Join the Relay for Life

   As we grow older, the list gets longer. The list I’m referring to is family and friends who have been lost to cancer. Earlier this year my step-father, Bob Bartz (Grandpa Bob to his grandkids and great-grandkids) died from the disease. It was a quick-spreading variety that started in his bladder and, before detected had spread to his lungs. Bob was 84, had lived a good and long life, but even so—sans the cancer—he likely could have been with us a while longer.

   A few days ago we, like many others in the Fowlerville community, said “good bye” to our friend Lenny Wise. He was only 70; certainly had cancer not taken him, we would have been blessed with his presences and great wit for many more years.

The Beatles & the Fowlerville Fab Four

  While browsing a department store catalog, I noticed a page featuring tee-shirts. On the front of those shirts were pictures of different popular bands, including one that had a photo of The Beatles leaping into the air. I believe the image came from their movie “A Hard Day’s Night.”

   What struck me was, first of all, the staying power of this musical group. Fifty-plus years after they debuted in America on The Ed Sullivan Show in February of 1964, merchandisers are still making money off their celebrity. My other thought was that these tee shirts are most likely being worn by a much younger crowd than “we” aging Baby Boomers who were teenagers back then. I construed this to mean that The Beatles’ songs resonant not only with the older folks who are contemporaries of the group’s members, but also with our children and even our grandchildren.

Favorite Presidents & Would-be Presidents

We were sitting in the living room of my great-grandparents’ home when I asked my great-grandfather, Rollin Horton, who his favorite president was. “Roosevelt,” he replied.

    I nodded, figuring that the New Deal efforts by FDR during the Great Depression would have appealed to a farmer, struggling to eke out a living during those difficult times.“Franklin Roosevelt,” I said aloud as a sort of afterthought.

    “No, Teddy,” he corrected me.

     I was surprised. Then I did some quick mental arithmetic. The year we were having this conversation was 1972, and I had turned 21. My great-grandfather, born in December of 1879, would have still been 21 when the ‘Rough Rider’ assumed the Presidency in 1901 after his predecessor, William McKinley, was assassinated.