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CELEBRATE THE HOLIDAY.

 * Post author By admin
 * Post date May 27, 2023
 * 55 Comments

Celebrate.

Hits: 44

Celebrate the Holiday. This weekend remember those who can’t be with us because
they died defending their country. Also it gives me a chance to post my wife’s
great decorating skills.

Sit back and post a poem or two, or even a song. Also enjoy the pictures or post
your own.

Decoration theme is the red white and blue. Hopefully you enjoy Mrs. M’s
decorating. It’s a joy of love for her.





 





 

 



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Categories
Life Reprints from other.


THIS FORMER MARINE HAD HER LEG AMPUTATED — NOW SHE’S CLIMBING THE WORLD’S
TALLEST MOUNTAINS

 * Post author By admin
 * Post date May 24, 2023
 * 15 Comments

Never say never. Kevin Winter / Getty Images

Hits: 15

 

AUTHOR Rebekah Brandes

Looking at a timeline of Kirstie Ennis’ life, it’s clear that to call her a
go-getter would be a considerable understatement. The 31-year-old has completed
three master’s degrees, worked as a Hollywood stuntwoman, earned a real estate
license, walked 1,000 miles across England, and climbed six of the world’s
tallest mountains. And if that wasn’t impressive enough, she accomplished it all
after a tragic accident that resulted in the loss of one of her legs.

The former U.S. Marine sergeant — she enlisted at just 17 years old — was riding
in a helicopter above Afghanistan in 2012 when the aircraft went down, a crash
that nearly killed her and left her with brain, spine, and ankle injuries. She
underwent 40 surgeries over the next three years, and in 2015, a severe
infection required her left leg to be amputated. Forced into medical retirement,
Ennis needed to figure out a way to both process her trauma and continue to
protect people, one of her main motivations for joining the armed services in
the first place.



She found the answer in the great outdoors. She began snowboarding and climbing,
participating in sponsored events to raise money for nonprofits. Soon, she had a
more specific goal in mind: She would scale all Seven Summits — the highest
peaks on each of the seven continents. Since beginning in 2017, she’s checked
six of them off her list, according to Axios. Next spring, she’s set to tackle
her final frontier, and the most difficult climb, Mount Everest.

If you have any doubts at all about her abilities, Ennis would love to hear
them. “I like people looking at me and being like ‘She’s small, she’s a woman,
she has one leg,’ and me being like ‘All right.’ I like being the underdog,” she
said on an episode of Real Sports with Bryant Gumbel. 

 

Besides her lofty climbing goal, Ennis is on a mission to prove that nothing is
impossible — and, from this vantage point, there is seemingly nothing she can’t
do. According to her Instagram page, the intrepid young woman is flying planes,
riding motorcycles, and scuba diving.



She’s also set up the Kirstie Ennis Foundation, which helped earn her the Pat
Tillman Service Award at the 2019 ESPYS. The organization partners with
nonprofits, offering educational and healing opportunities to veterans and
people who have lost limbs and introducing medical device technology to
underserved parts of the world. Its mission is fitting: “To inspire individuals
to stubbornly climb the mountain in front of them.”




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MY NEIGHBOR LIVED TO BE 109. THIS IS WHAT I LEARNED FROM HIM.

 * Post author By admin
 * Post date May 23, 2023
 * 34 Comments

Charlie White, photographed in 2008 at age 103. Doug Dalgleish

Hits: 38



Early one August morning during a heat wave in Kansas City, Mo., I stepped
outside to fetch the Sunday newspaper — and something stopped me in my tracks.

My new neighbor was washing a car. In my memory (this detail is a matter of some
disagreement around the neighborhood), it was a shiny new Chrysler PT Cruiser,
the color of grape soda pop. It belonged to my neighbor’s girlfriend, and I
couldn’t help noting that the vehicle in question was parked in the same spot
where she had left it the night before. I deduced that a Saturday night date
with the glamorous driver had developed into the sort of sleepover that makes a
man feel like being especially nice the next morning.



My neighbor was bare-chested, dressed only in a pair of old swim trunks. With a
garden hose in one hand and a soapy sponge in the other, he flexed his muscular
chest with each splash and swirl, his wavy hair flopping rakishly over one eye.

This was Dr. Charlie White. Age 102.



--------------------------------------------------------------------------------


(Simon & Schuster)

This essay was adapted from “The Book of Charlie: Wisdom from the Remarkable
American Life of a 109-Year-Old Man,” by David Von Drehle. It will be published
May 23 by Simon & Schuster, © 2023 by David Von Drehle. Excerpts reprinted by
permission of Simon & Schuster. All rights reserved.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Charlie, I soon learned, was an extraordinary specimen: hale and sturdy, eyes
clear, hearing good, mind sharp. His conversation danced easily from topic to
topic, from past to present to future and back. Even so, one does not expect, on
meeting a man of 102, to be starting — as we did that day — a long and rich
friendship.




Actuarial tables have no room for sentiment or wishes, and this is what they
say: According to the Social Security Administration, in a random cohort of
100,000 men, only about 350 — fewer than one-half of 1 percent — make it to 102.
Among those hardy survivors, the average chap has less than two years remaining.
After 104, the lives slip quickly away.




Yet on that muggy Sunday morning, it was clear to me that Charlie wasn’t close
to done. In fact, he would live to be 109.

Life seemed somehow to rest more lightly on him than on most of us. I wanted to
know the why and the how. As our friendship grew, those questions deepened, for
I learned that life had dealt Charlie some heavy blows: grief, victimhood,
helplessness, disruption.

I came to realize Charlie was not a survivor. He was a thriver. He did not just
live. He lived joyfully. He was like a magnet, pulling me across the street and
into his confidences, where I discovered something about life’s essentials. The
sort of something one wants to pass on to one’s children.


Charlie as the author knew him. (Family photo)

When my children were young and learned Daddy was a writer of some kind, they
began asking me to write a book for them. I wanted very much to deliver, to pull
a bit of magic from my hat and spin it into a tale of brave and resourceful
young people making their way in a marvelous, dangerous land. But every stab I
took at writing a children’s novel failed. Gradually, I saw this would be one
more in a catalogue of ways in which I would disappoint them.

Telling Charlie’s story might be my redemption. Although he was not a superhero
— no wizards or talking spiders populated his tale — his was a story my children
needed. A story many of the world’s children might need.




Today’s children, yours as well as mine, will live out their lives in a
maelstrom of change and upheaval. Revolutionary change — which has the power to
remake societies, cultures, economies and political systems — can be hopeful and
might sound exciting. But it can quickly turn downright scary. For many young
people, the future is less a fresh field at dawn than a darkling plain at
twilight, ominous and fragile.

Parents of children living through such a time want to give their kids the tools
they need. What does it take to live joyfully while experiencing disruption?
What are the essential tools for resilience and equanimity through massive
dislocation and uncertainty?

That hot August morning, I began to understand that Charlie was the embodiment
of this vital information. To my unending gratitude, he welcomed me in, waving
hello as his girlfriend’s car sparkled.


Charlie was always game for an adventure. (Family photo)

Charlie was a physician. He knew how the human body goes — and how it stops. And
he was the first to say his extraordinary life span was a fluke of genetics and
fortune.

Born Aug. 16, 1905, in Galesburg, Ill., Charlie began life at just the moment
that (in the words of Henry Adams) history’s neck was “broken by the sudden
irruption of forces totally new.” The setting of his childhood was a world
recognizable to farmers from the age of Napoleon. Civil War veterans were a part
of daily life, their battles closer to Charlie than Vietnam is to a child born
today.

