Archive for the ‘News / Events’ Category
Enjoy . . .
. . . the previous entry
‘cuz I’m busy
writing for my newspaper readers.
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Thirsty Thursday . . .
. . . is always welcome and
it’s a bridge to Friday’s Super Supper Shuttle
that gets us to
Olive Garden,
Old Chicago Pizza,
Village Inn and
In.N.Out Burger this week.
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Compound Interest Beats the Odds
Famed physicist Albert Einstein is credited with describing the most powerful force in the universe as “compound interest.”
Yet just as many people who don’t understand his theory of relativity also don’t understand what he was driving at in this instance.
Three out of 10 Americans think their best chance of amassing half a comfortable financial cushion in their lifetime is to win a lottery or sweepstakes, according to a Consumer Federation of America poll. The odds of winning a lottery are one in 10,000,000 to 20,000,000.
When the Consumer Federation asked how much money you would earn by investing $25 a week for 40 years at a 7 percent return, no one guesses as high as the actual amount — $286,640. Invest $50 a week at that same 7 percent rate – the average annual return of the Standard and Poors 500 — for the same period and you double that amount, which is well more than half a million dollars.
What makes compound interest so powerful is that you not only earn interest on the money you put into an investment, but you also earn interest on the interest. If you put $100 in an investment program at 7 percent, you should have $107 at the end of the first year. The next year you earn 7 percent on the $107 not just the original $100.
What Would Weekends Do . . .
. . . without Saturdays?
No mowing the lawn,
shopping for Sunday,
packing for the weekend trip
and on and on.
It’s relaxing game time around here.
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NO BOCCE today . . .
. . . bus (and driver) has to traipse to
Goldfield Ghost Town.
It’s Good Friday . . .
. . . with Easter over the horizon.
Time to take a break
and pause for prayer,
mellow meditation and
feasting with your family.
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It’s Holy Thursday . . .
. . . better known as Thirsty Thursday around here,
to be followed by Good Friday
and then it’s Easter Sunday.
Don’t forget to sign up for Easter brunch.
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Remember the . . .
. . . Verena Voices.
Check back a couple of days here —
2:30 in the dining room.
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The San Diego Union used to have a spot for essays
on its editorial pages called the Southwest Pocket .
I enjoyed contributing because it was a break
from posting pap about local political shenanigans.
Good Friday . . .
. . . and Easter Sunday
are coming up this week for Christians.
Jewish Passover begins Wednesday.
And we’re about midway through
Islam’s month-long Ramadan.
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Many Memories are Good
When thinking of nothing during shower time, bits of good memories will dance through my mind and I can flesh them out while I’m toweling off the water.
One that scrambled in recently slipped in on the shoulders of an old home town pal who happened to be on the same teams in a couple of softball leagues years later in a city far from home. One of them was in an outlaw league that was so-called because it played on Sundays when regular city league games were rarely scheduled.
These were fun games that attracted top players from throughout the region. One Sunday we arranged for a group of Kitchener-Waterloo Press Club pickup players to play the Hamilton Tiger Cats of the Canadian Football League along with whatever pickup players they could get.
We had a particularly quick and blazing whip-arm pitcher named Wayne Rehkopf along with former Montreal Canadiens hockey goalie Bill Durnan, who is ensconced in the Hockey Hall of Fame and is listed among the 100 greatest players of all time. He is also in the Canadian Softball Hall of Fame as one of the all-time greatest pitchers.
I was the catcher.
A long-time and active member of the Press Club was Bob Rafferty, who also coached the K-W Dutchman during their world championship and Olympic years in the mid-’50s. Even National Hockey League and Russian national hockey teams refused to play exhibition games against them because they were so good..
Bob, like most of the couple hundred folks who populated our spectator crowd this particular Sunday, got to enjoy the sauce more than the spectacle as the day wore on.
But then, as we clattered aboard our bench to take our turn at bat for the sixth inning, Bob came over and sat down beside me, slapped me on the thigh and said, “You know, Scag, I thought you were too small, but you’re a helluvan athlete; yep, you’re an athlete.” And tottered off.
