We know from talking to many of you that this is your "don't miss" place in the Digest, so we endeavor to make it fun and informative for you every month. Speaking of fun, check out the new Tidbits posted this month. The page has been re-designed so that new tidbits are given their own page and the main Tidbits page consists of only links to the tidbits, so it loads much faster also. The new tidbits for July will be at the top of the list of tidbits in each section. Check them out. The long list of old favorites are now in the large Grab Bag page.
Who signs your paycheck? Ever think about it? See this Tidbit of Information.
June began with a bang as LSU was winding up its baseball season trying to get to Omaha for the first time under its new coach, Smoke Lavell. Interesting that LSU had to beat Baylor, a team from Waco, to get the College World Series the weekend before we headed up to Waco to do the wedding of Bradford and Tara.
Watched a couple of movies, actually three at one time, while the LSU game was on TV — lots of blank time in a baseball game. The movie, “As Good As Dead,” was followed by “Stoning at Fulham County” on the Lifetime Channel. Somewhere in the dialogue for “Stoning” was the phrase, “As good as dead” appearing in this sentence, “If you don’t win this case, you’re as good as dead.” Another one of those cosmic coincidences. One movie follows another by accident and has the same phrase in both. Like the Carmen coincidence from yesterday. The opera "Carmen" about gypsies was on NPR Radio as I listened to it while driving along in my Geo. Don Jose (pronounced Joe-say) in the libretto was mentioned by announcer, and I immediately saw a car in front of me with JOE on the license plate. A few minutes later, I saw the license plate GYPSIES in front of me. Does this type of thing happen out where you live? And when you live? 
We checked in at Orange Beach and got our ground floor condo, just a short walk from the beach and Gulf waters. It was so conveniently situated to the parking lot that several people opened our door thinking that we were the Check-In office. We finally had to lock the door. Burt and Renee came about 5:30 and we started almost immediately putting up the Easy-UP Canopy that our daughter, Maureen, gave me for Father's Day. Its name was well-placed: it was Easy-up, the first time, which is the hardest because you have to properly attach the canopy covering to the frame. Nothing to screw or bolt, just a few things to click into place! Wonderful! ! !
We went to Flounders and Burt drove because he knew the roads. He and Renee went on a nostalgia trip down a gulfside road where they first lived in a shack that was so loosely put together that “the sand blew in through the walls.” This was during Burt’s stint at the Naval Air Base in Pensacola as a Physical Education instructor.
I found out that Burt played End on the Duke team that LSU beat in 1958, 50-19 — a score I remembered from my freshman year when we won the National Championship in football. Bob Brodhead, last to be LSU's athletic director, was the quarterback on the Duke team. Burt recounted how several of the TDs came about on fumbles, etc, and how the score was not representative of the closeness of the two teams. Was great to talk football with someone who was actually on the field during those years when I was in the stands for every game.
The beach waters were great for body surfing on the boogie board we bought. We made our coffee in the morning and walked down to the water's edge to watch folks catching Lady fish. A lady from Indiana was catching one with almost every cast. Del and I read and played Scrabble and enjoyed some quiet time while waiting for our three girls to show up on Thursday with our five grandkids. We went from peace and quiet to a loud roar and walls shaking when the kids were in the condo. And we loved it.
The girls had rented a condo down the beach a short walk and they all spent the day with Granma and Granpa, but went home at night so the walls could stop vibrating.
Friday the 13th — bad luck day: LSU lost in the College World Series and a killer canopy (helped by an errant thunderstorm) attacked my brand-new canopy. I found my canopy pinned helplessly to the sand with the killer canopy on top of it, its anchor spiked having slashed a two-foot slice in the canopy's covering. I was able to bend the broken arms back into shape and sew up the tear with safety pins. Next time we will lower the canopy every evening. 
It was a great week at the beach, and we and the girls made our reservations for next when we go back with another set of our offspring and grandkids added to the mix. Molly and Evelyn made it clear that their daddy's will be coming along next year.
Next event when we got home was a black tie dinner in the Hermes Room at Antoine’s Restaurant in the French Quarter. I had arranged with Russ Copping for us to have a renewal of our vows. Del was completely surprised. I had to arrange for three women to do the short readings that Del’s bridesmaids did back on July 16, 1978, 25 years ago. The first two I asked didn’t have their glasses with them. I got three women to do the readings finally, but forgot about Del needing glasses. When it came time for her short reading, her eyes were damp, her mascara stinging them, and she couldn't see, so Russ quietly prompted her. Thanks to all for making this occasion a memorable one!
Here are the three readings:
FIRST READING:
[Words of Kahlil Gibran from Mary Haskell's Journal May 12, 1922]
“That deepest thing, that recognition, that knowledge, that sense of kinship began the first time I saw you, and it is the same now — only a thousand times deeper and tenderer. I shall love you to eternity.
