Bag of Randomness for Friday, June 7, 2019

  • I’m sure there’s a more elegant way to say this, but that man has been through some serious shit.
    • Some nice ladies decided to crowdfund his trip for the 75th anniversary of D-Day, and it was adorable hearing him tell the story, “When they told me they were gonna put that on the internet or some place […] I said, ‘I’m gonna get one of the chairs here and get a tin cup and sit out in front. And I’ll bet you I’ll pick up more right outside here than you will through– through that.’ I said, “Who is gonna pay money for me to go over there?’ Larson recalled.“
    • Here’s part of his story of landing on Omaha Beach:
      • “I stopped for a cigarette behind [a] berm, and my matches were wet,” he said. “I turned to– to my left, and not three feet from me there was a soldier. And I says, ‘Buddy, have you got a match?’ And he didn’t answer. I looked again, and there was no head under the helmet. The soul of that boy inspired me to [get] up at that instant and run for the cliff.”
    • And when he made it off the beach:
      • “There was Camembert!” delights Jake. “Am I even pronouncing that right? It was delicious, that Camembert cheese, but I didn’t know how you ate that thing – I was just a farm boy from Minnesota! Then they gave us champagne! Wow! Man! Did you ever drink champagne?”
  • It was nice to see Saving Private Ryan was on both AMC and the BBC last night on the 75th anniversary of D-Day. I’m still pissed off that movie lost the Oscar to Shakespeare in Love.
  • My father died a month before the film was released in theaters. It bummed me out he never got to watch it.
  • I forgot Bryan Cranston was in the movie, he played a one-armed war department colonel and spoke 42 words.
  • When I was a kid and didn’t know any better, I thought war was a cool and glorified thing. I remember asking him if he was part of D-Day. His reply wasn’t very characteristic of his personality or at least not what I expected of the rough and tough-minded father I made him to be. It was a real grateful, “No, thank God I wasn’t.” I said something like, “Ah man, that would have been neat, why wouldn’t you want to be a part of it?” He went on to tell me how it was an unimaginable event and prayed I never had to experience anything close to it. Even though he wasn’t part of D-Day, he was a gunner on a plane (a PV-1 Ventura) that got shot down over the Atlantic and was lost at sea for a few days. I still have the telegram sent to his parents about being MIA somewhere.
    • Side rant: WifeGeeding says I’m tough to buy presents for, yet for over ten years I’ve hinted how I always wanted a model version of the PV-1 Ventura. Hmm, I wonder if any are still operational, that would be quite the experience to fly in one.
  • How did the History channel honor the 75th anniversary of D-Day? It aired a couple of episodes of a survivalist contest show called ‘Alone’.
  • An associate pastor at my church had to take a last minute flight to Brazil for a family emergency. The fastest way to get there was to fly from Dallas to CANADA and then a direct flight to Brazil. Man, that’s got to be brutal, and I think the way things worked out, he didn’t even stay in Brazil for 24 hours. I believe a family member was dying and it’s a custom to bury the deceased in less than a day after death.
  • The kids are so excited to see Hamilton this weekend they are dressing in period costumes to the show.
  • Punky Brewster may be coming back.
  • This picture and story on Jeff Bezos remind me of that scene in the movie Dave where the president says, “I once caught a fish this big.”

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One Response to Bag of Randomness for Friday, June 7, 2019

  1. Kathy says:
    07 June 7, 2019 at 7:59 pm

    The history channels sucks now. It’s pathetic.

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