'A Mother's Birthday Greeting to Her Son'

A beautiful, wonderful short post, from Phyllis Chesler:  

I can still remember the exact moment of his birth, how small and wet he was, and how unexpectedly blonde. He was gasping for air, needed oxygen, and I was completely worn down by a 32 ½ hour labor. But, within an hour, I was up and filled with the most incredible joy. Giving birth to life is a unique rite of passage, both divine and yet incredibly human, the stuff of mortal beings, the way of female flesh. I was so overcome by it all that I wrote a book With Child: A Diary of Motherhood, which some publishers turned down because, as one editor said: “You can write about important things, why waste your time on this?” Another editor said: “You will not be a normal mother, other women will not be able to relate to your experience.” Arnold Dolin, a wonderful man and a wonderful editor, published it. When my son was eighteen, he wrote the Introduction to the book. He is a beautiful writer and I will forever admire his words.

But oh, how quickly his childhood was over. One minute it was here—diapers and Barbar-the Elephant King, Paddington Bears, and Cabbage Patch Kids, and all those little action figures (I called them boy dolls), and then it was all gone in only an eye-blink of eternity...

Keep reading.

 

A Pet's Dogged Devotion

That's the title at the hard-copy paper yesterday, and that is some darned devotion, dang!

At LAT, "Despite the devastation all around him, Camp fire dog waited for his owners to return home":

As a wall of flames from the Camp fire moved toward their home, a Paradise couple had to flee with nothing. When they came back a month later, they discovered their dog Madison had been hard at work, guarding their home the entire time. https://t.co/JS3LqOpr7G

— Los Angeles Times (@latimes) December 11, 2018

At first, Bill Gaylord didn’t think much of the black smoke that loomed across the horizon near his home on the morning of Nov. 8. As his neighbors prepared to flee, Gaylord hopped in his silver Chevy Blazer and drove to a nearby cafe to grab coffee.

After all, the stubborn 75-year-old Gaylord had lived his entire life in Paradise. Why would this fire be any different than so many others? he thought.

But by the time he got home about 7:15 a.m., all hell had broken loose.

Gaylord looked out his kitchen window and saw black embers sprinkling across the canyon. The dry brush instantly caught fire. He heard the flames roar as they raced toward his home.

Gaylord alerted his wife of 50 years, Andrea, who had just awakened, that they needed to leave. Fast.

Andrea, still in her pajamas, grabbed three pairs of underwear and some pants, hopped in her Nissan and left.

Bill didn’t grab anything.

As the flames approached, he parked his car on top of a hill, and focused on trying to save his two 8-year-old half-Anatolian shepherd, half-Pyrenees guard dogs, Madison and Miguel.

But the dogs were confused, and with black smoke surrounding them and the noise of first responders shouting in loudspeakers, the dogs refused to let Bill lift them into his car.

He was left with two choices: Stay and risk their lives or leave.

As Bill drove off that day, he felt a lump in his stomach. It wasn’t because he was worried that his house would burn down or that he wished he had grabbed his belongings.

It was because he had abandoned the dogs that had spent their lives protecting the Gaylords. When it came to Bill’s turn to protect his cherished canines, he felt as if he had failed.

Surely the dogs wouldn’t survive, he thought, as he saw a wall of flames in his rearview mirror.

In that moment, Gaylord felt like a captain who abandoned ship before his crew.

But a series of unlikely events not only led the Gaylords to a reunion with their beloved dogs nearly one month after the deadly Camp fire raged through Paradise and the neighboring communities of Magalia and Concow, but also helped forge a new friendship.

It was 11 days after the fire, on Nov. 19, when Shayla Sullivan, a volunteer with the animal rescue group Cowboy 911, returned to Paradise to try to find Madison and Miguel.

She was assigned to help the Gaylords and several other homeowners who had left their pets behind.

She knew Camp fire victims had had little time to escape the flames and were forced to leave their pets. She wanted to help and try to reunite evacuees with their animals.

But it was nearly impossible to find the Gaylords’ property. The entire city was flattened by the fire, and without cellphone service, Sullivan had to rely on maps to navigate through the destruction.

She called Andrea to make sure she was looking in the right place. That was the first time they had talked.

Sullivan returned the next day. There was no sign that Madison and Miguel were alive. She left food and water anyway, hoping the small gesture would provide some comfort to the Gaylords.

On the third day, Sullivan had a breakthrough. As she peered down the canyon she spotted a small pond. Then she saw what appeared to be a white ball of fluff.

It disappeared as quickly as it had appeared.

