Carolina arrived from bing.com on "rhymeswithplague: Welcome, sweet Springtime, we greet thee in song!" by searching for Welcome Sweet Springtime Song. 14:09:31 -- 18 hours 37 mins ago

25. [Ireland] Dublin arrived from blogger.com on "rhymeswithplague". 13:37:54 -- 19 hours 9 mins ago

26. [Argentina] Buenos Aires, Distrito Federal arrived from blogger.com on "rhymeswithplague". 13:19:45 -- 19 hours 27 mins ago

27. [United States] Conyers, Georgia arrived from google.com on "rhymeswithplague: Who’s your Daddy, er, Representative?". 12:50:23 -- 19 hours 57 mins ago

28. [United States] United States arrived from google.com on "rhymeswithplague: A B C D goldfish? L M N O goldfish! O S A R...C M?" by searching for abcd birds l,mno. 12:25:01 -- 20 hours 22 mins ago

29. [United States] Channelview, Texas arrived on "rhymeswithplague: Who’s your Daddy, er, Representative?". 11:39:30 -- 21 hours 7 mins ago

30. [United States] Fayetteville, North Carolina arrived from google.com on "rhymeswithplague: What’s your sign?" by searching for what is your sign if your birthday is Sept 28, 2011?. 10:45:12 -- 22 hours 2 mins ago

31. [United States] Cave Spring, Georgia arrived on "rhymeswithplague: Who’s your Daddy, er, Representative?". 10:38:47 -- 22 hours 8 mins ago

32. [Saudi Arabia] Riyadh, Ar Riyad arrived from blogger.com on "rhymeswithplague". 10:28:45 -- 22 hours 18 mins ago

33. [United States] Canton, Georgia arrived on "rhymeswithplague". 10:28:16 -- 22 hours 19 mins ago

34. [United States] Manti, Utah arrived from blogger.com on "rhymeswithplague". 10:15:23 -- 22 hours 32 mins ago

35. [Algeria] Algiers, Alger arrived from blogger.com on "rhymeswithplague". 10:09:11 -- 22 hours 38 mins ago

36. [United States] Budd Lake, New Jersey left via youtube.com from "rhymeswithplague: Welcome, sweet Springtime, we greet thee in song!" 09:46:28 -- 23 hours ago

37. [United States] Hempstead, New York arrived from google.com on "rhymeswithplague: Flannery O'Connor writes of peacocks" by searching for Flannery O'Connor peacock quotes. 09:33:00 -- 23 hours 14 mins ago

38. [United Kingdom] Ely, Cambridgeshire arrived from blogger.com on "rhymeswithplague". 09:32:40 -- 23 hours 14 mins ago

39. [United States] Budd Lake, New Jersey arrived from google.com on "rhymeswithplague: Welcome, sweet Springtime, we greet thee in song!" by searching for "Welcome, Sweet Springtime, we greet thee in song". 09:28:20 -- 23 hours 19 mins ago

40. [United States] Canton, Georgia arrived on "rhymeswithplague". 08:59:18 -- 23 hours 48 mins ago

41. [Australia] Sydney, New South Wales arrived from google.com.au on "rhymeswithplague". 08:15:00 -- 1 day ago

42. [Indonesia] Indonesia arrived from blogger.com on "rhymeswithplague". 08:13:22 -- 1 day ago

43. [United States] Johnson City, Tennessee arrived from google.com on "rhymeswithplague: Flannery O'Connor writes of peacocks" by searching for peacocks flannery o'connor. 06:23:25 -- 1 day 2 hours ago

44. [United States] North Las Vegas, Nevada arrived from bing.com on "rhymeswithplague: And now, for a complete change of pace, here’s..." by searching for alfalfa. 02:37:48 -- 1 day 6 hours ago

45. [India] Hyderabad, Andhra Pradesh arrived from google.co.in on "rhymeswithplague: A B C D goldfish? L M N O goldfish! O S A R...C M?" by searching for show me curcive abcd. 02:30:33 -- 1 day 6 hours ago

46. [Brazil] Macarani, Bahia arrived from blogger.com on "rhymeswithplague". 01:53:43 -- 1 day 6 hours ago

47. [United States] Birmingham, Alabama arrived from google.com on "rhymeswithplague: I always loved The Waltons." by searching for kristin simpson sale birmingham al. 01:33:23 -- 1 day 7 hours ago

48. [United States] Charlottesville, Virginia arrived from google.com on "rhymeswithplague: A B C D goldfish? L M N O goldfish! O S A R...C M?" by searching for lmno goldfish. 01:31:36 -- 1 day 7 hours ago

49. [United States] Lumpkin, Georgia arrived from internetmonk.com on "rhymeswithplague". 22:49:43 -- 1 day 9 hours ago