Charlie and the future grew up together. With one foot planted in the age of
draft animals and diphtheria — when only 6 percent of Americans graduated from
high school, and even middle-class people lived without electricity or running
water — Charlie planted the other foot in the age of space stations and robotic
surgery.

He lived to be among the last surviving officers of World War II, among the last
Americans who could say what it was like to drive an automobile before highways
existed, among the last who felt amazement when pictures first moved on a
screen. He lived from “The Birth of a Nation” to Barack Obama. From women
forbidden to vote to women running nations and corporations.

Still, as I’ve reflected on this remarkable friend, I have come to see that he
was more than a living history lesson, more than the winner of a genetic
Powerball. He was one of the few children of the early 1900s who could tell my
children of the 2000s how to thrive while lives and communities, work and
worship, families and mores are shaken, inverted, blown up and remade.


Charlie’s love of cars spanned nine decades. (Family photo)

Charlie was a true surfer on the sea of change, a case study in how to flourish
through any span of years, long or short. Or through any trauma.

For his incredibly long life, I came to understand, was indelibly stamped by a
tragically shortened one. He learned early — and never forgot — that the crucial
measure of one’s existence is not its length but its depth.

How early? At just 8 years old.

Around 10 a.m. on May 11, 1914, Charlie’s father rose from his desk in the
downtown Kansas City office where he worked selling life insurance, donned his
coat and hat, and set out on an errand. When he reached the elevator in the
corridor — one of the early electric passenger cars — he might have noticed that
the usual operator was not at the controls. The door was open. A substitute
stood with his hand on the lever.



As my friend’s father moved into the car, the operator unexpectedly put the
elevator in motion. The box lurched upward, doors still open. This created an
empty space between the unmoving floor of the hallway and the rising floor of
the elevator, which was now waist-high. It happened so quickly that instead of
stepping into the car, the unlucky man put his foot into the open space beneath.

His upper body pitched onto the elevator’s floor, his legs dangling in the abyss
of the shaft. In an instant, the climbing car crushed his torso against the
upper door frame so violently that the impact left a dent. Horrified, the
inexperienced operator panicked and threw the elevator into reverse. When the
compartment lurched downward, Charlie’s father slipped loose, his body following
his feet into the shaft, where he plunged nine stories to his death. He was 42
years old.

Over the course of our friendship, I heard Charlie tell this story at least half
a dozen times. Not once did he indulge in the sort of “Why, God?” or “What if?”
questions that so naturally follow a freak accident. He never remarked on the
apparent injustice of a good man’s premature death in a world where history’s
most murderous despots — men such as Hitler, Stalin and Mao — had decades of
life ahead of them. He never asked: What if an experienced operator had been at
the elevator controls? What if my father had set out on his errand five minutes
earlier or later?



Yet whenever he talked about his childhood, I noticed a tone shift between the
tales of his early, carefree childhood and those that came after his father’s
death. In the earlier stories, he was light as a lark. After the tragedy, the
boy was armored in self-reliance — as independent as Huckleberry Finn, as
resourceful as the Artful Dodger.

As I reflected on this subtle change, it occurred to me that after suffering a
loss so enormous, and surviving it, Charlie decided he could get through
anything. Brought face to face with the limits of his ability, of anyone’s
ability, to master fate or turn back time, Charlie began reaching for the things
he could control — his own actions, his own emotions, his outlook, his grit. As
he put it: “We didn’t have time to be sad.”

Charlie was not a student of philosophy. Yet in those words, I recognized the
essence of a credo that has served human beings for centuries: Stoicism, one of
the most durable and useful schools of thought ever devised. It has spoken to
paupers and presidents, to emperors and the enslaved. It’s the philosophy of
freedom and self-determination, one that seeks to erase envy, resentment,
neediness and anxiety. Its pillars are wisdom, courage, temperance and justice.
It is a philosophy of radical equality and mutual respect.

Stoicism can be equally as compelling to a grieving boy in the early 20th
century as to an abused slave such as Epictetus, who smiled as his sadistic
Roman master twisted his leg until it snapped. It teaches that a life well lived
requires a deep understanding of what we control and — more difficult — all that
lies beyond our control. We govern nothing but our own actions and reactions.

A true education, Epictetus taught, consists of learning that in our power “are
will and all acts that depend on the will. Things not in our power are the body,
the parts of the body, possessions, parents, brothers, children, country, and
generally all with whom we live in society.”

For the enslaved Epictetus, this insight spoke to the resolve to live with
purpose and dignity, even as a master controlled his body and actions. He could
be bought and sold and worked like an animal, but he could not be made to think
or act like an animal.

For the same reasons, Stoicism spoke to Viktor Frankl, an Austrian neurologist
and psychiatrist who survived the Nazi slave labor camps. From his observation
of prisoners who maintained their self-respect and goodwill even in those
hellish circumstances, Frankl concluded that “everything can be taken from a man
but one thing: the last of the human freedoms — to choose one’s attitude in any
given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way” of meeting what life
presents.

Nelson Mandela was stripped of his freedom by injustice and hatred for more than
a quarter-century and emerged from prison stronger than when he went in. “The
cell,” he said stoically, “gives you the opportunity to look daily into your
entire conduct to overcome the bad and develop whatever is good in you.” What he
made of himself inspired the world.




Charlie often counseled his friends and family in times of anger or annoyance:
“Let it go.” But the same spirit — which underlies the qualities we now speak of
as grit and resilience — is celebrated in the famous Rudyard Kipling poem that
urges:

… force your heart and nerve and sinew

To serve your turn long after they are gone,

And so hold on when there is nothing in you

Except the Will which says to them: “Hold on!”

Let it go and Hold on! — in the way of so many great philosophies, those
apparent opposites prove to be two sides of the same coin. To hold securely to
the well-formed purposes of your will, you must let go of the vain idea that you
can control people or events or the tides of fate. But you can choose what you
stand for and what you will try to accomplish.

You can choose, when hopes and fears are swirling in your head, to clutch at
hope. Amid beauty and ugliness, to fasten on beauty. Between despair and
possibility, to pursue the possible. Of love and hate, to opt for love.

These are choices, entirely in our power to make. Charlie showed me how.


Charlie in the Army Reserve. (Family photo)

The year I met Charlie was also the year Apple introduced the first iPhone. I
didn’t immediately understand the fuss. Perhaps because I write for a living,
and started so long ago that I used a typewriter, I’ve always related to
computers initially as fancy typing devices. The iPhone’s tiny touch screen
struck me as a lousy substitute.

This was an epic example of missing the point. If I had been around when humans
harnessed fire, I might have complained that the early adopters were burning up
perfectly good wooden clubs.

Charlie wouldn’t have made that mistake. This was a man who understood that
thriving through change begins with an eagerness for The New, even — especially
— when it comes along unexpectedly.

His career is Exhibit A. Charlie’s medical education, which began in 1925, came
at the threshold of modern medicine, when quacks hawking miracle potions were
the norm, and genome sequencing was beyond imagination.

Charlie learned before antibiotics, when the leading causes of death in America
weren’t heart disease and cancer. Today, those maladies kill mostly older
people; when Charlie was a student, most people didn’t grow old. They succumbed
to the same viral and microbial illnesses that had stalked humanity for ages.

Charlie didn’t cure disease in those early years — no doctors did. His stock in
trade was his bedside manner, a mixture of knowledge, common sense, kindness and
confidence that comforted and encouraged patients and their families while
natural immunity won (or lost) its battle. Without a pill or injection to work a
cure, the general practitioner was wellness coach, motivator and grief counselor
in one. “All we could really do,” Charlie admitted long afterward, was “sit by
our patients and pray.”