I don’t recall playing any better after that, but I’ve felt a helluvalot better ever since.
There are many overlooked compliments in our day-to-day lives, however, that we should think about.
It’s a major compliment that your spouse picked you, and is still putting up with you. What about your friends, the ones that picked you? You should feel complimented that they still share their times – good and bad – with you.
When the children keep returning home to visit is a gold-standard compliment we can all use. “You done good, mom (or pop),” sits proudly on the top shelf of anyone’s Laudatory Library.
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Carol Reichert announces:
Verena Voices choir
is presenting a short program on
April 4th at 2:30 pm
in our Dining Room.
They will sing inspirational songs as well as an Easter favorite.
After their singing, Carol Reichert will play
seasonal and lively songs for your entertainment.
Please come and support our own choir and
director Kathy Irving, and Carol R. accompanist.
Thank you
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The Man Who Dethroned a King
By Tom Morrow
Mature Life Features
The captivating tabloid trippings around the globe of Harry and Meghan – are they going the raise Archie in Canada? the U.S.? — isn’t new. Anyone familiar with history knows that Britain’s King Edward VIII, who gained the throne when George V died in January 1936, abdicated his crown for “… the woman I love.”
But what wasn’t known until recently is how he was helped out the royal door by Cosmo Gordon Lang, the Scottish cleric who became Archbishop of Canterbury, head of the Church of England, whom he had once admired. Lang believed that, as Prince of Wales, Edward was adept at philandering and had not always been wise in his choice of friends and acquaintances, whose standards Lang was later to condemn as “alien to all the best instincts and traditions of his people.”
The archbishop had been aware for some time of the king’s relationship with the American Wallis Simpson, who was still married to her second husband, Ernest. In mid-1936 it became clear Edward intended to marry her either before or shortly after his impending coronation, depending on the timing of her divorce.
Lang agonized over whether he could, with good conscience, administer the coronation oath to the king in such circumstances, bearing in mind the Anglican Church’s teaching on marriage. It would be unthinkable to have a divorcee, especially an American, sit on the throne as Queen.
Lang confided to his recently opened diary his hopes that circumstances might change, or that he might be able to persuade the king to reconsider his actions, but the king refused to meet with him. Lang kept close contact with the king’s mother, Queen Mary: Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin, and the king’s private secretary. Edward believed Lang’s influence in court was strong, recalling how from beginning to end he felt the archbishop’s “shadowy, hovering presence” in the background.
The matter became public Dec. 2, 1936, when the Bishop of Bradford made an indirect comment on the king’s “need for Divine Grace.” By then, faced with staunch opposition by the Church and Parliament, the king decided he would abdicate rather than give up Wallis Simpson. Nine days later — Dec. 11, 1936 — he gave up his throne in favor of his brother, George VI.
Two days later, Lang broadcast a speech in which he said: “From God he (Edward VIII) received a high and sacred trust. Yet by his own will he has … surrendered the trust.” Lang did not disguise his relief that the crisis was over. He wrote of George VI, “I was now sure that to the solemn words of the Coronation there would now be a sincere response.” On May 12, 1937, Lang crowned George VI, father of Queen Elizabeth II, with full pomp and ceremony in Westminster Abbey.
Time magazine recorded:
“… All through the three-hour ceremony, the most important person there was not the King, his nobles or his ministers, but a hawk-nosed old gentleman with a cream and gold cape who stood on a dais as King George approached: The Rt. Hon. and Most Reverend Cosmo Gordon Lang, D.D. Lord Archbishop of Canterbury, Primate of All England.” Supposedly the archbishop fumbled with the Crown but Lang himself was fully satisfied.”
Years later, it was revealed that Lang had placed the crown on George’s head backwards.
It wasn’t until details read in Lang’s recently discovered private diary that the world learned how he and then Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin colluded in forcing Edward to step down from the throne.
Mature Life Features 