50. [United States] Cincinnati, Ohio arrived from google.com on "rhymeswithplague: “Quaff, oh quaff this kind nepenthe”" by searching for Quaff, oh quaff this kind nepenthe. 22:25:19 -- 1 day 10 hours ago

[end of list]

[P.S. - I peeked at Feedjit again this morning (April 4th) and discovered visitors from Belgium, Philippines, Greece, Sweden, and Bangladesh as well. Welcome to all of you! --RWP]

Sweet Lorraine

A dear friend of ours for over 40 years has died at the age of 85 from colon cancer. She had been diagnosed very recently, the second week of March, and was scheduled to undergo colostomy surgery on March 23rd, but the surgery was cancelled because she was too weak. She succumbed four days later. Her online obituary is here but I have reproduced it in full below:

Lorraine Gallucci
June 18, 1925 - March 27, 2011

Mrs. Lorraine E. Gallucci died Sunday, March 27, 2011, at Grady General Hospital in Cairo, Georgia. Her memorial service will be held Saturday, April 9, 2011, 10:00 a.m., at Cox-Ware Funeral Home Chapel. Rev. Steve Brooks and Dr. Jim Corcoran, officiating. The family will receive friends prior to the service, 9:00-10:00 a.m. Interment will be held in the Georgia Veterans Memorial Cemetery in Milledgeville, Georgia, on Monday, April 11.

Lorraine was born June 18, 1925 in Newark, New Jersey, to John J. and Elizabeth Wagner Corcoran. She married Rinaldo (Len) Gallucci, her husband of 65 years. Lorraine worked as the office manager of a dental firm for several years in Boca Raton, Florida. She and her husband were active in Special Force Family Ministries in Minnesota and Missouri and then moved to Bainbridge. She was an active member of Fellowship Baptist Church.

Lorraine is survived by her husband, Rinaldo (Len) Gallucci and her daughter, Valerie Jean Gallucci, both of Bainbridge, Georgia. One sister, Jacqueline Linville and husband Everett of Cornelius, North Carolina; her brother, Dr. Jim Corcoran and wife Christine of Marana, Arizona; one sister-in-law, Anella Burk of Towaco, New Jersey, several nieces, great-nieces, nephews, and great nephews. She was preceded in death by her son, Ronald Richard Gallucci, her brother, John J. Corcoran, Jr. and her sister, Elizabeth (Betty) Wagner Deck.

In lieu of flowers, memorials may be made to Hospice of Southwest Georgia, 1323 East Shotwell Street, Bainbridge, Georgia, 39819.

[end of obituary]

We have known many of Lorraine’s family quite well, starting with her parents, John and Betty Corcoran, who lived with Len and Lorraine for many years before their deaths. We also know, or knew, Everett and Jackie Linville and their daughters Cheryl, Darlene, and Karen; and Bill and Betty Wagner (an oddity: Betty’s mother, who had been Betty Wagner, married John Corcoran, and then their daughter, Betty Corcoran, married Bill Wagner, no relation) and their daughters Nancy and Patti. The three sisters -- Lorraine, Betty, and Jackie -- used to sing trios together in church when they were young. We also knew Len and Lorraine’s mentally-challenged son Ron (he had a happy laugh) who died in his fifties several years ago. We have visited with Len, Lorraine, Ron, and Valerie (who is also mentally challenged) many times over the years in Boynton Beach, Florida; Boca Raton, Florida; Ocala, Florida; Waconia, Minnesota; Ozark, Missouri; and Bainbridge, Georgia, and they have stayed with us on several occasions as well. Mrs. RWP and I have vacationed together with the Gallucci family more than once in Kissimmee, Florida. Many years ago Lorraine, Jackie, Everett, and I all sang in the same church choir in Boca Raton, and I accompanied the youth choir in which Jackie’s daughters Cheryl and Darlene sang. One Easter, I sang and played at a church in Coral Springs where Betty’s husband, Bill, was pastor. I guess what I’m trying to say is that our family has been intertwined with the Corcoran clan for a long time.

Next Friday Mrs. RWP and I will be driving to Bainbridge (about 300 miles away) to attend Lorraine’s memorial service on Saturday, where I will be playing the piano and singing. Last summer, while she was still healthy, Lorraine chose several songs to be sung or played at her funeral:

1. “Something Beautiful, Something Good” by Bill and Gloria Gaither
2. “My Tribute (To God Be The Glory)” by Andrae Crouch
3. “Through It All” by Andrae Crouch
4. “No One Understands Like Jesus” by John W. Peterson

We will miss Lorraine greatly. She was a dear friend. Len turned 88 on Groundhog Day and Valerie is now 53. Betty’s daughter, Nancy, who lives about a mile away from them, will be assuming responsibility for Valerie.

It is as if a member of our own family has died.