A Memorable Century On November 8, 2018, Tom’s father, Charlie Liszkay, will be 100 years old.
...planned a surprise birthday party for her father at his assisted living facility in Lorain, Ohio. A surprise it had to be because we all knew that Charlie Liszkay's response to the idea of a party for himself - even to mark such an epochal milestone as a century on the planet - would be “Like fun!” However, as the rest of us did happen to want to mark the event, the surprise party took place yesterday, Saturday November 3 and did, in fact, turn out to be quite a fun event, even for the soon-to-be centenarian. Those who could come came, including Charlie's four children,
Our branch of the family was represented by Tom, myself, Tommy and Emily,
...at an awesome little restaurant called Dmitri's, ...in the cute little town of Wellington, Ohio. Dmitri's The food was really good. Tom gave a special shout-out to his extra-fluffy pancakes, ...Tommy to his potato pancakes, (with a side of also yummy broccoli cheddar)
...and me to my just-perfect hash browns. After brunch we headed back out on the road, passing on this lovely fall day through the small northern Ohio towns, ...and farmland, ...on the way to Lorain. Tom noticed that he had a voicemail message that had apparently arrived while we were in the restaurant. It was his father. "They sent around invitations to a surprise party for me today at one o'clock," went his father's phone message, "I'm quite surprised." Still, his father didn't sound unhappy about the party or that all the residents in his assisted living facility had been invited. In fact, when we arrived with 25 filled helium birthday balloons, which we'd carted in contractor bags from Columbus, ...we learned that after learning about the party he had been saying to the staff and his fellow residents, with tongue-in-cheek indignation, "How do you like that? My own party and I'm the only one who didn't get an invitation!" As it was 12:30 pm when we arrived we got straight to work setting up the balloons,
...the cake,
...made by two of the grandchildren, Mary Jane's children Stacy and Jason. At one o'clock all the guests arrived,
Then we lit a cupcake, and after Charlie blew out the candles, ...the cake and ice cream was passed around.
....which we passed around for the residents to sign.
To me he said, "It's so wonderful that all my friends and family came to celebrate my birthday." He added that he planned to have ten more birthdays. Charlie with his children and their spouses, ...and some of his 13 grandchildren. After the party we moved to the dining room/common area, ...which offers a lovely view of Lake Erie, ...to give Charlie his birthday gifts,
...Charlie being dyed-in-the-wool Cleveland rooter, ...as is evidenced by the stats chart on his wall upon which he keeps track of the team scores during their respective seasons.
...we said our good-byes.
Wonderful it was.
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Ora Pro Nobis A week and a half ago U.S. postal workers discovered the first of a dozen pipe bombs sent to prominent Democrats by Cesar Seyoc, a man who derived his source of inspiration from Donald Trump, whose hallmark is condoning violence among his supporters against his critics:
"Trump tells police officers they should rough people up more during arrests. 'Please don't be too nice,' he said, to laughter from the crowd."
"Trump supporters chant 'Lock Her Up' the same day Hillary Clinton was sent a pipe bomb." In Louisville Kentucky, two days after the news of the pipe bombs, one Gregory A Bush, whose face evokes a cyborg with a circuit-board run haywire behind its glass eyes, went on a mission to gun down African Americans and killed two people who were shopping at a Kroger's.
For Americans it's been a week of horror, and we are all still gripped by shock, grief, fear, barely able to find the words to help us come to terms with the terrible things going on around us.
Maurice E. Stallard Vicki Lee Jones ...others have just started. But Donald Trump has, of course, already moved on, barely pausing along the way to read or tweet a few lifeless words about unity and coming together before getting back to his main job as President of the United States, whipping up his base into a frenzy against his critics. A couple of days ago one of my Facebook friends posted this:
I think my Facebook friend and I got to the double-branched root of the problem: (1) A President whose embrace of the principles of White Nationalism has emboldened a legion of nematodes to slither out from under their rocks while giving society's most severely deranged, ...a big, visible blaring, direction towards which to warp, ...and (2) the easy availability of guns and assault rifles to even those most severely deranged. But Donald Trump will not say that Nazis are bad because neo-Nazis make up a significant chunk of his base and the issue of banning assault rifles has barely surfaced this mass-murder around. Instead Donald Trump has chosen to quickly change the subject of those who died last week and further rattle the nerves of our already too-rattled nation by springing on us that he plans to abolish the 14th amendment - which grants citizenship to all those born on our soil - because he can. His anti-immigrant supporters are now hopped up on the idea while far-right conservative pundits on Fox News gleefully pick apart our Constitution to argue that the 14th Amendment in truth never meant that just anybody born here was entitled to American citizenship. The rest of us nervously wonder if Donald Trump can, in fact, erase whichever of our Constitutional rights it pleases him to erase, even if he can't grieve with us. References:
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/29/us/anti-semitism-attacks.html?rref=collection%2Ftimestopic%2FAnti-Semitism&action=click&contentCollection=timestopics®ion=stream&module=stream_unit&version=latest&contentPlacement=2&pgtype=collection https://www.cnn.com/2018/10/26/us/kentucky-kroger-shooting/index.html https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/back-trump-comments-perceived-encouraging-violence/story?id=48415766 https://progressive.org/magazine/trump-s-army-how-the-president-and-neo-nazis-work-hand-in-ha/ https://www.cnn.com/2018/10/30/politics/donald-trump-ending-birthright-citizenship/index.html https://www.cbsnews.com/news/fourteenth-amendment-citizenship-clause-president-trump-today-2018-10-30/ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jus_soli https://video.foxnews.com/v/5855306758001/?#sp=show-clips |
"Tropical Depression"
by Patti Liszkay Buy it on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0BTPN7NYY "Equal And Opposite Reactions"
by Patti Liszkay Buy it on Amazon: http://amzn.to/2xvcgRa or from The Book Loft of German Village, Columbus, Ohio Or check it out at the Columbus Metropolitan Library
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