Charlie’s first doctor’s office. (Family photo)

This was the case when World War II interrupted the medical practice Charlie had
struggled to build through the Great Depression. Commissioned in the U.S. Army
Air Corps., Capt. White was assigned to a windswept plain by the Great Salt
Lake, where Camp Kearns airfield and training base took shape in a frenzy of
construction. His tasks at the base hospital ranged from ambulance maintenance
to the personal care of the camp commander.

The war was one of history’s most powerful engines of innovation in
manufacturing, logistics, transportation, communication, computing, physical
science — and medicine. Two major medical advances directly affected the
midcareer doctor, turning his world upside down. In Charlie’s response lies a
lesson for today: He adapted cheerfully to both of them.

The first was the mass production of penicillin, the breakthrough antibiotic
medicine — an immediate blessing on humanity after which medical science would
never again settle for nature’s natural course. Charlie was smart enough to
recognize that penicillin spelled the death of his brand of doctoring.
Physicians of the future would not be generalists making house calls. They would
be specialists, masters of a narrow set of treatments or procedures. Specific
expertise would rule.

The end of house-call doctoring might have demoralized Charlie, who had spent
years building exactly such a practice. Instead, this curious, stoical man
eagerly scanned the horizon, where he caught sight of the second major advance.




World War II, with its awful violence, transformed the use of painkillers and
anesthesia. Advances in trauma surgery accelerated the use of endotracheal tubes
to open airways, support breathing and administer anesthetics. Doctors perfected
the use of numbing drugs administered through intravenous lines, and realized
the value of local and regional blockers that could shut off pain in one part of
the body without putting a patient entirely under.

These head-spinning changes came so quickly that the War Department was suddenly
seeking anesthetic specialists.

Charlie reached out and seized his future.

Having earlier mentioned to his Army supervisors that he had experience
administering ether, Charlie was Camp Kearns’s designated expert in anesthetics.
Now, with so much urgent attention to the long-neglected field, he was promoted
and given a new assignment: Report to Lincoln Army Air Field in Nebraska to
serve as chief of anesthesiology at the new base hospital.




This is how Charlie found himself in 1943 in Rochester, Minn., at the Mayo
Clinic, for a three-month course to turn general practitioners into
anesthesiologists. The “90-day wonders,” these instant anesthesiologists were
called. Charlie breezed through, then traveled to Lincoln to finish out the war.

Just like that, Charlie had turned the threat of change into an opportunity to
grow. No longer was he an endangered generalist trying to hang on to a
precarious piece of a dying field. Instead, when the war ended, he returned home
as a pioneer in a new and rapidly growing specialty — one of the first
anesthesiologists in Kansas City, and with a Mayo Clinic seal of approval.

To me, this episode contains the essence of Charlie’s life. And a crucial lesson
for the rest of us.




It’s natural to feel anxiety and even fear amid looming change and intense
uncertainty. My own field, journalism, has shrunk by half over the past 15
years. Artificial intelligence might finish off the other half. What will
self-driving technology do to truck drivers? What will contract-writing software
do to attorneys?

Opinion: Type in your job to see how much AI will affect it

But it helps to understand that change is nothing new. Nearly 40 percent of
Americans lived on a farm when Charlie was born. Today: 1 percent.

The fact that the future is full of uncertainty doesn’t necessarily mean it is
full of gloom. Realism and optimism fit together powerfully. Too many people
believe that realism — seeing the world as it is, with all its pain and threats
— demands a pessimistic response. The optimist is deluded, they believe, a
Pollyanna moving blindly through a bleak existence with a dumb smile.

Charlie was realistic about the professional dead end he had reached. Yet he was
optimistic about new beginnings. So, when he saw a door closing up ahead, he
didn’t stop and walk away. He pushed it open and strode through.


Charlie as a young man. (Family photo)

Charlie’s new life as a specialist allowed him to indulge his bottomless
curiosity and zest for experiments. Horse-tank heart surgery, for instance.

After the war, one of the riskiest frontiers of medicine — and therefore among
the most exciting to Charlie — was open-heart surgery. Like penicillin and
anesthesia, the idea got a boost from World War II. Battlefield soldiers arrived
at hospitals with shards of shrapnel in their hearts. Conventional wisdom held
that the heart was inviolate; therefore, there was no way to extract these metal
fragments. A heart wound was a death sentence.

But an Iowa-born doctor named Dwight Harken, billeted to a London military
hospital, reasoned that if soldiers were going to die anyway, there was no harm
in trying to save them. He experimented with finger-size incisions in the heart
wall to allow him to reach quickly inside and remove the shrapnel. The gamble
was a huge success: Harken saved more than 125 lives.




After the war, Harken and others realized that the same technique might be
useful in treating mitral valve stenosis, a potentially fatal condition that
often resulted when a youthful strep throat infection worsened into rheumatic
fever. Fibrous tissue inside the heart caused the mitral valve to narrow,
leading to high blood pressure, blood clots, blood in the lungs and even heart
failure.

Charlie and his colleagues in Kansas City were intrigued to read in medical
journals about experimental surgery to repair stenotic valves. “The surgeon
could reach in real quick,” Charlie said, and with his finger probe for the
fibrous tissue, stretch the valve, break the adhesion and get out. “The whole
thing could be done in under an hour.”

But even a relatively brief valve surgery ran a high risk of death unless the
flow of blood through the heart could be slowed dramatically. Researching the
matter further, Charlie learned of experiments in which patients under
anesthesia were chilled to thicken and slow the flow of blood. To pioneer
open-heart surgery in Kansas City, he simply needed to figure out how to safely
chill an unconscious patient.


Historic Kansas City (Family photo)

Enter the horse tank.

After work one day, Charlie was tending to some horses he had purchased along
with a little plot of land. As he worked, his eye fell on the large oval trough
that held water for his livestock. In a flash, he realized this was just what he
needed.

A horse tank was big enough to hold a sleeping patient. “I bought a horse tank
and we put the patient under anesthesia and packed him in ice,” Charlie told me.
When he was cold enough, “we lifted him from the tank full of ice, placed him on
the operating table, and quickly the surgeon opened the chest and made an
incision in the heart. He went inside, broke up the fibrous tissue, sewed him
back up, and it was done. In an hour, the patient was all thawed out.”

Charlie’s horse tank served as the leading edge of cardiac surgery in Kansas
City for some time. “We never lost a patient,” he said.

People familiar with the lingo of Silicon Valley might recognize in this story
what is known as IID — iterative and incremental development. It is a supremely
practical, pragmatic approach to change, a philosophy that recognizes that great
transformations rarely come as single thunderbolts.

There is a Stoic flavor to the approach, because it works with the material and
the moment at hand, rather than pine after something better beyond one’s grasp.
IID says: Don’t demand a perfect solution before tackling a problem. Move step
by step (that’s the incremental part), improving with each new learning
experience (that’s the iterative part).




Thomas Edison tested 6,000 filaments to find the best one for his lightbulb.
Charlie understood that open-heart surgery wouldn’t arrive in fully formed
glory, like a Hollywood ending. First, progress had to spend a year or two in an
ice bath rigged from farm equipment.

This is how we live with change: step by step. This is how even elderly and
change-resistant people have learned to pump their gasoline with a credit card
reader and watch their great-grandchildren take first steps on social media.
Charlie embraced that he would be learning new things as long as he lived, and
he moved forward by accepting that he would advance in small increments.

He was also willing to make mistakes. Charlie told me he was glad to have worked
in an era before malpractice lawsuits were common — when he could participate in
what he estimated to be about 40,000 surgeries and “be innovative and not fear
the stab of the lawyers, you know?”

And mistakes didn’t come only in the operating theater. After the war, when a
buddy suggested that Charlie invest in a fledgling Colorado ski resort called
Aspen, he scoffed: “That’s just a ghost town!”

