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thelittlehill
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Name: Andrew
Country: United States
State: Louisiana
Metro: Alexandria
Gender: Male
Interests: Reading, conversation, genealogy, history, and music
Expertise: Library & Information Science, research (literary & historical), Biblical literature & history
Occupation: Librarian
Industry: Education
Message: message meEmail: email me
AIM:  ahilleke
Yahoo:  ahilleke
Member Since:
1/20/2005
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| Whoo-boy, what a time I've had! Just for the record: I am still alive, in mostly good health, and look to be fully recovered within a month.
Almost every winter I am usually stricken by some respiratory malady, which is dangerous for me since I tend to develop bronchitis from any such malady, even ear infections. Bronchitis is only a step away from pneumonia, and I have an understanding with my doctor (& family) to check into the hospital as soon as pneumonia is suspected. Unfortunately this year my respiratory afflictions began just two days before Christmas, which meant my regular doctor was not available. His colleagues did their best, though, and for a while it seemed the meds they gave me worked, so I never called my regular doc until a few days later when my progress stalled. I should have made an appt then but figured it was just the meds I'd run out of, so I asked for the same. After an agonizing New Years Weekend, I broke down and finally visited my doctor, who told me I had asthmatic-bronchitis. I guess I figured, if you have to get something, why not something serious? Doctor almost thought to check me in the hospital, except that so many people were coming in with flu, he was afraid to expose me to that. So he sent me home with some oxygen tanks and powerful meds.
"Oxygen tanks?! What for?"
He looked at me like I'd lost my mind, as if I hadn't noticed how sapped of energy I'd been for a few days, how much I was gasping for air.
"Andrew, I don't think you realize how seriously ill you are. You're borderline hospital. You're hypoxemic, enough that you can see it in your fingernails and scars. Look at your hand." He pointed at my right hand; the scar was dark purple, the fingernails shading towards blue.
So yeah, since last Tuesday I've been on Oxygen and drugs round-the-clock. Sleeping is impossible; so many drugs in my veins, not to mention being paranoid about strangling myself on the O2 tubes, as well developing the worst migraines I've ever endured in my entire life. I dread going to bed, so hard is it to sleep any.
Friday morning, my heart started acting up, due in part to all the steroids I have to take just to keep breathing normal. Atrial fibrillation was my doc's diagnosis, later confirmed by my cardiologist, who said it wasn't unusual for someone with my respiratory difficulties to develop this in combo with the medication. Biggest thing is to fix the bronchitis first--for the heart, he gave me more pills (oh boy), said come back to him in three months.
Good thing I was going on vacation this week. Too bad I can't actually go on vacation. And I'd hoped to hang out with friends this weekend, too--oh well.
Good thing I'm a downstairs Calvinist; could never make it through all this, even with my sense of humor. 
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| Pauline Otto Lorentz (1914-2006)
Ruhe in Frieden, Kind des Gottes
[German for "Rest in peace, child of God"]
Today my dad's aunt, new-born in Christ just two years ago, went to be with her Lord and Savior; she was 92, and for most of her life, an avowed atheist. As she has lived in New Jersey since birth, my greatest grief is not that we've lost her, but that I don't really feel the loss; I grieve for never having gotten to know her. Her only sibling and nearest surviving relative--my grandmother--is grief-stricken, to be sure, but is herself comforted in the knowledge that years of witnessing to her sister paid off. Imagine witnessing to your only sibling and finally relative for more than 80 years, never seeing fruits to your labor until the very end.
My grand-aunt led an interesting life. A model as a young lady, she became a painter and studied under a famous artist, the long-lived John Grabach (1886-1981), who bequeathed to her most of his estate and paintings. For the longest time I envisioned her as some great painter of landscape, an understandable mistake given that the only paint of hers I knew was one that we had in our living for as long as I can remember, which shows a rocky shoreline with waves crashing onto it, a stormy skyline brewing more waves. A pair of snow-white sea-gulls fly over the shore, the brightest spot in the scene, as though sunlight followed them. Anyway that's what I've grown up seeing as hers, her name on the lower-right corner. But no, her signature paintings, like Grabach's, was of nudes. Not a crime, to be sure, although I understand they usually required models, which is quite disturbing to one not used to such . . . openess? Apparently they sold well, though; she even gave us one (oh good), though thankfully ours was only an anatomical study of the muscles of a man's back ... including the gluteus maximus. She was very proud of it.
She was not so lucky in her marriage, however, her husband leaving her for another woman, so that all she had in the world was her only daughter, and her only sister. When the ex-husband died, he was at least sensible enough to leave everything to their daughter, but when she herself died in a car-accident, my aunt bitterly inherited her ex-husband's estate.