I loved you long before we met in this flesh. I knew that when I first saw you. It was destiny. We are together like this and nothing can shake us apart.”
SECOND READING:
[Words of Kahlil Gibran from Mary Haskell's Journal,October 22, 1912]
“The most wonderful thing is that we are always walking together, hand in hand, in a strangely beautiful world, unknown to other people. We both stretch one hand to receive from Life — and Life is generous indeed.”
THIRD READING:
[Words of Mary Haskell from her journal September 10, 1920]
“When two people meet, they ought to be like two water lilies opening side by side, each showing its golden heart, not closed up tight, and reflecting the pond, the trees, and the sky. And there is too much of the closed heart. When I come to you, we talk for four or six hours. If I'm going to take six hours of your time, I ought to unfold for you, and to be sure that it is myself I give.”
After the vow renewal, several men got up to read poems. Several by Lawrence Ferlinghetti, a beat poem of the last century, one by Shakespeare, one by Kahlil Gibran, and miscellaneous others. I read a sonnet that I wrote for Del for this occasion. The sonnet has in it the names of our 17 grandchildren and our great-grandson. Here it is. Some of the names will be obvious, like Tiffany, Walden, Sierra, Gabriel, Garret, Molly, and Emerson; others, like Katie, Weslee, Thomas, Aidan, Chris, Jen, Ben, Kyle, Samuel, Collin, and Evelyn will take some doing to locate. Best way is to read the sonnet aloud and listen carefully. (Names in each line are identified and can be read by a View, Source.)
A Grandmother’s Blessing
One day the sky’ll clear across the Land
From the Sierra to the Walden Pond.
Good Golly, Miss Molly, it’s so profound
Having the katydids to understand
The Atom as a clock by Emerson,
The jewel as a stone by Tiffany,
How a poet in a garret burns, you see,
And ever lends the world his benison.
One day with Easterly and Westly winds
The Archangel Gabriel will bestow
The blessing of a Christmas furbelow
To cleanse the gen’ral populace of sins.
The hay loft feeds a mule and cow in peace
And by the Maid, an amber Masterpiece.
The next morning we were up early and drove to Houston. We had dinner with Greg and Yvette and their two kids at Amazona Restaurant with plantain chips and other Amazon food. The next morning we had an easy drive to Waco for the wedding festivities. We spent the day finding our way around Waco to the wedding site and the rehearsal dinner. The wedding was in the back yard of a suburban house similar to a wedding I did in Harahan last year, but when we walked around to the back, the edge of the yard fell away about five or six hundred feet opening to a view of a golf course, Waco Lake,and an unbroken view of the setting sun on the horizon. No wonder the street was called Skyline Drive!
The rehearsal dinner at La Cabaña was great and we were able to drive home to 
the Ramada Limited in the dark on back roads after our daytime exploring. The next day we found Barnes & Noble and bought an audio book of Harry Potter, Book 5, "The Order of the Phoenix," to listen on on the return leg of our trip. The wedding was at sunset at the edge of the overlook and it went off with only one hitch: Bradford and Tara got hitched!In his cowboy boots and hat, Brad looked like Wyatt Earp, and his best man, Brian Lynch looked all the world like Doc Holliday. You can see it for yourself in the photo.
On the way home we stopped to visit Hilmar and Leslie Moore in Austin, our son Jim and his family in Kountze, and our daughter Carla and her family in Beaumont. We wanted to stop by my Godson Greg Matherne's home in Kingwood to see their new daughter, Grace Virginia, but we ran out of time during the trip from Austin to Kountze. I will include a photo of Grace, however. When we arrived home, we were sure that we didn't want to be anywhere but Timberlane for a long time to come.
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The best source at the best price is to order your copies on-line is from the publisher Random House/Xlibris's website above.
a philogynous tale written by a female undoubtedly — as all the main characters are women and all the men are pricks that come in and out of the main characters from time to time. The first of the five vignettes involves a tarot reader who comes to read Glenn Close’s card, but most of the things she tells her are things you can tell just by looking at her. The thread that ties the vignettes together is a dead woman and the detective who working out the nature of the woman’s death just by looking at her, with some paradoxical help from her blind sister who seems to be able to look at the dead woman’s life better than her seeing sister. The vignette with Holly Hunter and the hag with the shopping cart home is pure David Lynch. The dubbed in smoky tint at the top of all the scenes gives us a sense of watching the movie through an automobile windshield. The ominous foreboding eventually slides into a semblance of happy endings all around.
days. It sounds too simple to be so tasty, but try it for youself and a friend and find out. One avocado and one cucumber makes four hearty open-face sandwiches.