Definitely a mistake.

A salesman by the name of Ewing Kauffman once tried to interest Charlie in a
start-up business he had launched in his basement. “He was cleaning oyster
shells in a washing machine and grinding them into antacid powder,” Charlie
said, still slightly incredulous. Charlie held on to his money. Kauffman’s
business, Marion Labs, became a major pharmaceutical company worth billions.

Another mistake.

I once commented on the various fortunes Charlie had missed, and he cheerfully
replied that I didn’t know the half of it. He seemed to derive as much delight
from recalling these blunders as he did from remembering his triumphs.

Mistakes can have virtue, Charlie knew. They show we’re making the effort,
engaging with life, “in the arena,” as Theodore Roosevelt put it. Or as
Epictetus, that marvelous Stoic, said: “If you want to improve, be content to be
thought foolish and stupid.”


An avid skier, Charlie missed out on investing in Aspen. (Family photo)

A very long life is like a very large mansion. There are many rooms and all the
rooms are big. Charlie had not one but two careers as a doctor: years as a
general practitioner, followed by decades as an anesthesiologist. His retirement
was as long as most careers. He had not one but two long marriages, plus years
as a single man.

Everywhere he went, of course, people asked him for his secret to longevity. His
answer was deflating: just luck, he insisted.

His genome, over which he had no influence, had not betrayed him with a weak
heart or a wasting disease. Unlike his father, Charlie never saw his number come
up in the cosmic lottery of freak accidents.

Luck.

His mother started a May morning in 1914 as the married parent of five children
and by noon was a widow with no job and no prospects. She didn’t go to pieces.
She turned her home into a boardinghouse and encouraged her children to pitch
in. She taught them to be independent and self-sustaining simply by “putting the
responsibility of life on us,” as Charlie remembered fondly. Because she
believed in them, they believed in themselves.

Luck.

Charlie was also, of course, fortunate to have been a White man in the
20th-century United States, free to go where he pleased and dream as big as he
wanted. The same Midwest of the 1920s that nurtured his optimistic spirit was a
hotbed of populist nationalism and the Ku Klux Klan. Unlike women and people of
color, he could seize opportunities because doors were open to him that were
closed to so many others.

Luck.

Charlie’s stepdaughter began feeling poorly after a vacation at age 66. A scan
disclosed tumors throughout her body and she was gone within months. A few weeks
after she died, Charlie turned 102.

Luck.

That’s the age Charlie was when I met him.

My luck.

In 2012, when he was 106, Charlie slipped on a patch of ice outside his front
door one frigid day, and his ankle broke with a pop. In typical fashion, he
shrugged it off.

At 107, he was hospitalized with pneumonia — a disease so efficient at bringing
long lives to relatively merciful ends that it has a nickname: the old man’s
friend.

Nope.

Then, at 108, Charlie at last lost his independence. He moved into a nursing
home, and one day word came from his family that he was fading fast, telling
loved ones that death was near and assuring them he was ready. His wide circle
of friends and admirers braced for fate to catch at his collar. But springtime
blossomed again, and Charlie had a change of heart. His birthday was near, and
having come so far, he decided he might as well keep going to 109.

How unlike Charlie, I thought to myself — to imagine he had control over
something as powerful and capricious as death. One of the core teachings of
Stoicism is that death keeps its own datebook; it can come at any time, and the
only certainty is that it will eventually get to you. Therefore, “let us
postpone nothing,” said the amiable Roman philosopher and playwright Seneca.
“Let us balance life’s books every day.”

The glories of May warmed into June, sweltered into July. On the day my phone
finally rang — Charlie was gone — I checked a calendar, then shook my head,
which swam lightly in a flood of amazement and delight. It was Aug. 17, 2014.
Quietly, in the wee hours after his birthday, Charlie had let go.

In the end, Charlie defied the actuaries to become one of the last men standing
— one of only five fellows from the original 100,000 expected to make it to 109.
By the time he was done, he had lived nearly half the history of the United
States.

Among Charlie’s things after he was gone, his family found a single sheet of
notepaper, on which Charlie had boiled 109 years into an operating code of life.
He filled the sheet front and back in flowing ballpoint pen, writing in
definitive commands. Among them:

Think freely. Practice patience. Smile often. Forgive and seek forgiveness.

Feel deeply. Tell loved ones how you feel.

Be soft sometimes. Cry when you need to. Observe miracles.


Charlie with Mary Ann Cooper, his final romance. (Family photo)

As I studied Charlie’s list, it seemed to me that each directive, by itself, was
like a greeting card or a meme. Charlie’s takeaways from more than a century of
living were things we already know, for we have heard them a thousand times.

But after a few years to think about it, I have arrived at a theory that a life
well-led consists of two parts.

In the first, we are complexifiers. We take the simple world of childhood and
discover its complications. We say, “yes — but …” and “maybe it’s not that
easy.” Nothing is quite as it seems.

Then, if we live long enough, we might soften into the second stage and become
simplifiers. For all the books on all the shelves of all the world’s libraries,
life must in the end be lived as a series of discrete moments and individual
decisions. What we face might be complicated, but what we do about it is simple.

“Do the right thing,” Charlie remembered his mother telling him.

“Do unto others,” a teacher told his disciples, “as you would have them do unto
you.”

Charlie lived so long that the veil of complexity fell away and he saw that life
is not so hard as we tend to make it. Or rather: No matter how hard life might
be, the way we ought to live becomes a distillate of a few words. The essentials
are familiar not because they are trite, but because they are true.



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NCIS LA’S LL COOL J JOINS NCIS HAWAII

 * Post author By The Ultimate Fangirl
 * Post date May 23, 2023
 * 17 Comments

The saga continues.

Hits: 17

Source: https://tvline.com/2023/05/22/ll-cool-j-ncis-hawaii-season-3-cast-sam-hanna-crossover/

The NCIS: Hawai’i team is getting a major plus-up.

 

LL Cool J — fresh off wrapping his 14-year run as NCIS: Los Angeles‘ Sam Hanna,
who surprisingly resurfaced on CBS 24 hours later to make a bacon-saving cameo
during NCIS: Hawa’i’i‘s Season 2 finale — is joining the island-set spinoff for
Season 3, as a recurring guest star.

Midway through the NCIS: Hawai’i finale, Special Agent in Charge Jane Tennant
(played by Vanessa Lachey) was in the course of escaping a pair of
back-from-the-dead Adrian Creel’s henchmen when a sniper shot rang out from a
nearby hill, felling the second of her and Whistler’s (Tori Anderson)
adversaries.

 

The shooter, Special Agent Sam Hanna, then rang Jane’s cell to make reference to
the fact that, yes, the NCIS: LA series finale had deposited Sam (and Callen)
6,800 km away in Morocco (on a mission to save Hetty), but also to offer Tennant
his future services.

CBS screenshot

But when the NCIS: Hawai’i finale later drew to a close, it appeared that
Supervisory Agent John Swift (Henry Ian Cusick) will be the one to avail the
Pearl Harbor office of Sam’s vast experience. For as Jane worried what the
fallout would be for unexpectedly letting superspy Maggie Shaw slip away, Swift
was seen on the phone talking to someone about how “it couldn’t hurt to plus-up
the team” in Pearl Harbor, adding: “I have an idea who….”

LL Cool J and Lachey BTS during crossover

In a TVLine exclusive, NCIS: Hawai’i front woman Lachey says she is “so excited”
to have LL Cool J (aka Todd Smith) come on board for Season 3. “This is an
amazing opportunity to continue evolving the NCIS franchise,” she notes. “And
what better way to do that than have Sam Hanna join the team.”

