Category: Somewhat Current Events

Unless you have been somewhere on a desert island this week, you know Prince William and Kate Middleton are engaged. He didn’t propose on the Jumbo-tron at a soccer game, but I’m sure it was romantic just the same. They gave the exclusive news to a friendly reporter in London and immediately the world media was hot on the story. I Googled “William and Kate” and got 20 million hits.

This will be the third Windsor Wedding in my lifetime. In 1947, Princess Elizabeth Alexandra Mary Windsor married Prince Philip Mountbatten. They are distant cousins, both claiming Queen Victoria as their great-great-grandmother.  Their union was of interest in the United States, though it did not dominate our news as completely as the upcoming 2011 nuptials will.  We saw the images of her Westminster Abbey wedding in the local newspaper and the newsreels a week after the event.  Probably, there was a spread in Life or Look.  Most everything Elizabeth chose was heavy in symbolism down to the flowers in her bouquet – which, after the ceremony, was laid at the tomb of the Unknown Warrior.

Romantics vowed it was a love affair, though there were strict guidelines about who Elizabeth might choose and an arranged marriage between royals was not uncommon. My mother was one of those romantics and she followed the stories with enjoyment and took this opportunity to share with us the story of King Edward and Wallis Simpson, who abdicated his kingship for “the woman he loved.” Without this piece of history,  Elizabeth wouldn’t have been in line for the throne.  After Elizabeth and Philip married, she declared that the family name would be Mountbatten-Windsor. Theirs has been a long marriage of love and partnership.  (Google can find you several sites celebrating their 60th anniversary a few years ago.)

Prince Charles Philip Arthur George Mountbatten-Windsor, first son and heir to the throne, married Lady Diana Frances Spencer in 1981 in St. Paul’s Cathedral. An expert on the monarchy said at the time that “royalty can marry a commoner, but the prince may not marry a common person.” Theirs was the most spectacular wedding ever and bridezillas all over the world have been trying to match it ever since.  A television audience of an estimated 750 million watched the ceremony. We witnessed the full day coverage of the event — Diana in her too-heavy eye make-up, awful bulky taffeta dress she could hardly move in, the natural beauty of this lovely girl completely hidden. A foreshadowing of the marriage that lasted only 15 years. A royal divorce logged another first for the reigning family, which only a generation ago was the stiff-upper-lip sort who gave up personal needs and wants to sustain the monarchy.

And now, again, a royal wedding. We may be sick unto death of the names of William and Kate before it is all over. But the world will ever be captivated with the idea of a prince and his bride.

As an engagement ring, William gave Kate the sapphire ring that was Diana’s.  That is sweet. I just hope she doesn’t wear that dress.

Over 1.2 million dollars were spent on Arkansas lottery tickets the first day of availability.  Wonder how much more it would have been if we were not in a recession (aka depression)?

One lucky winner was able to catch up on his child support payments, willingly or not, since the dead beat dad registry is checked before the winnings are released.

Another big winner was arrested the same week for soliciting the services of a prostitute, who turned out to be an under cover police officer.

A young lady who walked away with $125,000 on Who Wants To Be A Millionaire, said she planned to use the money to pay her VISA bill.

A heavy duty televangelist from Dallas, speaking at a church in Little Rock, told congregants that if they tithe they will become wealthy (like he is). With the announcement the offering would go to the evangelist, the plates were passed a second time and “even those who are facing poverty” were admonished to “dig deep and give.”  My question: Does the televangelist also tithe? (His financial records are being audited by the Feds, so we may soon know.) May I suggest worthy causes for a tenth of his millions? The Christian Outreach Food Bank, where the people who have filled his pockets can receive help no questions asked.

When the game show host asked – as they always do – how the young man would spend his winnings, he said, “Well, I’d buy my Mama a new house … and I’d go back to school … and I’d get some therapy.  Everyone can use a little therapy.”

I couldn’t agree more.

Hugh Jackman made the tabloid media this week, TMZ and YouTube. This happened on the same day more serious news shows were talking about a tsunami that hit the Samoas. I found the Jackman story when I went on Yahoo to check my mail.

It seems during a preview performance (aka dress rehearsal) of his new play “A Steady Rain” scheduled to open October 6, Jackman and co-star Daniel Craig (James Bond in the movies) were on stage in a tense scene when someone’s cell phone went off. Some say Jackman broke character and said to the offender, “You want to get that?” When the ringing continued, he said, “Come on, just turn it off.” Then he walked about the stage until the noise stopped, before resuming the play.

