THE STAR SPANGLED BANNER

Ever since September 11, 2001 The Star Spangled Banner has held a much dearer place in my heart.  For some reason as that tragic event unfolded, this song kept going through my mind.  Many times since then, particularly on major holidays, or the anniversary of September 11th, the first thing I will do in the morning is turn on the tv to check and see "if the flag was still there".

Six or seven years ago, I went to Washington D.C. on vacation with a friend.  I had been wanting to go the Smithsonian Museums for years and see all the sights of D.C.  I was scheduled to arrive in D.C. a few hours before my friend's plane got in.  We were to meet at our hotel--the Hay Adams (will have to tell you more about the Hay Adams in a future article; absolutely an amazing place to stay and LITERALLY overlooking the White House).

The first thing that I did when I got to the hotel (after checking in), was to hail a cab and go the Smithsonian Museum of American History in search of the REAL Star Spangled Banner.  Upon arriving at the Museum, I practically ran to the display of the Star Spangled Banner, which takes up a huge room.  It was a very profound moment for me; standing in front of my REAL Star Spangled Banner; which had witnessed those rockets' red glare so many years ago.  Since that time, the banner has gone through some very high tech procedures for restoration as it was in quite a state of dilapidation.

THE STAR SPANGLED BANNER

Oh, say, can you see, by the dawn's early light,

What so proudly we hailed at the twilight's last gleaming?

Whose broad stripes and bright stars, thru the perilous fight,

O'er the ramparts we watched, were so gallantly streaming?

And the rockets' red glare, the bombs bursting in air,

Gave proof through the night that our flag was still there.

O say, does that star-spangled banner yet wave

O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave?

TALE OF A TORNADO: LONE GROVE, OKLAHOMA F4 TORNADO FEBRUARY 10, 2009

Some of you may wonder why when it comes to tornado outbreaks, I get on my high horse and urge everyone in the affected areas to stay alert and have a plan of action, which includes taking shelter UNDERGROUND when the sirens sound or a tornado warning goes into effect.  You may notice that I live in Utah, and prior to that spent my first 35 years in Northern California, neither one being a place where tornadoes are a concern.  (There are extremely rare exceptions to that, but those are an entirely different story).  As my husband is a traveling salesman, whose territory included Kansas and Nebraska up until a few years ago; we have had plenty of experience with tornadoes and attempting to avoid them.  We had had some close calls and unwanted contact with them, but would be diligent in going hundreds of miles out of our way to avoid them, when possible.  The story below, though; is the reason I will always be outspoken and a die hard advocate for underground shelters in tornado alley.  Alot of people want to politicize it, for one reason or another.  Well, believe me, when an F4 tornado has just passed you by and missed you by about a mile or less; the last thing on your mind is politics!  The ONLY thing on your mind is, "Why am I not in an underground shelter?"

The date was February 10, 2009.  It started off the same as many another day in the vagabond life of a traveling salesman (or a traveling salesman's wife, as the case may be).  It didn't seem like it might be our last day on the planet.  We got up and prepared to pack our things and check out of the hotel we were staying in in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma.  We were traveling westward toward home, after having traversed the country to attend meetings.  Our next stop was scheduled to be Amarillo, Texas.  We were aware that bad weather was forecast for the area late in the day:  severe thunderstorms.  Tornadoes were not foremost on our mind (or anybody else's really); because although Oklahoma is right smack in tornado alley; tornadoes typically happen in the middle and late end of Spring:  April, May and June; definitely NOT in the early part of February.  And we did plan to be clear of the area by that time, anyway.

As my husband was in the shower, I was "playing" on his computer.  I looked over attractions in the area, as it is not an area we get to very often at all.  My husband loves to take photos of wildlife, and we often go to zoos or wildlife parks.  We had been to nearly all of the zoos in that State.  Well, lo and behold, I discovered a wild animal park that we had not been to yet; and it was just a bit south of Oklahoma City.  Not the direction we had planned to head in, but  not a big deterrent.  My husband insisted we go there, once I told him about it; as we had no idea when or if we would be back in that area.  So we went to the GW Exotic Wildlife Park in Wynnewood, Oklahoma.  Not one to be rushed, my husband spent the afternoon taking photos and getting an individual behind the scenes tour to take more photos.  I watched the sky getting nasty and was getting a bit concerned.  Finally, towards the end of the afternoon, he was finished and we were ready to go on our way.  As we started to leave the gift shop/office area of the facility, we noticed the television playing live news on tornadoes that had just hit Oklahoma City; and we both stopped and walked closer to the tv screen.  The employees said:  "You're not going towards Oklahoma City, are you?"  Well, that was the direction we needed to go in to get back on our trajectory and told them so.  They said they would not advise that as Oklahoma City had just been hit by several tornadoes and more were being spotted right now.  We decided it might, indeed, be a bad idea to go that way.  So we walked outside and looked up.  It did not look good at all.  We were right off the main north/south freeway.  There was also a small country two lane highway heading east/west.  We knew from watching the news moments earlier, that there was a forbidding "Dry Line" just west of us, which ran north/south all the way from Texas, on up through Oklahoma and beyond.  Along that dry line, massive tornadoes were starting to form.  There was just no way to get "through" that dry line, without possibly running into one of them, or at the very least baseball-sized hail which would destroy the vehicle.

