Sat. afternoon and not in the garden
well....nothing to report or even bother to take a pic of....same ole same ole. The tomato plants are HUGE but I'm noticing something that's kinda got me concerned and that's that there doesn't seem to be alot of blooms or actual tomatoes. I do have some but it just doesn't seem to be as many as in past summers.....I guess we'll see in the next month what happens.
What I want to do today is post Geoff Calkins' article in this mornings paper. The main reason why is because of health and weight issues most of us have or are struggling with. The Tim Russert sudden death has shined that light brightly once again. Please please please everyone try your best to eat and drink healthy and if you need to lose weight let this article maybe help to inspire you. Life is so short on this earth and there are so many good foods out there that are so unhealthy yet so good and hard to turn down. If you are a Dad or maybe someday will be a Dad read this article and really listen to what it says. Your wife and kids need you to be and stay healthy for them not for just yourself. Happy Father's Day to you all. ( I combined the online version with the home version and did omit some of the articles.)
Tim Russert was one of us
By Geoff Calkins (Contact)
Memphis Commercial Appeal
Saturday, June 14, 2008
The deputy sports editor gave me the news, in the midafternoon, on a day that suddenly turned hollow.
“Tim Russert died,” he said.
“WHAT?“
“Tim Russert died,” he said, nodding his head toward the television set and Tom Brokaw’s special report, which was just wrapping up at that point.
And so the news traveled across this country, by television and by e-mail, by radio and by word of mouth, too.
"You hear Tim Russert died?" "WHAT?"
Yeah. It's true. Wonderful. talented,sunny,tenacious Tim Russert died Friday afternoon of an apparant heart attack.
The guy was just 58. That's too young to die. And maybe , just maybe, entirely unnecessary? I write this as another son of Buffalo, a guy raised on chicken wings, deep fried and ordered by the dozen, and then dunked in bleu cheese dressing.
Russert was like a lot of us. He lugged around more weight than he probably should have. It'll take an autopsy to know why Russert died, percisely. But when you heard the cause of death, you probably said to yourself, "A heart attack? Oh, that makes sense."
We work too hard in this country. We sit and we eat too much too.
This is the country that turned overeating into a competitive, televised sport. This is the country that has made fried chicken fingers the default food item for kids on every menu across the land.
The sign outside the Arby's on Union on Friday said : "I'm thinking 3 for $5 beef 'n chedders." That's 3 sandwiches, 1,335 calories and 63 grams of fat for five bucks.
Something has got to change, see. Or we'll lose more men and women-men and women whose talents we need-much earlier than we should. It's predicted the current generation will be the first in American history with a lower life expectancy than preceded it.
Russert died at 58. His celebrated father, Big Russ, hardened by years of manual labor-is still alive. Coincidence?
So, go out and go for a walk today. Celebrate Father's Day weekend by taking a hike with your kids. By all accounts, Russert was a wonderful father. As much as his work on Meet the Press he was known for his best-selling book about his relationship with his father and a second best-selling book about the tens of thousands of letters the first book inspired.
He told us to hug our sons and our fathers. He told us to say the words "I love you." He told us there's no better job on earth than being a father, but that we can't do the job if we're not around.
The sentence is on page 112 of the second book. Feel free to use it to change your life.
"We owe it to our children to let them remain our children for as long as possible." he wrote. "We are obligated, therefore, to take care of ourselves and attend to our health."
Tim Russert had died. TV news had lost what might have been its most genuine voice.
It is with both pride and sadness that I say it was the voice of a Bills fan.
Yes, a Bills fan. He was one of us to the end.
“Go Bills,” he’d say, as he wound up Meet the Press each Sunday in the fall.
The Los Angeles Lakers have Jack Nicholson, the New York Yankees have Billy Crystal and the New York Knicks have Spike Lee.
The Buffalo Bills had Tim Russert, and Buffalonians wouldn’t have traded him for any of the rest.
He was real, like Buffalo. He was blunt and honest and passionate and true.
Russert didn’t use hairspray. No self-respecting Buffalo guy would.
He ate chicken wings, and he looked you straight in the eye, and he gave you whatever he had to give.
“A true child of Buffalo,” said NBC’s Tom Brokaw, “in touch with the ethos of that community.”
That ethos has always centered on hard work and heartbreak and not a lot of glitz.
Buffalo isn’t a glamorous place. It’s a lot like Memphis in that regard.
Memphis has withering summer heat; Buffalo has immense piles of snow.
Memphis has bright, shiny Nashville just down the road; Buffalo has New York.
Memphis has poverty and crime and the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr.; Buffalo has poverty and crime and the assassination of William McKinley.
So we rally around our sports teams, and we embrace them fiercely, even as they disappoint us in the end.
The Memphis Tigers have never won a title; the Buffalo Bills haven’t, either.
Tigers fans have to live with Mario Chalmers miracle shot; Bills fans have to live with the Music City Miracle and Scott Norwood, wide right.
It is crushing, absolutely. But there is a dignity in it, too.
Memphis fans are bound to other Memphis fans by shared experience; Buffalo fans are bound to each other in just the same way.
I didn’t have to have met Tim Russert to know Tim Russert. He was everyone I ever grew up with.
He wasn’t afraid to get his nose bloodied. He could plow through a couple dozen chicken wings.
He liked politics and he loved to argue, but he’d shake your hand when the argument was done.
And he loved his family. More than anything, he loved his family. He loved his family even more than he loved his work.
For Russert, this led to the book about his father, “Big Russ & Me.”
People loved the book. Mostly because they loved the love.
This wasn’t a book about a fancy newsman who rose from lowly Buffalo to the brightest TV sets in the world. It was a book about a humble newsman who still figured his father, who had driven a garbage truck, was the greatest man he ever knew.
That’s what made the television coverage so surreal Friday, as the networks ran their endless tributes. Russert never wanted to be the subject of the news. He just wanted to be at the center of the news, asking the hard questions, debating the eventual answers and scribbling his conclusions on his trademark white board.
To our immense credit, Americans came to appreciate Russert’s style. Or maybe that’s the wrong word. We came to appreciate his substance. Or his lack of style. Could that possibly be it?
Whichever, it was a hard day Friday, and it will not get easier, not in a presidential election year. This is a time when the country could really use a guy from Buffalo in there, mixing it up.
Rest in peace, Mr. Russert.
And go Bills.
To reach Geoff Calkins, call him at 529-2364 or e-mail calkins@commercialappeal.com
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Sat. afternoon and not in the garden
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