Sullivan knew the dog wouldn’t approach her. The breed is known to be protective.

Nevertheless, she called Andrea and Bill to tell them the good news.

The Gaylords were ecstatic. But what about their second dog? And which dog had Sullivan seen? Was it Madison or Miguel?

Andrea, 75, started searching online to see if she could spot a picture of any of her dogs and whether they had been rescued. On Nov. 24, several weeks after the fire, she came across a picture that looked like Miguel.

Andrea, who has difficulty walking, called Sullivan and asked for help.

Sullivan found out Miguel was being kept in Citrus Heights, more than 80 miles from Paradise.

With the help of a volunteer, Sullivan loaded the 150-pound dog into her truck and drove to Oroville, where Andrea and Bill were staying in a trailer house at the River Reflections RV park...

Still more.

Innocence and Wonder

So lovable and adorable.

I’ve watched this a hundred times. His little innocent face! And his sweater says “GENIUS!” So unbelievably adorable. pic.twitter.com/OjiMVVE3n0

— James Woods (@RealJamesWoods) November 21, 2018

Something to Make Your Day

This is truly the best thing I've seen on Twitter in a long time:

If you have a case of the Mondays, watch this adorable video of baby sisters hugging. pic.twitter.com/UdEY208BHF

— Fox News (@FoxNews) January 8, 2018

Excited for Christmas

Via London's Daily Mail, on Twitter:

We all have one friend who's already this excited for Christmas! 😂😂🎄 (Listen with your 🔊 on!) via @DailyMail pic.twitter.com/vXtqoETq9F

— Daily Mail Online (@MailOnline) November 5, 2017

This is the Most Beautiful Thing

That's two babies.

A fawn and a toddler.

So beautiful. I could almost cry looking at that, considering everything else going on.

This kid saw a deer in the garden and didn't think twice to approach it.. pic.twitter.com/CdiQA2MpnT

— M Barak Cherguia (@CherguiaMbark) July 31, 2016

Baby Sees Mom's Face for the First Time with Eyeglasses (VIDEO)

I almost started to cry watching this video.

So precious.

Murrieta's Erica Harris Marries Man She Never Met in Person at Ontario International Airport (VIDEO)

Hey, there's hope for the crestfallen.

Cupid indeed strikes!

Dudes, you better be on Instagram to hook up with your long-desired hottie!

At CBS News 2 Los Angeles:

Family of Milagros Perez Gets $10,000 Donation to Replace 4-Year-Old Girl’s Specialized Wheelchair (VIDEO)

It's almost impossible to believe that someone would actually steal this little girl's custom wheelchair. It cost the family $1,500 and would have been difficult for them to replace.

But now they're received a charitable gift, just in time for the holidays. That's the spirit.

At the O.C. Register, "$10,000 donation made to replace stolen specialized wheelchair for girl, 4, born without legs":

A Beverly Hills philanthropist has given $10,000 to the family of Milagros Perez to replace the 4-year-old girl’s specialized wheelchair, which was stolen from her Santa Ana home over the weekend, police said.

Cpl. Anthony Bertagna of the Santa Ana Police Department said Thursday that Joyce Brandman gave the family a check, delivered through NBC4, which aired a story about Perez and the missing wheelchair.

Brandman is the president of the Saul and Joyce Brandman Foundation, which gives funding to medical, educational and Jewish causes and organizations, including Chapman University, Cedars-Sinai Medical Center and the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.

Perez was born without legs among several other medical issues. She wasn’t expected to survive. Her mother gave her a name which means “miracles” in Spanish.

After the story of Milagros’ missing wheelchair appeared on news outlets, donations began pouring in...

Finished Reading A Soldier of the Great War Yesterday

One of Bird Dog's great pearls of wisdom, long ago (so long, I've no interest in searching for a link), suggested that bloggers need to frequently unplug from the Internet and enjoy the real beauties of life, which are of course offline.

I don't take that advice enough, despite telling myself I should on a daily basis. But yesterday, except for a couple of overnight posts and one mid-day update, I spent the whole day reading, making love to my wife, and enjoying the evening with my youngest son.

I finally finished Mark Helprin's epic novel of World War I, A Soldier of the Great War, which I started last year, in May or June. I read the book on and off again, and of course interspersed reading fiction with all the other stuff I'm normally reading, non-fiction books, and especially political science and policy journals. And that's to say nothing of my daily newspaper reading, especially online, and blogging.