 

While Lachey is mum on how exactly Sam will fit into the mix (“That’s the fun
part, figuring out how we all will solve cases together”), she is confident that
“we will have fun on set!” With a nod to the 3-way NCIS franchise crossover that
aired in January, she says, “From the moment we started filming the triple
crossover, to hearing the news of Todd joining our team, it’s been laughs, love
and excitement all around.”

In fact, Lachey surmises that the success of said crossover played “a big part”
in whetting appetites for LL Cool J’s move to Hawai’i. “We all loved working on
the triple crossover, so this transition seemed natural,” she says.

 



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HOW NCIS LA GAVE CLOSURE TO HETTY

 * Post author By The Ultimate Fangirl
 * Post date May 22, 2023
 * 42 Comments



Hits: 56

Source: https://www.cinemablend.com/television/ncis-los-angeles-final-episode-wrapped-up-hettys-story-with-returning-characters-but-something-was-missing

Wowzers! We knew some big moments were coming to NCIS: Los Angeles’ final
episode ever, and fans got to watch it all go down as “New Beginnings Part 2”
closed out the previous week’s cliffhanger and started parceling out its happy
endings. As Daniela Ruah teased ahead of the finale without actually saying it,
the episode delivered a city hall wedding for Callen and Anna, some huge
pregnancy news for Deeks and Kensi, and an update on Linda Hunt’s long-absent
Hetty. But while it was great to see some familiar faces returning to close
things out in the final sequence, there was still something pretty huge missing:
Ms. Henrietta Lange herself!



I know I’m not the only one who hoped NCIS: L.A. would find a way to get the
fan-beloved Linda Hunt back on the show in person for its swan song, especially
to see Callen tying the knot, albeit in a more subdued capacity. Even if it was
just via a Zoom call or whatever, to have her physical presence around would
have been aces, considering she’s been absent from the broadcast drama since the
Season 13 premiere. Granted, I fully understand that it’s difficult for the
actress to commit to such things, despite the showrunner’s attempts to bring her
back for Season 14, whether it be due to physical ailments or other issues. So
it’s not for nothing that the series finale DOES feature some voiceover
narration from the actress, even if she wasn’t around for an in-person
appearance.

What’s more, that voiceover work is what sets up the final scene, which itself
sets up the idea that these characters will continue working together for years
to come, as opposed to some TV finales that frustratingly pull characters apart
to go off in different directions. 


HOW NCIS: LOS ANGELES’ FINALE UPDATED HETTY’S STORY

Following Callen and Anna’s wedding, a mysterious courier showed up with an
envelope for Chris O’Donnell’s character, whose wax seal featured some familiar
initials. (Though Sam ran off to ask the guy a question, he mysteriously
disappeared! Sort of.) As it turns out, even though Hetty isn’t in close contact
these days, she somehow still knew about the impromptu wedding taking place, and
managed to set up both the newlywed couple’s honeymoon and a new mission for the
dynamic duo. Here’s what her congratulatory letter said:

> Dear Agent Callen, Congratulations on your wedding. I am so very happy for you
> and Anna. I only wish I could have been there to celebrate such a glorious
> occasion with all of you. Most people think I never had a family of my own,
> but I beg to differ. I have been blessed with the greatest family one could
> ever have wished for…and so have you. As always, Hetty P.S. I have arranged
> for you and Anna to have my place in Mykanos for your honeymoon. Stay as long
> as you like.

I’m sure Callen and Anna were more than excited about the concept of having a
sweet ass spot in Greece to go celebrate their nuptials without job stress to
worry about. Though they better hope Anna’s dad doesn’t find out its location,
lest he try and take a pair of dates out there, with one of them possibly being
Deeks’ mom.

The envelope also contained some plane tickets and a secondary note that didn’t
even let Callen soak in the post-wedding bliss before having him wonder about
his next task around the world. Here’s what her second message said, sans
voiceover. 

> I’ve also sent along two plane tickets to for you and Sam in the event that
> you may have a couple days beforehand to help me with a small side project.

Naturally, the episode ended with Sam and Callen making that trip to Morocco to
see what the side project was, only to touch base again with a trio of familiar
faces.


NCIS: LOS ANGELES’S SERIES FINALE BROUGHT BACK NATE, SABATINO, AND NELL

For the briefest of moments, it seemed like the CBS drama was actually going to
deliver a big Linda Hunt appearance whenever LL Cool J and Chris O’Donnell’s
characters showed up in Morocco. (Even though it seemed patently ridiculous for
Callen to “recognize” Hetty from behind.) Instead, though, he found Renée Felice
Smith’s Nell, who was there to bring the pair into their next adventure. Smith
left NCIS: Los Angeles in the Season 12 finale, which also happened to include
one of Hunt’s final appearances.

And lo and behold, that adventure happened to also include returns from Erik
Palladino, marking his 21st appearance as Vostanik Sabatino, and Peter Cambor’s
Nate Getz. Neither was super-duper surprising to see here, as Sabatino showed up
once already this season, for Episode 1411, while Nate appeared in two Season 13
episodes, which where his first since Season 8. Still, it’s always great to see
them, and they had a bright and bushy-eyed new recruit with them that beared a
not-so-coincidental resemblance to Callen himself. The circle of life, as it
were.

While fans no doubt would have loved to see Barrett Foa’s Eric Beale back
alongside Nell, it wasn’t meant to be. Whenever Callen asked about him, she gave
this simple and on-point update:

> He is giving a TED talk in Singapore.

A billionaire is gonna billionaire, amirite? Am I, though? I don’t actually know
any billionaires.

While audiences won’t have any more full-length episodes of NCIS: Los Angeles to
dig through, we can always hope that CBS and the applicable producers might one
day figure out a way to bring some of the L.A. team into one of the other
series, whether it be for another three-way crossover or for something smaller
in scope. In the meantime, all 14 seasons are available to stream with
a Paramount+ subscription.



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Holidays Life


MOTHER’S DAY WEEKEND

 * Post author By The Ultimate Fangirl
 * Post date May 12, 2023



Hits: 27

Happy Mother’s Day Weekend to all moms out there. Hope you all have a wonderful
weekend

 



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CENTENARIANS HAVE “ELITE IMMUNITY,” NEW STUDY REVEALS

 * Post author By admin
 * Post date May 4, 2023

iStock Photo

Hits: 24

Health and Wellness
AUTHOR Julia Diddy

Centenarians are an oft-celebrated population for their remarkable longevity and
wisdom. But how do some people live so long? A study published in The
Lancet this past March has identified unique immune system characteristics that
enable certain individuals to live to age 100 and beyond.

“We assembled and analyzed what is, to our knowledge, the largest single-cell
dataset of centenarian subjects that allowed us to define unique features of
this population that support the identification of molecular and lifestyle
factors contributing to their longevity,” senior author Stefano Monti, an
associate professor at Boston University’s Chobanian & Avedisian School of
Medicine, said in a press release.

According to the researchers, the immune system generally declines — becoming
less responsive and adaptable — as we age. But the immune profiles of the
centenarians studied seemed to buck that trend.

Henrik5000/ iStock

The study sought to identify “immune-specific patterns of aging and extreme
human longevity,” first performing single cell sequencing on immune cells
circulating in the blood of seven centenarians. The subjects are enrolled in a
concurrent study of long-lived individuals called the “New England Centenarian
Study,” led by Thomas Perls, who is also among the new study’s authors.

The information obtained by the single cell sequencing was then integrated with
two publicly available datasets, and researchers used advanced computational
techniques to analyze the combined data and see how the cells change as subjects
age. Per the study, the results pointed to “the presence of elite immunity that
remains highly functional at extreme old age.”