My husband voted to take the small country highway east/west.  My husband is the decision maker in the family.  However, I stood rooted firmly where I was at staring at the intended route.  There were at least six massive supercells mushrooming up tens of thousands of feet into the sky lined up neatly along that route.  I said:  "No".  I felt there would be no protection for the car, and there was bound to be baseball sized hail at this point.  I suggested we go a bit further south along the freeway and hole up in the next city.  So that's exactly what we did.  Now as it turns out, the Stormchasers chose the route my husband wanted to take, in search of their tornadoes.  If only they had followed my advice, instead....

So we got back on the freeway, heading south.  Before too long, we came to the town of Ardmore, Oklahoma.  We stopped at the McDonald's got a quick bite to eat and made our plan.  Things looked very, very bad in front of us; so we agreed we'd stay at the hotel back at the last exit.  We checked in to the brand new, fairly solid looking Springhill Suites by Marriott, much pricier than the hotels we will normally stay at, but these were special circumstances.  They had no ground floor rooms left, as many people were holing up  like us.  So we took what they had and hauled our stuff up to the room.  We settled in and sat back to watch News and Weather Alerts with radar maps.  No sooner did we do that, then a massive supercell appeared on the radar and was heading exactly in our direction.  We hurried back down to the lobby.  The sad fact, and one I find totally unacceptable, is that 99.9% of all hotels do not have storm shelters.  I mean real, UNDERGROUND, storm shelters.  They may have a meeting room or hallway they designate for shelter.  You notice my emphasis, always, on UNDERGROUND.  This is because I already knew, even prior to this experience; that if you are hit directly by an F4 or F5 tornado, NOTHING is left above ground.  There may be the occasional exception, and tornadoes do skip around; but certainly nothing you can count on.  Well, in this hotel the hallway was it.  So we watched the tv in the lobby for a few minutes, heard the instructions of the hotel employees, which was just to gather in the hall.  The radar showed it bearing down on us and it was close enough that the employees could not tell if it was going to hit us or just barely scrape by us.  We all took shelter (misnomer) in the hall; where the lights were flickering on and off.  I was in a panic and my husband had already lost patience with me being such a snivelling coward and panicky.  IF I had known what the flickering lights meant, he would have really been embarrassed, because I would have been screaming my head off!  Those flickering lights are the signature of a tornado coming through and knocking out transformers as it does so.  Well, after standing there a few minutes, hearing horrible noises, but still we were there and not dead; we finally started making our way down the hall again to the lobby.  By this time all power was gone, and it was quite dark.  Everyone sat in the lobby, in the dark.  We were looking out the window towards the freeway.  Soon, emergency vehicle after emergency vehicle with flashing lights, could be seen coming off the freeway exit ramp directly in front of us.  I had never seen this many emergency vehicles in my life.  We sat in the dark that way for some time. 

Finally, the hotel employees told us that they had heard that on the other side of town they had power back on, in case we wanted to go get something to eat.  This, combined with the fact that the severe weather had now pushed eastwards, prompted us to go get in our vehicle and set out to forage.  We turned on the car radio to a local station and the first words we heard were Lone Grove, about 12 people killed....Lone Grove sat about a mile or so to our west, and possibly closer as we were east of the actual town of Ardmore, since we were right at the freeway.  I burst into sobs as the reality of the situation struck home; what a close call we had had; but these other people, just right next door to us had not made it through.  The tornado had started in Texas and cut a diagonal swath north and east, going right through the small town of Lone Grove, Oklahoma and cutting across the freeway and through parts of Ardmore and on out into the country; coming close to the town of Gene Autry.   It was determined to be an F4 tornado; meaning if you are not underground, you are doomed.  All that night emergency personnel tried to clear the roads just so they could get to the devastated town of Lone Grove.  The following morning as we were leaving the hotel, the press from around the country was checking into our same hotel to cover this tragic event.  The stories coming in were absolutely heartbreaking.  A high school basketball game had been about to take place when the tornado warning hit.  The school didn't have a bona fide shelter, so the opposing team hunkered down in the locker room and the Lone Grove team was sent home.  Some of the kids upon reaching home, didn't have a home, or didn't have parents anymore.  A mother and daughter had been holding hands when they were torn apart and the mother was killed.  One man in town with the rare underground shelter stuffed in three or four times what it really could hold, and saved all of those lives.  It had crossed the freeway right in front of our hotel, too, killing a truck driver.  My heart goes out to the victims' families.  

