Jeff's Funeral

My high school teammate that passed away had been a fireman, and for his visitation and funeral the fire department did a wonderful job hoisting a huge American flag over the funeral home, and staging a long parade of fire trucks from the church to the gravesite.

An honor guard hoisted the flag-draped coffin on the back of a fire truck for the trip. At the grave a bagpipe played taps, and the honor guard presented the folded flag from the coffin to the son. Very touching.

I had heard about Bill Hanke passing away. He was 99, right? His wife is 100.

One Christmas I worked at a clothing store at the Macon Mall. I might've been home from GT, like my Freshman year. I remember packing up everything I owned early in finals week, and after my last final (on Friday, the last day of finals week) driving straight home to Macon from GT. Also that December Friday in 1977 I began a tradition of splurging for breakfast at McDonalds on the morning of my last final exam – always an Egg McMuffin and Fanta orange soft drink.

The store was Anderson Little. The manager was this big old guy, whose wife taught the baton twirlers at my high school. The assistant manager was this cooler young single guy with a mustache. One day I had a question for the assistant manager, but stayed back because he was talking to a pretty lady. He saw me waiting for him and gave me a little nod. I was standing there with a stapler in my hand, to staple price tags on garments. I was absentmindedly fiddling with the stapler with my hands and fingers, then accidentally drove a staple into my finger. I went "Oooh!!" and doubled over in pain. The assistant manager cracked up.

My new year's resolution is to be more positive and less negative, here on the old blog and in life in general. Not as easy as it sounds. To read and of course exercise more and cut back on social media. But as any responsible person I will continue to do my best to decipher between fake and real news. Seems like science is a word that gets thrown around loosely these days, by people who never really ever learned what science is. Like the old saying: those who fail to learn history are doomed to repeat it – perhaps the same can be said about science. Think I'll throw that out on Twitter and see who salutes.

https://www.commentary.org/noah-rothman/the-pandemic-isnt-about-covid-anymore/?fbclid=IwAR0ZiQImrorHwIu48BKDNrFzOP0LH3JcA1EToZkEyhTpD1WfSigVfOffJQk

MANNY SANGUILLEN [SABR Bio] a one-time Oakland A's player was the first native of Panama to be named to a National League All-Star team. Played for OAK in 1977. His first all star game was in 1971.  Did not see action that year but was on the NL squad two more times, and got a hit in the 1972 ASG despite playing behind Johnny Bench. Manny was born in Colon, Panama. The Encyclopedia of Baseball Catchers shows Manny's lifetime batting average of .296 as the fourth-highest by a catcher since World War II and tenth highest for all catchers in Major League history. See EOBC rankings. He was once traded for a manager. In November 1976 Sanguillen was traded to Oakland for manager Chuck Tanner. (the Pirates threw in $100,000.) Sanguillen then returned to PIT in 1978 and played for Tanner for three seasons.

Denison: the twelve remaining members of a group of seventeen North American missionaries kidnapped in Haiti two months ago were released yesterday. Five of the hostages had been let go earlier.