But Helprin's an amazing writer. I indeed took to this book from the opening pages. Occasionally you start a new book and it just doesn't grab you. I've put a few novels back down over the last couple of years because they just didn't do it for me. But I knew I liked A Soldier of the Great War from the opening pages. And then, this last few weeks, when I was down to the last few hundred pages of the book, I just buckled down to finish it. In the old days, when I was an undergraduate especially, I used to read a lot of fiction. I didn't do a whole lot else. I didn't watch as much television. I worked a lot, attended my college classes, went to the gym and hung out with my younger sister (not to mention my mom). Sometimes I would read a novel in just a few days. I can remember reading massive tomes like War and Peace back in the day, and The Fountainhead. With the exception of my schoolwork, there weren't as many distractions as we have today, especially with the Internet and social media. Plus, I have a family nowadays, so that takes a lot of time, lol.

In any case, be sure to read this wonderful novel. Mark Helprin's a conservative who occasionally posts op-eds to the Wall Street Journal (or at least he used to). Here's the book blurb at Amazon:

Alessandro Giuliani, the young son of a prosperous Roman lawyer, enjoys an idyllic life full of privilege: he races horses across the country to the sea, he climbs mountains in the Alps, and, while a student of painting at the ancient university in Bologna, he falls in love. Then the Great War intervenes. Half a century later, in August of 1964, Alessandro, a white-haired professor, tall and proud, meets an illiterate young factory worker on the road. As they walk toward Monte Prato, a village seventy kilometers away, the old man—a soldier and a hero who became a prisoner and then a deserter, wandering in the hell that claimed Europe—tells him how he tragically lost one family and gained another. The boy, envying the richness and drama of Alessandro's experiences, realizes that this magnificent tale is not merely a story: it's a recapitulation of his life, his reckoning with mortality, and above all, a love song for his family.

The Truth About Spring Break

At the Independent UK, "The rite stuff: good times, self-discovery and lots of booze":

This is the Nirvana moment: the precise picture they envisioned when they boarded their planes back in still-frigid Boston, Chicago or New York.

As Dutch DJ Afrojack raises a fist and the first beats pulse through their bones they too let fly, barefoot on the sand, pressed together in a miasma of sun-pinked flesh and swim-suits. Above, against a postcard Caribbean sky, black MTV cameras swoop and curve, a passing parasail adds a dash of yellow.

Call it their right, or their rite of passage, the special – and occasionally perilous – week called Spring Break when tens of thousands of young Americans flee university campuses to shed the usual rules, parental expectations and inhibitions and go a bit bonkers in the sun. It is a time for a different kind of learning, pushing the limits of their livers, testing the looser sides of their young libidos and navigating the unfamiliar far from home.

Not a national holiday as such and certainly not a religious one, the annual student migration south is in fact a rolling affair that runs from late February to early April. Different colleges and universities pick different weeks in the late-winter calendar when teaching stops and their wards are released. Some may just linger, others will seek virtue, perhaps building houses for the poor. But this is what they are meant to do: get drunk, laid and sunburned...

Well, as they say on Twitter: #YOLO!

It's pretty dangerous, though, apparently (yeah, we all drank too much when we were young, and all that). So, keep reading at the link.

First Kiss

It's a viral hit.

See NYT, "A Kiss Is Just a Kiss, Unless It’s an Ad for a Clothing Company."

Michelle Fields Happy Valentine's Day Wishes

On Facebook, "Happy Valentine's Day! Thank you all for supporting me! Love ya all!"

24 Grooms Seeing Their Brides for the First Time

This is cool, from BuzzFeed.

24 Grooms Blown Away By Their Beautiful Brides http://t.co/9kW8uyP5b7 pic.twitter.com/BpG9p8SoMB

— BuzzFeed Classics (@BuzzFeedClassic) November 21, 2013

'Alive Inside'

I vaguely remember seeing this last year sometime, but Rachel Lucas has it, from her random 4th of July fur-balls.



And see Core 77, "Must-See Video: "Alive Inside" Documentary Reveals the Profound Power of Portable Music."

Deaf Three-Year-Old Grayson Clamp Hears for First Time

I love this story.

I tweeted it here, here, and here.

Saw it this morning at CBS News, "Deaf boy with auditory brain stem implant stunned after hearing dad for first time."

UPDATE: At NBC News, "Deaf boy, 3, hears father's voice for the first time":

Grayson was born without cochlear nerves, the “bridge” that carries auditory information from the inner ear to the brain. He’s now the among the first children in the U.S. to receive an auditory brainstem implant in a surgery done at the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill, N.C., led by UNC head and neck surgeon Dr. Craig Buchman.