All this happened as my grandmother witnessed to her unceasingly, above all by example, as my grandmother survived the loss of two sons and her husband, yet still retained her faith and contentment. That and when, four-five years ago, before my grandmother went into surgery to remove a football-sized tumor from her side, she called her then-athiest sister to say that, since she might not survive the surgery, she wanted to tell her then-atheist sister the most important thing she had to say; my aunt said, "Okay, I'm ready," to which my grandmother responded by telling her the gospel for the umpteenth time. When she finished with the plan of salvation, her sister thanked her (politely for once, which she often didn't, sometimes leaving the room in a huff). Several weeks late, after my grandmother came through surgery all right, my aunt called her: [Paraphrasing] "Dang it, Sis, I've been thinking on what you told me." It would take another two years before she finally succumbed to the Spirit's tug.
While I did not know her well, it is still so comforting to think that my grand-aunt, standing upright for the first time in three years, is singing before her Lord & Savior.
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| Excerpt from: <http://americanhistory.si.edu/collections/object.cfm?key=35&objkey=81>
On a Sunday morning in December 1941, a chaplain had his most difficult
assignment — to say a prayer to sailors aboard a U.S. navy ship
actively under low–flying attack by the enemy firing from all
directions. He quickly realized the best he could do was walk the
ammunition line saying, “Praise the Lord and Pass the Ammunition!”
Stories of the overheard phrase quickly turned into legend and passed
between soldiers, eventually reaching the press and one Broadway
composer and lyricist, Frank Loesser. He served in the Radio
Productions Unit charged with mounting shows of popular guest stars for
boosting morale of the troops.
With the phrase as the song title,
he combined the stories into one set of lyrics — fact mattered not as
much as the need to inspire spirit. By 1943, the song, performed by Kay
Kaiser and His Orchestra, had reached no. 1 on the Billboard chart,
surpassing its peak of no. 8 the previous year when performed by the
Merry Macs. Loesser donated his royalties for sale of the song to the
Navy Relief Society. The chaplain originally quoted wished to remain
anonymous, and the episode to remain legend [note: see link above for links elsewhere that claim to discover who this guy was, though personally I think it's irrelevant].
The Song
Down went the gunner, a bullet was his fate
Down went the gunner, and then the gunner's mate
Up jumped the sky pilot, gave the boys a look
And manned the gun himself as he laid aside The Book, shouting...
Praise the Lord and pass the ammunition (+ 2x)
And we'll all stay free
Praise the Lord and swing into position
Can't afford to be a politician
Praise the Lord, we're all between perdition
And the deep blue sea
Yes the sky pilot said it
Ya gotta give him credit
For a sonofagun of a gunner was he
Shouting Praise the Lord, we're on a mighty mission
All aboard, we ain't a-goin' fishin'
Praise the Lord and pass the ammunition
And we'll all stay free
Praise the Lord (Praise the Lord) and pass the ammunition (+ 2x)
And we'll all stay free
Praise the Lord and pass the ammunition (+ 2x)
And we'll all stay free
http://my.execpc.com/~dschaaf/praise.html
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| So ends this day that marks the 65th anniversary of one of the most infamous attack in history, a turning point in the politics of World War II that led to a series of turning points in the whole war. Above all, however, it drew the United States into the center stage of the international community... for the second time in three decades. This time, however, there was no scramble to get out of the spotlight as after the newly re-named World War I (until then simply called the Great War). This time the U.S. stayed on that stage, in part because there were no other takers, the others too badly wounded to even stand, and in part because the Soviet Union gradually proved no friend to freedom as defined in the West, threatening all the things for which the U.S. had paid dearly.
That, then, is Pearl Harbor's legacy--when the U.S. shifted its focus from its own hemisphere out across the oceans.
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| ---it is only fitting that I list some things for which I am thankful.
First, the things for which it is not hard to be thankful: that God is my God, my Father, Lord & Friend. For my family, biological and spiritual (the latter which happily includes the former, as well most of my friends). My home, neighbors / neighborhood, a working car and other amenities.
Now the things for which I am not always grateful, but ought to be. For my city, state, and country; for my new mayor (for whom I didn't vote initially, but grudgingly did so in the runoff) and other local officials, my governor (for whom I didn't vote), my Senators (voted for one, against the other), my Rep. (for whom I warily voted) and other state officials. And finally, my president (for whom I didn't vote--I voted for Peroutka).
Now the things for which I am particularly grateful this year:
- a new niece
- graduation from college
- job
- prospects for grad school
- good health & good doctors
- the wonderful invention of hearing aids, and--
- a merry heart
Happy Thanksgiving.
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