Senior author Paola Sebastiani explained in the release, “The immune profiles
that we observed in the centenarians confirms a long history of exposure to
infections and capacity to recover from them and provide support to the
hypothesis that centenarians are enriched for protective factors that increase
their ability to recover from infections.”

Jeremy Poland/ iStock

However, the study could not pinpoint whether this increased ability to recover
is due to genetics or a confluence of factors.

“The answer to what makes you live longer is a very complex one,” Monti told USA
Today. “There’s multiple factors, there’s the genetics — what you inherit from a
parent — there’s lifestyle, there’s luck.”

What the study did accomplish is providing the researchers and other scientists
a foundation for studying the immune resilience of centenarians and using that
knowledge to develop healthy aging therapeutics.

“Centenarians, and their exceptional longevity, provide a ‘blueprint’ for how we
might live more productive, healthful lives,” another senior author, George J.
Murphy, said in the press release.  “We hope to continue to learn everything we
can about resilience against disease and the extension of one’s health span.”



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Life Sports


THE RESTORATIVE POWER OF NEVER GIVING UP

 * Post author By admin
 * Post date May 2, 2023

At 33 he finally made it and got his first hit. Zito Photo.

Hits: 22

The restorative power of never giving up.

By

Salena Zito

PITTSBURGH, Pennsylvania — When Drew Maggi stepped into the batter’s box in the
eighth inning as a pinch hitter, fans at PNC Park knew they were about to
witness something extraordinary. Maggi, a 33-year-old infielder who had played
over 1,100 games for over 13 seasons in the minor leagues, was about to take his
first pitch in the Majors Wednesday evening.

The crowd and his fellow players rewarded him with an emotional standing
ovation. The sight of his parents, who were there to witness their son’s big
moment, brought plenty of tears to the eyes of a fan base that has been looking
for something inspirational for a very long time.

It didn’t matter what happened next — Maggi had made it to the Show. More
importantly, he had earned his place there through perseverance, hard work, and
faith.

He pulled his first pitch foul, got jammed up into an 0-2 hole, fouled off
another pitch (had it been a smidge more inside, it might have landed him a home
run), then struck out swinging on an Alex Vesia slider.

Maggi told reporters after the game that he had a hard time putting into words
how that night felt. “I can’t explain how I was feeling in the box,” he said. “I
didn’t even know what to do. You guys were cheering me on. I don’t know, I never
expected that.”

Maggi added that, through his 12-year, 10-month journey up to that moment, he
thought that if he ever got here, it would be a normal at bat. “Obviously
special, but the crowd cheering my name, I got my parents here, my three
brothers, a sister back at home…”

He also saw his Dad crying. “I don’t think I ever saw him cry before,” he said.
“All those years, I wondered what I would say to my parents if that moment ever
were to come. They’ve been right there with me. Hearing those words made it all
worthwhile. I know the last 13 years have not been wasted.”

On Sunday, Maggi was headed back to the Minors , but not before he notched his
first Major League hit and RBI. On Saturday night, he lined a pinch-hit single
in the seventh inning of the Pirates’s doubleheader sweep over the Nationals.

Baseball, like life, gives and takes. Maggi’s story is evidence that you should
never give up.

The whole article can be found here.




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Reprints from other.


THE 4 DUMBEST THINGS WE KEEP SPENDING TOO MUCH MONEY ON.

 * Post author By admin
 * Post date May 1, 2023

Piggy Bank, Dynamite, Explosive, Risk, Bankruptcy. Gettyimages.

Hits: 49

Thanks to the folks at Penny Hoarder.

The 4 Dumbest Things We Keep Spending Too Much Money On.

You’ve done what you can to cut back your spending.

You brew coffee at home, you don’t walk into Target and you refuse to order
avocado toast. (Can you sense my millennial sarcasm there?)

But no matter how cognizant you are of your spending habits, you’re still stuck
with those inescapable monthly bills. You know which ones we’re talking about:
rent, utilities, cell phone bill, insurance, groceries…

So if you’re ready to stop paying them, follow these moves…


1. STOP OVERPAYING AT AMAZON

Wouldn’t it be nice if you got an alert when you’re shopping online at Amazon or
Target and are about to overpay?

That’s exactly what Capital One Shopping does.

Just add it to your browser for free, and before you check out, it’ll check
other websites, including Walmart, eBay and others to see if your item is
available for cheaper. Plus, you can get coupon codes, set up price-drop alerts
and even see the item’s price history.

Let’s say you’re shopping for a new TV, and you assume you’ve found the best
price. Here’s when you’ll get a pop up letting you know if that exact TV is
available elsewhere for cheaper. If there are any available coupon codes,
they’ll also automatically be applied to your order.

In the last year, this has saved people $160 million.

You can get started in just a few clicks to see if you’re overpaying online.


2. CANCEL YOUR CAR INSURANCE

Here’s the thing: your current car insurance company is probably overcharging
you. But don’t waste your time hopping around to different insurance companies
looking for a better deal.

Use a website called EverQuote to see all your options at once.

EverQuote is the largest online marketplace for insurance in the US, so you’ll
get the top options from more than 175 different carriers handed right to you.

Take a couple of minutes to answer some questions about yourself and your
driving record. With this information, EverQuote will be able to give you the
top recommendations for car insurance. In just a few minutes, you could save up
to $610 a year.


3. GET PAID UP TO $140/MONTH JUST FOR SHARING YOUR HONEST OPINION

It sounds strange, but brands want to hear your opinion. It helps them make
business decisions, so they’re willing to pay you for it — up to $140 a month.

A free site called Branded Surveys will pay you up to $5 per survey for sharing
your thoughts with their brand partners. Taking three quick surveys a day could
earn up to $140 each month.

It takes just a minute to create a free account and start getting paid to speak
your mind. Most surveys take five to 15 minutes, and you can check how long
they’ll take ahead of time.

And you don’t need to build up tons of money to cash out, either — once you earn
$5, you can cash out via PayPal, your bank account, a gift card or Amazon.
You’ll get paid within 48 hours of your payout being processed, just for sharing
your opinions.

They’ve already paid users more than $20 million since 2012, and the most active
users can earn a few hundred dollars a month. Plus, they’ve got an “excellent”
rating on Trustpilot.

It takes just a minute to set up your account and start getting paid to take
surveys. Plus, right now, you’ll get a free 100-point welcome bonus just for
becoming part of the community.


4. ASK THIS WEBSITE TO HELP PAY YOUR CREDIT CARD BILL THIS MONTH

No, like… the whole bill. All of it.

While you’re stressing out over your debt, your credit card company is getting
rich off those insane interest rates. But a website called Fiona could help you
pay off that bill as soon as tomorrow.

Here’s how it works: Fiona can match you with a low-interest loan you can use to
pay off every credit card balance you have. The benefit? You’re left with just
one bill to pay every month, and because the interest rate is so much lower, you
can get out of debt so much faster. Plus, no credit card payment this month.

If your credit score is at least 620, Fiona can help you borrow up to $250,000
(no collateral needed) with fixed rates starting at 5.99% and terms from 6 to
144 months.

Fiona won’t make you stand in line or call a bank. And if you’re worried you
won’t qualify, it’s free to check online. It takes just two minutes, and it
could save you thousands of dollars. Totally worth it.

All that credit card debt — and the anxiety that comes with it — could be gone
by tomorrow.



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Life Music


THE 70’S. THOSE WERE THE DAYS. GIVE US YOUR FAVORITE DECADE.

