Am I the only one that was glued to television and radio reports watching to see when Pope John Paul II was going to take his last breath? It sounds so morbid but it was hard to turn the TV off. When I would come in the house I would immediately go to the TV and turn on CNN again to see if there had been a change in the Pope’s condition. And then this afternoon when we get out of the movies I turn on the radio in the car and hear that he has gone to his heavenly maker. He was a good Pope and did many wonderful things. What a rich full life he led. His shoes will be hard to fill. He is really the only Pope that I was conscious of, as he became the Pope in 1978. I remember watching the white smoke arising when he was selected. God bless you Pope John Paul II.

The Pope was not the only person of notable fame to die this week. On Thursday Frank Perdue (of Perdue Chickens) died. This is notable to me for many reasons. I grew up with my Grandparents. They raised Perdue chickens on their farm. They had 15,000 chickens every 9 weeks. The town I grew up in was also the town that Frank lived in. I remember him visiting my grandparents farm a couple of times. My grandmother had a huge crush on him. It was pretty disgusting to me at the tender age of 12 to see my grandmother flirting with old Franky. Some things kids should never witness and that is one of them. You may not know this but Frank was a blatant racist. Oprah in her early days lived in Baltimore Maryland and was on the Channel 13 news team there. Back in the early 80’s Oprah got her own talk show segment (her first) on channel 13 in Baltimore. It was the same station that had good old Marty Bass as the weather guy. In fact as of a couple of years ago Marty was still there. A little bald now, but still there. Anyway, I remember vividly when she had Frank Perdue on as a guest. Keep in mind this is live TV. She asked Frank “Do people ever tell you that you look like a chicken?” He looked her dead in the eye and replied “Do people ever tell you that you look like a gorilla?” They cut to a commercial immediately. When the commercial was over Oprah was back on with another guest but old Frank was gone. It never hit the newspaper or anything. It was all hush hush at the time and if you didn’t see it or hear about it from a close friend, you didn’t know about it. In 2002 I told some people at work about the incident and they did not believe me. So I emailed Marty Bass at channel 13 news and he emailed me back confirming that it did indeed happen. They believed me after that. I bet Oprah doesn’t go to Frank’s funeral. In fact, I would bet that she never bought a Perdue chicken after that.



G-man and I finally went to see Robots this afternoon. Margaret and the Princess were right, it is a good movie. It had a “feel good” ending to it and I like that. The animation was good too. In the previews I was interested to see that they are coming out with Ice Age II at some point. I loved the Ice Age movie. You know, G-man and I are not the only ones that go to kids movies without kids. I see a lot of adults going to kids movies that don’t have kids with them. I guess there is still a little bit of kid in us all.



Larry came over today and picked up his Salami that I had bought him in California. He sliced some off for us. It was good, but nothing I would write home to mom about you know. Salami is Salami to me. Larry did make me some enchiladas. We stuck them in the freezer to have one night for dinner in the near future. Larry makes good enchiladas. He makes even better salsa. I wish he had brought me some of his fresh salsa. His wife, Amy, did not come with him. She is good friends with Rupert (of Survivor fame) and was helping him with his charity he has created called “Rupert’s Kids”. It’s nice to see someone win a large chunk of money that actually deserves it and uses it for good instead of on themselves. Me, I would be selfish and use it on myself. Believe me, I’m no saint. But you knew that.