The device is already being used in adults, but is now being tested in children at UNC as part of an FDA-approved trial. It’s similar to a cochlear implant, but instead of sending electrical stimulation to the cochlea, the electrodes are placed on the brainstem itself. Brain surgery is required to implant the device.

"Our hope is, because we're putting it into a young child, that their brain is plastic enough that they'll be able to take the information and run with it," Buchman told NBCNews.com.

Buchman says Grayson was a great candidate for the implant because other than his hearing, he's a healthy kid. Plus, Buchman adds, "he has great parents who were completely committed to the process -- the entire surgical process, the educational process. We really wanted to provide it to a child who had all the potential to do great."

And so far, Grayson really is doing great, his father says.

“Never one time did he show any fear about that new sensation,” says Clamp. He and his wife, Nicole, adopted Grayson in 2010; the couple also has a biological son, Ethan, who is 2. “It was a lot more excitement. And he’s really curious to begin with.” And he’s discovered a new love: music.

“He claps his hands, he bobs his head. At his daycare, they have a stereo, and he loves to run over and turn it on,” Clamp says.

Grayson is now working with a speech therapist, and has started babbling. He also tries to mimic the mouth movements of people when they’re talking to him. But he still has a "massive amount" of work ahead of him, Buchman cautions. "He needs intensive speech therapy -- in his mind, he has to convert this new signal into something he current knows as, basically, signs," Buchman says.

Ericka Anderson Got Married!

This is outstanding, "How I Got a Date Worth Keeping (& Marrying)" (via Instapundit).

Congratulations. And many happy years!

FLASHBACK: I blogged about Ericka's running back in 2011, "Ericka Anderson Runs 36th Marine Corps Marathon."

The Forgotten Jewish Gravestones of East Los Angeles

Another fascinating piece, at the Los Angeles Times, "Jewish dead lie forgotten in East L.A. graves":

The Eastside neighborhoods of East L.A. and Boyle Heights have long served as an archive of Los Angeles’ multicultural history — Ellis Islands for transplants from the East and across the Pacific — and in more recent years, from Mexico.

Nowhere is this more evident than in their graveyards.

On 3rd Street off Eastern Avenue, there's the pristine Serbian Cemetery. On the 1st Street side of that graveyard is the Chinese Cemetery. The sprawling Evergreen Cemetery in Boyle Heights is the final home of some of the most familiar family names in Los Angeles history, including the Lankershims and the Van Nuyses.

On Whittier Boulevard in East L.A., Home of Peace is a large Jewish cemetery with Roman columns and beautiful mausoleums for noted rabbis. Among the well-known buried there are two of the Three Stooges — Curly and Shemp Howard, and Jack Warner, the film executive who co-founded Warner Bros.

Earlier this year, Eddie Goldstein, perhaps the last Jew to be born and live in Boyle Heights his whole life, was buried at Home of Peace.

And then there's Mount Zion, a graveyard with a hard-luck history.

It was opened in 1916 by a burial society dedicated to provide free burials for poor Jews. Where other cemeteries featured vast expanses of trimmed grass, handsome columns and statuary, Mount Zion was mostly concrete and dirt.

The cemetery rarely made the news, for good or bad, but in 1932 it did when a Hyman Bobroff, age 50, shot himself in the head inside Mount Zion. A second bullet pierced his heart, apparently the result of a reflexive movement of his gun hand after the first pierced his skull.

A year before, the cemetery hosted the funeral for a murdered "alcohol broker."

"No big shots were at the funeral," it was reported in the Los Angeles Times, "although a number of lesser lights from the underworld appeared both at the undertaking parlors and the cemetery."

RTWT. There's a map, plus lots of pictures.

Finding the Words to Say Goodbye (or Not)

I spent time with my dad when he was in a hospice in 2004, and he died there on December 20th of that year. We never had a final "goodbye" conversion. I knew he was near the end, although I thought I'd have a chance to go visit him again. But I got the call from the social worker saying he'd passed. Weird, that. It wasn't my sister who called me. It was his social worker.

Anyway, my advice is not to wait too long to say goodbyes if you think things are coming to the end for a loved one. But some people don't even tell their friends and family that they're dying.

See this piece at the New York Times, "Exit Lines."

Jennifer Johnson: 'I Am Too Young...'

At London's Daily Mail, "Terminally ill mother-of-two records heartbreaking YouTube video before she died just days before Christmas."

And watch the video, "A Heart Worth Saving."

Ms. Johnson died of complications following open heart surgery. Join me in a prayer for her survivors.