Cindy Lange-Kubick: The rest of the story ...
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Gene Foreman has made good on his promise to Larry Zich’s family.
The Vietnam-era vet was featured in a column earlier this month. While serendipitously sitting next to a woman named Sue Mueller at the State Fair beer garden, he realized he was wearing her Uncle Larry’s MIA/POW bracelet.
Sunday, Gene and his motorcycle club rode to Antelope Park with flags waving.
Family members looked on as they presented an etching of Larry’s name from the traveling Vietnam Memorial wall, a folded American and a MIA/POW flag to Sue’s mom.
“She was crying,” Gene said. “I have to admit, so was most everyone.”
Holy Shih Tzu
Deana Barger, organizer of STRAY — Lincoln’s Social Scene for Dog Lovers & the Dogs They Love — reports that plenty of new dogs came to dine at the Parthenon last Tuesday after the social club was featured on JournalStar.com's front page.
“The only backlash is that I don’t have leftovers any more and have to make a whole new menu each week.”
More Swedish Muttballs anyone?
Last organized doggy dining of the season, otherwise known as the “final beast feast,” is Tuesday.
One Book — One Picture Book
I hope everyone has picked up a copy of Erik Larson’s “The Devil in the White City.” If you have, you know it’s a great read.
What you may not know is that Bennett Martin Library’s third-floor Heritage Room has a copy of a fabulous book of photos from the 1893 Chicago World’s Fair. The oversized sepia-toned prints by William Henry Jackson show the incredible scope of the undertaking.
The book is fragile and you can’t take it home, but you really should see it.
The passing of Pluto
Remember Pluto, anyone?
Outsider art
The second annual Outsiders Art Festival in August was a smashing success. The mixed media art show and filmfest at the Loft at the Mill drew more than 700 people. Better still, 44 pieces of art sold and every penny — $3,700 — went to the artists, men and women coping with some form of mental illness.
Mark your calendars for the first week of August 2007.
Walking in Boston
Sisters Deb Early and Tammie Burns made it to Boston last month and walked 60 miles in three days, raising money for breast cancer research.
Deb tells this story: “It’s day 3 and we’re walking through a residential area. A young woman in her early 30s comes out … and she’s wearing a bandanna. She asks if we’re doing the 3-day walk and we stop.
“She tells us that she really wants to do it next year and that she just finished chemo two weeks ago. I congratulate her and Tammie says, ‘You’re the reason we’re walking!’
“It was like time stopped for a second, her eyes welled up and she softly said, ‘Thank you.’”
Will you marry me?
After John Wirtz made his cinematic proposal to sweetheart Ella Reeves, I linked to the column in my Lincoln Life blog so people could share their proposal tales.
One woman shared that her husband proposed at Flaming Amy’s Burrito Barn while she had guacamole and sour cream dripping off her chin.
That’s a good one, but this is my favorite: “My wife and I have been married for 19 years but I have no recollection of ever proposing.”
My husband says the same thing.
Harold feeds the hungry
Ya gotta love Harold Hamilton, the retired Lutheran pastor who collects food for the hungry. After a column about his service ran this summer, the careful bookkeeper wrote to say he had heard from “over 75 persons.”
He also included a copy of a letter sent to a couple who sent $50 to help with the work he and his grandsons have undertaken.
The $50 bought 30 boxes of cereal (sale priced, naturally), he told them. Furthermore, each box had a 30-cent “Super Box Top for Education” coupon and an additional 10-cent regular “Box Top for Education” coupon, which provided $12 for Randolph School to help purchase needed items.
“I’m proud and I’m sure you are too,” he wrote, “that your gift has multiplied…”
Sort of like that whole loaves and fishes thing.
Calendar wives
Everything is going well for the “Band of Sisters” who made a themed girlie calendar for their “Band of Brothers” serving in Iraq, said Shannon Lassek.
The 167th Cavalry lost two Nebraska soldiers and some of the seven women from the calendar attended the funerals together, and that was hard. But “morale is back up,” Shannon said, and the soldiers will be home in the spring.
In a few days, in the Iraqi desert, they’ll flip their calendars over to see their wives in bikinis and beachwear, a takeoff on the hit “Lost.”
Their version? “Lost without You.”
Implants for Isaac
Last week, Isaac Erhart had surgery. The 1-year-old who lost his hearing after contracting meningitis last winter received bilateral cochlear implants.
His mom, Heather, says he is very doing well.
The implants won’t be fully functioning until Oct. 10.
The family received all sorts of donations after their story was publicized, making it possible for the surgery their insurance wouldn’t cover.
“So many people contacted me,” said Heather. “Even if they weren’t able to offer monetary support, they offered support in other ways.”
All kinds of naked
Rememberthe calendar men of Magnet? A colleague wrote a story about the fundraising calendar featuring seminude townsmen and I followed up with a column about the relative merits of various kinds of naked. A few days later I received a handwritten letter from a reader who either has a photographic memory or an extensive fashion magazine collection.
He had his own definitions of naked:
Good Naked: “43-year-old goddess-model Lisa Berkley … in More magazine (Feb. 2003)”
Power Naked: Penelope Cruz in “Vogue’s annual power issue (March 2001) … wearing only a miniskirt...”
Vomit Naked “e.g. if obese Rush Limbaugh were to…”
Parks family in India
Glen and Rebecca Parks and their four kids are getting settled in India, where Glen, a Lincoln attorney, is now working for the Freedom Firm helping to free child prostitutes.
You must check out their Web site, www.ParksPage.com, especially Rebecca’s take on family life: Welcome to My World.
It will make you grateful for little things.
Mr. Shirtless Guy
I heard from a friend of the bare-chested O Street benchwarmer after my fashion column ran last Thursday.
“When you’re an athlete, like Mr. Shirtless, fashion is not usually at the top of your list.
“He drives his car to work about 5 times a year, the rest of the time he rides his bike … He takes the stairs at work and runs or walks during his breaks with friends there at the state office building…
“Some people may think it’s being vain sitting there with your shirt off, but if you have worked like he has to maintain this, just like people who have worked to maintain a nice garden, a nice house … they should at times be able to show the world…”
Amen to that.
I have also learned that Mr. Shirtless Guy’s name is David Hill. And he was eating a Subway sandwich, not a Jimmy John’s, as previously reported. My apologies. I was trying to be covert in my people watching and misread the sandwich wrapper.
Crazy
Author Pete Earley gave a great speech at CenterPointe’s annual meeting last Thursday. The best-selling author has taken on the nation’s mental health system in his latest book “Crazy: A Father’s Search Through America’s Mental Health Madness.”
You should check out his stuff at www.peteearley.com.
In his talk, he praised Lincoln’s mental health system as a cut above what he has seen around the rest of the country.
Si se puede
I messed up the origins of the slogan Si se puede — Yes, it can be done — in a story about the immigration rallies this spring.
The slogan was popularized by Cesar Chavez and the United Farm Workers.
Lo siento.
Reach Cindy Lange-Kubick at 473-7218 or clangekubick@journalstar.com.
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