Although prepared for martyrdom, I prefer that it be postponed.
Winston Churchill
Chart of the Day
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| Courtesy of Mercatus |
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| Via the Washington Times |
The Surviving Member of a Great American Family is Gone
I normally keep my family and friends out of the blog. But I learned just hours ago that my Uncle Ray had passed last night. Uncle Ray had battled medical issues for years, including Hodgkin's, but I had only recently heard that my uncle had been diagnosed with throat cancer with a life expectancy of 4 months.
Ray and Dad were the two youngest of a family of 4 boys and 2 girls. Ray, in fact, met one of Mom's best friends, Phyllis, at my folks' wedding, and both couples ended up having good-sized families. As a military family on the move, we only got to visit our beloved Connecticut cousins on all too brief vacations. I feel as though part of my childhood died last night.
When I wrote about my Dad last year, I hadn't heard the infamous peach story; Uncle Ray had placed a peach on Dad's coffin. (A picture is in my Dad's memorial blog.) When Dad was 6 and Ray was 8, they passed by some peach trees on their way home, and Dad persuaded a reluctant Ray to climb with him up one of the trees and pluck some ripe fruit. [I totally believe that my Dad did this.] Needless to say, the owner caught them in the act and brought them back to the house where he put large bowls of peaches in front of them and ordered them to eat their fill. He then told them, "Now if you want to eat peaches from now on, you come see me--don't go climbing trees and breaking branches."
I had had some arguments with Uncle Ray's family over the past few years (not all political, but I do think Ray was more of a blue-collar Democrat. We had no political debates per se, but I might impishly throw in a shot at Democratic "progressives".) Dad really never talked politics that much--although he thought it was important I should buy an American car; one of his best friends, however, is one of the few remaining yellow-dog conservative Democrats and constantly published letters to the editor in the local Texas papers. Oscar hates George W. Bush with a passion; I could tolerate his idiosyncracies, but I started getting annoyed when my folks started forwarding Paul Krugman columns he sent them.
But worse than that, Uncle Ray started a kerfuffle that would do a birther proud. There had been some mistakes on his birth certificate that apparently my grandparents never noticed or if they had, they didn't bother correcting: the family surname was butchered to an anglicized variation "Guilmette". (In fact, we pronounce our surname in English as "gill met"--my Dad would always sign in at a restaurant with that variation.) Despise the fact everyone else in the family spelled the surname the correct French way, my uncle proudly stood by the certificate. Similarly, we always knew him as Ray but for the last several years, he's gone by the given name of 'Emile'. (Don't ask me about crazy French-Canadian naming traditions, often involving a long string of names, and the child would often go by a middle name.) I finally snapped when my beautiful cousin Celeste sent me mail with the same mangled surname, which I take as a cultural insult.
I don't think my uncle had ever read my blog and probably would have disagreed with most, if not all of it. But I will miss him, and my thoughts and prayers are with Aunt Phyllis, my cousins, and their families.
Rand Paul and Criminal Justice Reform
Choose Life: A Gorgeous Baby With Anophthalmia
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| Isn't Daisy a beautiful gift from God? |
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| Courtesy of the original artist via IPI |
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| Courtesy of Glenn McCoy via Townhall |
John Denver, "I Want To Live"