 * Post author By admin
 * Post date April 30, 2023

Big cars and rock and roll music.Giphy Photo

Hits: 45

The 70’s. Those were the days. Give us your favorite decade. I graduated from
high school, met Hollywood movie stars, Rock and Roll musicians, met two women
who were a small part of my rock and roll  fantasy. Tawny Kitaen (girl in
Whitesnake video Here I go again) and Nina Blackwood (MTV). And met my wife.

But I used to think the 60’s were my. But no it was definitely the 70’s music
decade. So give us your favorite decade. Be it music, TV, Movies, etc.







 



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Holidays Life Uncategorized


A LITTLE BIT OF EVERYTHING. THRIFTING, GARDENING, CURB SHOPPING, AND EVEN SOME
EASTER PICTURES.

 * Post author By admin
 * Post date April 9, 2023

Shutterstock photo

Hits: 61

A little bit of everything. Thrifting, curb shopping, and even some Easter
pictures. I have to say that for us it’s a lot of luck. We don’t thrift or curb
shop for items to sell. If we did, we would have made thousands of dollars. We
use most of the furniture and nick knacks in decorating.

The brass you see in the pictures are almost all Baldwin Brass. A few Virginia
Metalcrafters. The pewter plates and candlesticks are too numerous to mention.

A recent trip to a Mennonite thrift store where we made a donation.



Of course a few decoration pictures.







Got started on getting the gardens ready.





I’m not embarrassed to say we curb shop. OK I curb shop. But some items are real
treasures. So sit back and enjoy.

Some of my curb shopping treasures. One awesome music store. Picked it up from
my neighbor who put it out for disposal.



I could not believe that the person who owned these 5 chairs put them out on the
curb. Value $4,500. Our cost. $0









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   Thrifting

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Holidays Life


EASTER CELEBRATION

 * Post author By The Ultimate Fangirl
 * Post date April 9, 2023

Hits: 30







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APRIL 2ND, 1945: LEGENDARY TINY ACTRESS LINDA HUNT IS BORN

 * Post author By The Ultimate Fangirl
 * Post date April 2, 2023



Hits: 54

NCIS LA’s legendary boss queen, Linda Hunt is 78 today!

I’m still waiting on official proof, but I am 100% confident that Hetty will
indeed come home before the show ends for good!


THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR 14 SEASONS AS HENRIETTA ‘HETTY’ LANGE!







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NCIS LA: HIGHLIGHTING THE SHEER AWESOMENESS THAT IS HETTY LANGE

 * Post author By The Ultimate Fangirl
 * Post date March 20, 2023



Hits: 7

Source: https://collider.com/ncis-best-character-hetty/

For two decades, with three spin-off series and 33 seasons between them,
the NCIS franchise has become one of the most expansive and memorable shows to
air on television. Throughout that time, the series has garnered praise for its
action, writing, and engaging storylines across multiple settings. However, the
main reason that the series attained and sustained such popularity lies in the
excellence of its characters and their stories. From the wit and humor of Agent
DiNozzo (Michael Weatherly) to the laid-back surfer attitude of Marty Deeks
(Eric Christian Olsen) to the confident leadership of Jane Tennant (Vanessa
Lachey), there has been such a variety of characters and personalities that make
each series feel unique and each setting vibrant. It’s the standout characters
that make these series so noteworthy, with figures such as Agent Jethro Gibbs
(Mark Harmon) defining what it means to be an NCIS agent. However, surpassing
even dozens of other contenders, the best part of the franchise is the character
you’d least expect: the mysterious and supremely capable Agent Hetty Lange
(Linda Hunt) from NCIS: Los Angeles.


HETTY IS UNMATCHED IN LEADERSHIP AND EXPERIENCE ON ‘NCIS: LOS ANGELES’

Image via CBS

Viewers love a reliable leader — someone who can lead their team of special
agents to incredible success through their distinct leadership styles. Though
the underdog story is rewarding in its own right, it’s also quite satisfying
watching people be the best at their profession. Hetty Lange is one of the
premier examples of unfathomable professional success in the entire franchise.
She serves as the Operations Manager of the NCIS branch in Los Angeles, leading
the team with her wisdom, craft, and her unmatched experience and expertise.

Like countless other special agents in media, Hetty has a background shrouded in
mystery and intrigue. Throughout the series, she is constantly calling in favors
from all over the globe, with allusions to past adventures that likely would
have filled another 20 seasons of a show itself. In the finale of NCIS: Los
Angeles’ second season, the team investigates Hetty’s background and finds a
resume as diverse as da Vinci and as intense as Jason Bourne. Through their
findings they discover this smorgasbord of information on their operations
manager: she speaks 10 languages fluently, has a Master of Fine Arts, is skilled
in 3 martial art forms, won a Bronze Medal in a rifle event at the Olympics, is
a published novelist, a pilot, a former film and stage actor, and has won
countless awards and merits from multiple intelligence agencies. And that was
all that they could identify at the time. In a franchise full of experienced and
storied agents, Hetty is a living legend among comparably young upstarts still
finding their places in the world of intelligence and defense.

 


HETTY SUBVERTS EXPECTATIONS IN THE ‘NCIS’ FRANCHISE

Image via CBS

Though it’s quite easy to establish Hetty as the best among the best in NCIS,
it’s her subversion of expectations that truly makes her the juggernaut that she
is. Linda Hunt, the actress who portrays Hetty, was diagnosed with dwarfism and
stands at a smaller stature of only 4’9. In stark contrast from the
conventionally athletic appearances of most other NCIS agents, she stands out
for both her shorter height and her older age. However, neither have been an
obstacle for her character — all the other characters in the series treat her
with utmost respect and, at many times, are intimidated by her mere presence.
Hunt portrays Hetty with such gravity that she commands attention whenever she
is in a scene.

Unlike other agents in the franchise, Hetty remained predominantly out of action
due to her older age. But in the same way that her slighter physique did not
hold her back from earning and holding respect, it does not hinder her
effectiveness to the mission. As mentioned before, Hetty has built up a fortune
of experience and connections. Countless times throughout the series, it is
through her contacts and information network that the agents are able to
successfully complete her mission. When their backs are against the wall, it
often takes just a call from Hetty to provide an ample solution. Though Hetty
had already checked off all the requirements for being a badass special agent,
she continuously adds to her resume of success with each season of the series.
Even when Hetty steps down from her role as Operations Manager to handle an
undisclosed long-term mission in Syria, she remains an integral part of the
LA-based team. Her infrequent calls to Los Angeles are treated like a hero’s
return, often accompanied by vital words of wisdom or a called-in favor that
rectifies an obstacle the team is facing. When Marty Deeks is unable to
officially become an NCIS agent, it’s Hetty who calls in and gets him a spot in
official training. Whenever G. Callen (Chris O’Donnell), Nell (Renée Felice
Smith), or any of the agents seem to need some sage guidance, it is still Hetty
who provides the needed wisdom to steer them in the right direction. Hetty Lange
is simultaneously the peak of what viewers want in a special agent and the
premier example of subverting expectations. NCIS: Los Angeles is the most
successful spin-off from the original series, and Hetty plays an irreplaceable
role in the show’s excellence.

The NCIS franchise has grown to become one of television’s most notable families
with so many charming characters and personalities that have captured viewers
hearts for 20 years. While everyone is bound to have their favorites, it is hard
to argue about the narrative impact and importance of Hetty Lange. Her
subversion of standard expectations of a special agent is made even more
impressive by her stalwart resilience and wise leadership. Even among some of
the best that cop procedurals have to offer, Hetty stands at a point even higher
than the rest. As NCIS: Los Angeles nears its climactic conclusion, it’s the
best time to look back and appreciate Hunt’s phenomenal work as the most special
agent, Hetty Lange.