This incident should bring only empathy for the people involved because most of us have been there. Any person who has performed or spoken in public, been to a movie, play or any performance starring your kid has probably been irritated by a ring tone.  We, too, have longed to yell at the careless person who ignored the reminders, yea the pleas to silence cell phones. We’ve been there.

And we’ve been the poor schmo who forgot to silence a cell phone, then when it goes off, decides to ignore it. Fake it out. Pretend it belongs to someone else. Look straight ahead and let it ring, perhaps glancing around ready to glare once the culprit is located.  Don’t deny it, you’ve been there. As bad luck would have it, this phone must have been one of those that rings softly the first time but continues to grow in volume each successive ring and doesn’t stop until it gets attention. 

Think about it: Hugh Jackman’s playing a tough cop, in a tense scene, during “hell” week (last rehearsals before opening). Some say he broke character to ream out the cell phone owner, others say that he was still very much the tough cop, ordering the person to take care of it, pacing the floor until it stopped.

And how about the person taking the video on his cell phone? We’ve all heard the announcement “no video or sound recording permitted.” This is not just a control issue for the theater owner, it has to do with copyright laws. So someone made an illegal video. And put it on YouTube. And TMZ showed it on national television.

This blog is not intended to weigh in on the health care debate. This is simply an incident that happened about a year ago.  It was related to me by a friend and I dutifully logged it in my writer’s notebook to use later.

A Friend I work with went to one of the minor emergency clinics for a small problem. Just after she completed her paper work and sat in the waiting room, a man came in complaining of chest pains and shortness of breath.  The receptionist took his information and sent him to sit in the waiting room near Friend. He looked sort of peaked and she offered to move off the couch so he could lie down, but he declined. Then a man came in bleeding from a cut on his head. He was holding a towel on the wound and using it to sop the blood that oozed down the side of his face. He filled out the form and took a seat near Friend and the man trying to breathe.

In a few minutes, a woman stepped inside and said, “A man getting out of his car passed out in the parking lot.” A couple of nurses went to check, came back and got a wheelchair. That man was taken back to an exam room. (We heard later that when he roused he said he needed to use the bathroom. He passed out there and split his head open on the sink.)

Presently, an older woman brought her adult son into the office. He had had a seizure at home and had fallen in the kitchen and a knife (or something) had sliced his face.  You got it. The patient and his mother were told to wait. Just as they joined the man who kept grunting and massaging his left shoulder and the other man who was holding the blood soaked towel on his noggin, the young man had a grand mal seizure.

His mother pointed out that he was choking and nurses and the doctor came to help.  The boy revived and the doctor asked the mom what meds he was on. “His doctor is changing his medicine,” she said. And to demonstrate how well that was working out, the kid had another seizure, witnessed by the older man with the purple-tinted face and the other man who continued to apply pressure to his head wound.

Unfortunately, I don’t have an end to this story because at that point, Friend decided that in the scheme of things her boil didn’t hurt so much after all and she left.

Like I said …  not weighing in on one side or the other. Just telling how it was one crazy day.

I lived in Nashville in 1999 when the Titans played in the Super Bowl.  A friend at work invited me and my young son, Phillip, to a Super Bowl party. Phillip’s first … and mine.  I am a less than avid football fan but this was the Titans! This was the Super Bowl!

My son was as excited as a 10 year old could be, being included in a grown-up party.  The host (with a straight face) instructed Phillip to “bring lots of quarters” because we would be playing “guessing games” about the commercials and different aspects of the game, including the final outcome.

The only team shirt Phillip owned boasted a Dallas Cowboys logo, totally inappropriate to wear to this particular event, so we went shopping. Titan shirts were at a premium that week and the only one we found (in a men’s size large) was one celebrating the recent championship. It looked rather comical on Phillip’s scrawny body, but he didn’t seem to know. 

When I heard of Steve McNair’s death, I felt sorrow for the loss of a good athlete. Then, I thought of the fun of that Super Bowl Party. Friends I enjoyed being with but never see any more. The excitment of a little boy in the floppy shirt watching the spectacular game. And his tears at the dramatic ending.

Someone younger and wiser than I said, ” … when we remember celebrities we remember a part of ourselves … what they meant to us in different stages of our lives. … In our comments we talk about ourselves as much as we do them. …when a celebrity dies we confront our own mortality.”