I want to wish you all a happy and prosperous 2015. There’s just something about those multiples of 5, isn’t there? They just have to be special. I want to thank all of you who read Arlo & Janis, whether in the newspapers or online. You make my life as I know it possible. You probably don’t think of it that way, but I do. I will continue to do the best I can. Also, I thank those of you who come here to my own Web site. I’m tempted to say, “the usual gang of idiots,” but I don’t want to offend those of you who were not readers of “Mad Magazine” in your youth. As for the Web site, I think I can promise this will be the year of bigger and better. Please stick around.
Not Again!
By Jimmy Johnson
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203 responses to “Not Again!”
I give up. It’s about 15 minutes overdue.
Thunderstorms, flash floods and tornado watch here. Alabama take cover! And anyone northeast of us!
Later, I hope!
Re the discussion of “free” healthcare in the European countries: http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424052748704893604576200724221948728
This article tells you pretty much all you need to know about the agency to which we’ve entrusted the care of our disabled and elderly veterans. (Not to mention entrusted our tax money.) As I find myself saying all too often these days, I am not encouraged the situation will improve.
http://www.denverpost.com/news/ci_27112815/documents-reveal-how-va-lost-control-hospital-project
My thoughts on state-provided universal healthcare:
1. Ultimately everything has to be paid for by somebody. TANSTAAFL!
2. If there is a way for anyone to profit from the system—they will.
3. If there is a way for anyone to gain power from the system—they will.
4. The quality and availability of care will vary with where you live and how much pull your politicos have. So, don’t be a farmer in Kansas!
5. Whenever the system begins to run out of money—the quality of care will decay, waiting times will increase, and someone other than the patient and the doctor will make the decisions.
6. The system will run out of money at some point because (a) medical advances are increasing lifespans, (b) geriatric care costs more than most care for the young, and (c) see number 2… the money will be syphoned off by the unscrupulous.
Funeral was most beautiful and restrained, respectful and dignified I have ever seen, attended or serviced. The ministers, the funeral home, the florists and the guests were magnificent.
It was all I hoped and wanted. Lots of love. Mom’s dogs were in obituary and service mentioned
Music was Canon in D, How Great thou Art, the Navy hymn and Amazing Grace, beautiful music.
Pouring rain here. I hope Alabama is safe.
Love, Jackie
Thank you for letting us know, Jackie. I am a musician, so I particularly appreciate your telling us about the music. It sounds like it was just perfect. Love, Nancy K.
Thank you, Jackie. It did sound magnificent, and I know it was fitting for them. The music was exactly what I would choose for my own service. Well, not the Navy Hymn, but you know. 🙂
Love, Ghost
The funeral home had never had three floral and event planners, plus catering before. They wanted to keep us all another month to help them and teach them more.
I am taking both my director and the local florists gifts of thanks. It looked like a multipage spread from a floral wire service guide, only better. I could not have done better for a show and I was so proud of the local designers. It is a challenge to accomplish that anywhere but especially in a small town with all the funerals they had to do.
I sent the two huge urns of roses to the two local Baptist churches, so I hope it will give them some pleasure and the girls some recognition for what they can do.
My girls are troopers and while we have done many large weddings, this was the first funeral service we were ever able to do from beginning to end. It was wonderful to do that.
Love, Jackie
I used Susan Boyle for How Great Thou Art (partly a capella) and Judy Collins for Amazing Grace, singing alone, then joined by chorus, then instrumental only version, Naval band for their hymn.
Music is important to me. Canon in D was the long one hour version, traditional arrangement with harpsichord, cello, violins. I love harpsichord and also chamber music. And baroque.
Music in the Village is so diverse, like the diversity of our residents. I enjoy what is suggested.
Love, Jackie
From someone who remembers the “usuall gang of idiots” thanks for brightening my day with Arlo and Janis. War Eagle and wait till next year Bama!
Good morning Villagers…..
Wow, Jackie, thank you for sharing the music….I love Judy Collins, had to listen, and I am still in awe………………..
http://search.yahoo.com/search?p=judy+collins+amazing+grace&ei=UTF-8&fr=chr-greentree_ff&ilc=12&type=714647
Went in to tell my husband about the above video, and he asked if I had heard about the plane crash where just the 7 year old girl survived…she must have walked a mile to knock on a door….then I told him about the above video, he heard me playing it. I started to cry…. such a tragedy for that small girl to loose her whole family…….
He just now brought up Amazing Grace played with bagpipes….that too will tug at your heart….
I gotta go…..
Currently a break in the rain, but more on the way. You know where I’m headed. Looks like JJ had a good New Year.
Jackie, it sounds like a beautiful service indeed. Canon in D is a favorite of mine, as just about anything played on a bagpipe.
Jackie, it sounds like everything was just perfect. It was so thoughtful of you to send the roses to local churches for others to enjoy. You are truly a blessing on earth.
Amazing Grace is indeed awesome on the pipes, as is Danny Boy, which I would not be surprised to learn was played at the services for the two murdered NYPD police officers.
We used version with no bagpipes.
Every first weekend in March the Everglades Challenge (toughest small boat “race” in the world) begins at dawn as the sun breaks the horizon to the wailing of bagpipes. A couple hundred of assorted small craft hit the water from the high water mark and the bagpipes play as they paddle and sail off toward the Keys for 300 miles nonstop.
Totally surreal’
I plan to be there again in March.
Love. Jackie
Ghost: The NYPD police were named Rafael Ramos and Wenjian Liu. Ramos’s funeral was at what sounds like an independent Prot. church. Liu’s was still pending at the sites I just looked at. It’s been a while since NYPD were mostly Irish. Didn’t find any music, but have to get ready for UMC service this a.m. Peace, emb
When I was a deckhand on a schooner, a story for another day, they played Amazing Grace whenever we hoisted the sails.
http://article.wn.com/view/2015/01/04/2nd_NYPD_funeral_follows_cold_wet_day_of_mourning_a/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hkvmrojwrzU
excellent song and awesome movie….one that I can watch over and over
I believe that piping “Danny Boy” at police officers’ funeral services has been a long standing tradition and not just with the NYPD. And, believe it or not, the source of some controversy.
http://www.nydailynews.com/archives/news/not-sacred-danny-boy-article-1.932848
From “WeaponsMan” on the InterWebNet, who said it well on 1/4/15…
“We’re away from home, but we’re not. No, we’re not all zen-via-Jackie-Chan. There’s nothing symbolic or paradoxical about that at all, because the thing is, we’re at the folks’ home.
“Aging parents are Just One Of Those Things™. Everybody our age has got ‘em, and knows the delight you feel when someone has such a good day, she forgets she’s beaten down by endless rounds of dialysis and having to suck generated oxygen through mostly-dead lungs.
“Everyone our age has got ‘em, and knows the heartache of seeing someone who was strong as Kong getting his ass kicked by a pill-bottle cap.
“It’s good just to help, it turns out. It does a soul good. And God knows they were there through the kids’ diseases, dead pets, ER visits, romantic rejections, romantic successes (more costly in the long run), professional triumphs and tragedies, and personal ones.
“God knows there’s a debt owing.
“It is meet that it be paid.
“Just one of those things, you know.”
Happy, slightly late, New Year to Jimmy and his band of merry fellowers. See my SO is boasting about his deckhanding, not really much of a tale for another time. Sorry honey, I was there taking the pictures that morning.
As an aside, this is what us blondes have to deal with in our daily encounters: https://medium.com/@alicezielinski/things-people-say-when-youre-a-blonde-engineer-at-mit-b85df3d7970e