So now you know why I harp on UNDERGROUND shelters in Tornado Alley.  And the other thing you should know, is I am a tornado magnet.  Do NOT take my advice in a tornado outbreak.  The Stormchasers really should have been following my lead.

PLACES WE VISITED ON OUR PACIFIC NORTHWEST VACATION, SEPTEMBER 2011

+Grizzly and Wolf Discovery Center, West Yellowstone, Montana

+Yellowstone National Park, Montana

+Montana Grizzly Encounter, Bozeman, Montana

+Museum of the Rockies, Bozeman, Montana

+Yellowstone Wildlife Museum, Cooke City, Montana

+Beartooth Highway and Beartooth Pass, Cooke City to Red Lodge, Montana

+Beartooth Nature Center, Red Lodge, Montana

+Red Lodge Cemetery, Red Lodge, Montana

+Smith Mine ruins, Red Lodge, Montana

+Carbon County Historical Society and Museum, Red Lodge, Montana

+Zoo Montana, Billings, Montana

+Bowdoin National Wildlife Refuge, Malta, Montana

+Blaine County Wildlife Museum, Chinook, Montana

+Montana State University-Northern, Science Building, Wildlife Display, Havre, Montana

+Glacier National Park, including Going-to-the-Sun Road, Montana

+Waterton-Glacier National Park, Alberta, Canada

+International Selkirk Loop Including All Super Side Trips, Many cities, Idaho, Montana, Washington, U.S.; British Columbia, Canada; including Kootenai Lake Ferry, Harrop Ferry and as far as Nelson before coming south; crossing Selkirk Mountains, lake at top of Pass on Highway 3

+Creston Wildlife Refuge, Creston, British Columbia, Canada

+McArthur Wildlife Management Area, Idaho

+Smith Lake, Idaho

+Albeni Falls Visitor's Center, Albeni Falls, Idaho

+Denton Slough, Hope, Idaho

+Schwartzer Mountain Resort, Hope, Sandpoint, Idaho

+Round Lake State Park, Idaho

+Farragut State Park, Idaho

+Lake Pend Oreille - Clark Fork River Delta/Fish Hatchery, Idaho

+Gamlin Lake Preserve, Idaho

+Craters of the Moon National Monument, near Arco, Idaho

+Tautphaus Zoo, Idaho Falls, Idaho

+Lake Pend Oreille, Pack River Delta, Idaho

+Priest Lake Area, Idaho

+Kootenai National Wildlife Refuge, Bonner's Ferry, Idaho

+Kootenai Falls, Montana

+Purcell Mountains Area, Idaho, Montana, British Columbia, Canada

+Settler's Grove of Ancient Cedars, Idaho

+Wolf People, Idaho

IN MEMORIAM: WHITNEY HOUSTON; THANK YOU GOVERNOR CHRISTIE

NOTE:  This is a Note I created for Facebook just over a year ago (Feb. 21, 2012).  I am in the process of copying all of my FB Notes over to my two Blogs.  When they have all been copies over; I will be creating new posts for my Blogs. 

Governor Christie is to be commended for standing by his decision. I do believe in honor and respect for our servicemen. They are heroes. But nowhere does the law state that they, or law enforcement, are the only people deserving of honor. Whitney Houston left a legacy to the music world of invaluable worth. She had what was most likely one of, if not the very best, voices of the last century. She overcame the blatant racism that is so unfortunately prevalent in our society, to make her mark in a very big way on the music world. She filled our lives with extremely beautiful music, that will live on forever. Yes, she lost her voice and her way. But that cannot erase the legacy that she had created and that will live on, as some of the most beautiful music of our time. It was a tragedy for her and her family; and one that so many entertainers of all races have suffered from: Elvis Presley, Michael Jackson, Freddie Prinze, Karen Carpenter, Heath Ledger, Amy Winehouse--I believe the list goes on and on. I do completely respect our servicemen. My family has been filled with servicemen since the Revolutionary War, and before that most likely; most recently being my father serving in the South Seas in World War II. But I don't see how honoring someone who has left behind a musical legacy such as Whitney, dishonors a serviceman. Our society has raised us to believe that war is all but inevitable and we must uphold our honor and patriotism by fighting. I'm not going to debate any of that; but I believe powerful, uplifting and beautiful music such as Whitney's "Greatest Love of All" could help us bridge gaps between ideologies and other factors that cause us to fight. I know the world has to change before such a day can ever come; but when that day comes, I'll take singing over fighting anytime!  Thank you Governor Christie, for standing up for what you, and I, believe in. Thank you Whitney Houston, for the lasting gift you gave to the music world with a voice that few can ever compare to. Rest in peace.