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TV


TODAY, BACK IN 2019: NCIS LA AIRED IT’S GREATEST EPISODE

 * Post author By The Ultimate Fangirl
 * Post date March 17, 2023



Hits: 24

I’ve had a lot of favorite NCIS LA episodes over the years. But the greatest 1
ever, not just to me but for a vast majority of fans worldwide, is the 1 that
aired today back in 2019:

Season 10’s Till Death do us Part.

It was a perfect combination of everything this show does best: Action with
comedy, deep moments, and even had the all time greatest wedding crashing scene:



Everyone basically got what they all wanted from this episode: Kensi and Deeks
got married, Hetty came back, everyone was together and happy.

(And now that I say all this, I’m now suddenly wishing that Callen’s upcoming
wedding is lovely as well, and provides some sweet Hetty content!).

Happy 4 year anniversary to 10×17!



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Uncategorized


MC GOING IRISH.

 * Post author By admin
 * Post date March 16, 2023



Hits: 54

OK  so We’re not Irish, doesn’t mean we can’t decorate with a Irish look. Sit
back and just take in the new additions.  First we added some Franciscan Ivy
plates, saucer, and some little people.



Next  a Leprechaun, some clover, coins, and a pot of gold.



And what a seven dollar and a five dollar table add to a porch door.





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TV


CBS REVEALS EARLY DETAILS ON NCIS LA’S SERIES FINALE

 * Post author By The Ultimate Fangirl
 * Post date March 10, 2023



Hits: 20

Source: https://deadline.com/2023/03/ncis-los-angeles-two-part-series-finale-wrap-up-special-dates-1235285010/

NCIS: Los Angeles is expanding its series finale to two episodes. The double
series ender will air at 10 p.m. Sunday, May 14, the date previously announced
as the series finale, and at 9 p.m. Sunday, May 21, on CBS.

Following the May 21 episode, CBS will air A Salute to NCIS: Los
Angeles an Entertainment Tonight special that takes a look back at the past 14
years of the series.

“Wrapping up a series is always bittersweet,” said showrunner and executive
producer R. Scott Gemmill. “We were blessed to have 14 seasons together, so
bringing it to a satisfying end was extremely challenging after so many years.
Fortunately, CBS was gracious enough to give us an extra episode in order to
send off our characters in a way befitting their stories that hopefully the fans
find both satisfying and hopeful.”

In the May 14 episode, “New Beginnings, Part 1,” when an ATF agent goes missing,
the agency seeks help from the NCIS team to investigate stolen military-grade
weapons and locate the agent. Also, Callen (Chris O’Donnell) and Anna (Bar Paly)
continue to plan their wedding, Roundtree’s (Caleb Castille) sister (Ava McCoy)
interviews for medical school, and Sam (LL Cool J) encourages his father to take
part in the drug trial.

In “New Beginnings, Part 2”, the NCIS team continues the case with ATF and the
stolen weapons.

Both episodes also will be available for streaming live and on-demand on
Paramount+.

Entertainment Tonight’s Kevin Frazier hosts A Salute to NCIS: Los
Angeles special from Paramount Studios, where NCIS: Los Angeles filmed for 14
years.

The one-hour special features footage and interviews with NCIS: LA cast members
from the past 14 years, including current exclusive interviews, favorite
memories and behind-the-scenes moments from the Entertainment Tonight vault.

NCIS: Los Angeles, which will have aired 322 episodes including the series
finale, is going out on a high note. The show is averaging 6.08 million viewers
and is the top scripted program in its Sunday 10 p.m. time period.

The NCIS spinoff is a drama about the high-stakes world of a division of NCIS
that is charged with apprehending dangerous and elusive criminals who pose a
threat to the nation’s security. By assuming false identities and utilizing the
most advanced technology, this team of highly trained agents goes deep
undercover, putting their lives on the line in the field to bring down their
targets. Armed with the latest in high-tech gear and regularly sent into
life-threatening situations, this tight-knit unit relies on each other to do
what is necessary to protect national interests.

Along with O’Donnell, LL Cool J, and Castille, the series stars Linda Hunt,
Daniela Ruah, Eric Christian Olsen, Medalion Rahimi and Gerald McRaney.

R. Scott Gemmill, John P. Kousakis, Frank Military, Kyle Harimoto, Andrew
Bartels, and Shane Brennan, who created the series, all serve as executive
producers. NCIS: Los Angeles is produced by CBS Studios.



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Categories
Food Pictures Uncategorized


WE DID THE POTS AND PANS, NOW LET’S DO THE DISHES AND SILVERWARE.

 * Post author By admin
 * Post date March 10, 2023

Franciscan Made in the USA. Replacement Unlimited Photo

Hits: 44

 

We did the pots and pans, now let’s do the dishes and silverware. We love the
classics. Our everyday dishes and silverware are Oneida Colonial Boston and
Corning Corelle Bone/Sandstone. Both made in the USA so many years ago.

Our good dishes and silverware are Franciscan Desert Rose. Silverware is Oneida
Shell. Again made in the USA.

Over the years we’ve replaced some dishes. And mostly USA. Some of the
Franciscan is made in England. Sadly some of the Oneida is Chinese.

So what’s on your table?











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History Life Sports Travel Uncategorized


HOW OLYMPIAN CORNELIUS JOHNSON’S LEGACY LIVES ON THROUGH AN 87-YEAR-OLD OAK TREE

 * Post author By admin
 * Post date March 5, 2023

(Original Caption) 8/9/1936-Berlin, Germany- With what is obviously the greatest
of ease, Cornelius Johnson of the United States, without even doffing his
sweatshirt, is clearing the bar at a height which other competitors found
difficult to surmount. Johnson placed first; Dave Albrittson and Delos Thurber,
also of the United States, captured second and third honors respectively.

Hits: 24

How Olympian Cornelius Johnson’s Legacy Lives on Through an 87-Year-Old Oak
Tree.

Cornelius Johnson won gold in the high jump for the United States at the 1936
Olympics, held in Nazi Germany. Along with his medal, he took home an oak
sapling and planted it in the yard of his family’s Los Angeles home. Though
Johnson died just 10 years later, at age 32, the oak tree still stands tall —
a physical representation of his legacy as one of the many Black American
athletes who took the podium during those Games and resisted the then-ethos of
the country that hosted them.



“Him planting his tree was a way of saying ‘I beat you, we won,’” Susan
Anderson, a curator at the California African American Museum, told CBS News.
Johnson’s tree is one of about two dozen oaks left standing from the 1936
Olympics, and it has now been designated as a historical monument in LA.

That designation is due in part to the work of Christian Kosmas Mayer, a
Vienna-based artist with a particular interest in trees with historical
significance. He lobbied to save this one when the land was bought by a
developer and, thankfully, he was successful.

“Now it grows in what we call Koreatown in Los Angeles, a very diverse,
multiethnic, multi-language area, absolutely the opposite of what the Nazis
would have dreamed of as their future,” Mayer told CBS. “So I think it’s a
beautiful symbol for how things can turn out much better.”

See the Tree

 

https://www.cbsnews.com/video/los-angeles-oak-tree-carries-legacy-of-forgotten-1936-olympic-athlete/



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TV


NCIS RENEWED FOR SEASON 21

 * Post author By The Ultimate Fangirl
 * Post date February 22, 2023



Hits: 44

Yup, that’s right, folks! The more superior NCIS of the franchise was renewed
today for Season 21.

Despite so many cast changes over the years, it’s writing has remained hard core
and true to what the show was always about, and as a result of all that, it
still has millions of fans worldwide and still makes CBS a lot of money.

(LA unfortunately, can’t say anything about that because it’s really bad writing
sank it and it’s ratings.).

Here’s to another year of the way more superior NCIS!!



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