My two-cents worth and then some. An online journal by LP Brown.

Posts Written By L Parker Brown

Halloween: Celebrating All Saints Day or Runnin' With the Devil?

by on ·Lifestyle and Culture

“Trick or treat?” That’s the rhetorical question that follows the knock on your door on Halloween eve. Upon opening the door you see giggling, anxious children, eagerly holding out their bags, waiting for you to drop in candy, fruit, or other goodies.

Many adults as well as children enjoy the annual celebration that gives imaginative children the opportunity to fantasize that they are the characters of their dreams – or nightmares – by dressing up in appropriate costumes and going door-to-door trick or treating or attending parties. Some child-at-heart adults join in the fun and put on costumes, too.

While numerous religious factions have no problem with Halloween, some

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The Power of Love

by on ·General

 In 1970, Erich Segal’s novel Love Story became a block buster romantic-tragedy film and many Baby Boomers still remember it as one of the greatest tearjerkers of our day. Love stories continue to be an appealing subject in any venue. There are hundreds of movies about it, books about it, and song, after song, after song about love. But an Iowa couple married for 72 years, who died an hour apart, may be proof of what Christopher Setterlund says in his poem, Love is Eternal. 

In May 1939, on the night of the day that Norma graduated from high school she married Gordon Yeager. On October 12, 2011, Norma, then 90 years old and Gordon, 94 were involved in a car accident. The Yeagers suffered serious injuries including broken bones that sent them both to the hospital intensive care unit. With their beds set side-by-side, the couple joined hands and maintained their grasp even after Gordon died at 3:38 p.m.

Family members were perplexed because although Gordon was declared dead his monitor indicated that his heart was still beating. A nurse explained to the family that the Gordon’s monitor was registering his wife’s heartbeat through their still clasped hands. Norma died one hour after her husband.

At the request of their family, the couple was placed together, hand-in-hand, in a single casket during their funeral. Afterward they were cremated and their ashes mixed.

Now that’s a love story.  

Sentimentalists may agree with what Setterlund so eloquently wrote, “Love is eternal, though breath may cease, love is the one thing, the one part we do not release.”

 

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Update on Rayon McIntosh

by on ·General
Steven Hirsch/Pool

The mother of Denise Darbeau, hospitalized since last Thursday says that her daughter was just a “fun loving” 24 year old who now has memory loss and could have permanent brain damage. Darbeau and her girlfriend, Rachael Edwards, unknowingly ordered and received a double whopper beatdown from McDonald’s employee, Rayon McIntosh.

Following a verbal altercation which Darbeau sealed by slapping McIntosh in his face, the two women — perhaps fantasizing themselves to be Thelma and Louise — then charged behind the counter to confront the cashier. Apparently, the scriptwriter forgot to give the female duo their desired ending and did not give McIntosh a copy of the script, because he responded as any normal person does when threatened, he snapped; er I mean he defended himself. It wasn’t pretty. And I am certain it wasn’t the ending that Thelma and Louise had in mind.

McIntosh’s mother said her son was just trying to get his life together. That is a statement with which many of his supporters agree, regardless of his past. Many also reiterate that he was not out in the street robbing people and looking for trouble — he was working. McIntosh is still being held on $40,000 bond and has a December 2 court date.  Rayon McIntosh Defense Fund. 

 

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