MY NOTE TO DONNY OSMOND, OCTOBER 28, 2012 AND HIS REPLY

MY NOTE TO DONNY OSMOND, OCTOBER 28, 2012 (REFERS TO UK AS I POSTED IT ON A UK RADIO INTERNET SITE, IN ADDITION TO FACEBOOK):

Hi Donny! Ok, I'm cheating here a bit as I am not from the UK at all, but rather a place you are a bit more familiar with: South Jordan, Utah. I grew up with your music and certainly admired your talented family for as many years as I can remember. I was pleased to learn of the Osmond story when I moved to Utah from California 14 years ago; and felt that was something to be proud of from my new State. That being said, I must admit that I have never truly been a bona fide "Donny" or "Osmond" fan throughout those years--please no offense--it was just that I was a Bee Gees fan, Andy Gibb, and too many others! Other than learning the Osmonds' Utah heritage when I moved here, I had not given any thought to your family or music until quite recently; under two totally unrelated circumstances. First of all, we had the privilige to visit the extraordinary artist Ted Gallegos at his home in Saratoga Springs, and he showed us some of the many album covers and other sketches he has done for your family over the years and told us of a recent conversation he had with Merle. What a talent this man has! Secondly, Donny; has been your recent showcasing of your duets with Susan Boyle and how extraordinarily well you took care of her, as she battled overwhelming stage fright. Your performances were delightful and I have since visited your website many times and am very impressed with your music and talent. In short, now, at this rather late date, I am now a true and lasting Donny Osmond fan, and have been driving my husband rather crazy with sharing your music and bits of information about you and your family. I must say, you seem to be one of those rare, truly caring individuals as evidenced by your interactions with Susan. I think that is pretty rare in the celebrity world in general. Another example I could give is Jack Benny. A while back I started a Jack Benny Fan group on Facebook, and have had the honor of communicating with several people who worked with him or were connected with him in one way or the other, and he too, was genuinely caring and warm. It is really a pleasure to come across another such unique individual! Thank you many times over.

REPLY RECEIVED FROM DONNY OSMOND VIA MOBILE, OCTOBER 28, 2012:

Don Osmond: Thank you for the nice comments you made on my Facebook page. Sincerely,Donny

19 hours ago via mobile 

Please Join Me on My New Blog Too

I would like to invite you to join me on my new blog; Family Stories of Long Ago where stories and history of my ancestors will appear.  Thank you so much!  Hope to see you there also.  The link is below:

http://shirlelyworthen.blogspot.com/

Blog Tour Stop July 24, 2012: Book Review, Stress Pandemic by Paul Huljich

July 24, 2012

Today, this blog is hosting a stop (in the form of a review) on the blog tour for “Stress Pandemic” by Paul Huljich.

BOOK REVIEW:  STRESS PANDEMIC BY PAUL HULJICH

288 pages, Mwella Publishing

Release date:  July 1, 2012

Note:  I was provided a copy of this book by the publisher for purpose of review.

In today’s world, it seems we are constantly under attack from stress from multiple sources.  These stress points, allowed to continue unchecked; undermine our health in a variety of ways both mental and physical.  This book has outlined very specifically, a plan by which we can not only reduce the stress in our life, but overcome it entirely; thereby improving our health vastly and adding years to our lifespan.

The author, Paul Huljich, had reached what most of us would consider the pinnacle of success as a very well-to-do business owner.  What he failed to realize though, despite a tell tale sign here or there; was the dire toll that stress was taking on his health.  He eventually reached the point of a complete breakdown and was ultimately diagnosed with stress-induced bipolar disorder by numerous medical professionals.  This diagnosis carried with it a life-time sentence of multiple drugs and the prediction that he would have relapses from time to time throughout the years.  The story of how Paul overcame his devastating, stress-induced mental illness and proved the medical professionals wrong is nothing short of amazing. 

In this book Paul has outlined for all of us the nine specific steps he followed to eliminate stress from his life and to live a healthy life, both mentally and physically.  While most people hide their present or past mental illnesses because of the stigma attached to those conditions, Paul has come forward in an effort to help others and to prevent them from experiencing the illness and collapse that devastated his life.  This book is an integral tool and lesson that we can all use and learn from.  I highly recommend it to everyone.