St. James Palace has confirmed that Kate Middleton and Prince William – or, more officially, the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge – will be visiting California from July 8-10 this summer. Former Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger is expected to greet the Royals as they touch down.
If it’s anything like when the President visits… traffic in L.A. is going to be brutal.
The visit is an extension of their already-planned trip to Canada. The newlyweds will take part in Canada Day celebrations on July 1 and are even expected to visit the Arctic. A nice sojourn in Hollywood will surely be welcome after that.
It will be William’s first visit to the U.S. in an official capacity, and Princess Catherine’s first visit ever. We’re mostly psyched to see what she’s wearing and whether they hit Katsuya with the Beckhams.
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Maybe they will get a chance to meet President Obama during their trip to the USA. I have really enjoyed doing the series “Kate Middleton and Prince William: Marriage made in Heaven?” So far I have released 13 parts and there will be plenty more to come in the future. I have got a stronger response on this series than any other I have ever done. It might have something to do with the comedy skits of Tim Hawkins who I have put in most of the posts in this series. Take a look at one below.
President Ronald Reagan hangs unto the leash as pet pooch Lucky pulls in another direction during the president’s departure from the White House en route to the Geneva summit. L-R behind the president are: Defense Secretary Caspar Weinberger; Treasury Secretary James Baker and Mrs. Nancy Reagan. (UPI Photo/Vicne Mannino/FILES)
From Oct. 28, 1980, in Cleveland, Ohio, here is part 1 of the Carter-Reagan Presidential Debate, as taped from CBS. Amazing how things have changed…and yet stayed the same…in almost 30 years!!!
1984 Presidential Debate between President Reagan and Walter Mondale
Soviet Union
MR. KALB: Mr. Mondale, you have described the Soviet leaders as, and I’m quoting, “. . . cynical, ruthless, and dangerous,” suggesting an almost total lack of trust in them. In that case, what makes you think that the annual summit meetings with them that you have proposed will result in agreements that would satisfy the interests of this country?
MR. MONDALE: Because the only type of agreements to reach with the Soviet Union are the types that are specifically defined, so we know exactly what they must do; subject to full verification, which means we know every day whether they’re living up to it; and followups, wherever we find suggestions that they’re violating it; and the strongest possible terms.
I have no illusions about the Soviet Union leadership or the nature of that state. They are a tough and a ruthless adversary, and we must be prepared to meet that challenge, and I would. Where I part with the President is that despite all of those differences we must, as past Presidents before this one have done, meet on the common ground of survival. And that’s where the President has opposed practically every arms control agreement, by every President, of both political parties, since the bomb went off. And he now completes this term with no progress toward arms control at all, but with a very dangerous arms race underway instead. There are now over 2,000 more warheads pointed at us today than there were when he was sworn in, and that does not strengthen us.
We must be very, very realistic in the nature of that leadership, but we must grind away and talk to find ways of reducing these differences, particularly where arms races are concerned and other dangerous exercises of Soviet power.
There will be no unilateral disarmament under my administration. I will keep this nation strong. I understand exactly what the Soviets are up to, but that, too, is a part of national strength. To do that, a President must know what is essential to command and to leadership and to strength.
And that’s where the President’s failure to master, in my opinion, the essential elements of arms control has cost us dearly. He’s 3 years into this administration. He said he just discovered that most Soviet missiles are on land, and that’s why his proposal didn’t work.
I invite the American people tomorrow — because I will issue the statement quoting President Reagan — he said exactly what I said he said. He said that these missiles were less dangerous than ballistic missiles because you could fire them, and you could recall them if you decided there’d been a miscalculation.
MR. NEWMAN: I’m sorry, sir — —
MR. MONDALE: A President must know those things.
It has been 150 years since the beginning of the Civil War that started in April of 1861 at Ft Sumter.
Ron Orsini, owner of a North Little Rock heating and air-conditioning business, had been dead for three years when Arkansas Business launched in 1984. But it wasn’t until 2002 that his widow, Mary “Lee” Orsini, confessed to his murder, just a couple of weeks before she died in prison of a heart attack.
Lee Orsini’s conviction for Ron’s murder had been overturned, but she was serving life without parole for hiring two blundering hit men to commit the infinitely more sensational murder of Alice McArthur of Little Rock, wife of her defense attorney, Bill McArthur.
There are still a lot of people who suspect McArthur was involved in his wife’s murder in July 1982, but a grand jury refused to indict him. After all, no evidence beyond the word of a murderess ever connected him to a crime that created a media circus the likes of which Arkansas has not seen since.
Saline, if Texas is so great, don’t let the door hit you as you head southwest.
Frankly, I wouldn’t do that to myself or anyone I love. That Texas attitude is what happens when Republicans take over anything. Ray-Gun selfishness all over again but on a state-wide basis and a mouth ten times larger than their brain. BTW, why is Perry asking for fire aid? I thought he didn’t need the rest of us. When those oil wells finally play out, Texas will be a welfare state like Somalia with the same attitude. Let them go and good-bye, Saline.
Responding to Couldn’t be better: You are right about one thing. People are voting with their feet.
In his article “Census: Fast growth in states with no income tax,” Washington Examiner, Dec 21, 2011, Michael Barone noted: For those of us who are demographic buffs, Christmas came four days early when Census Bureau director Robert Groves announced on Tuesday the first results of the 2010 census and the reapportionment of House seats (and therefore electoral votes) among the states. The resident population of the United States, he told us in a webcast, was 308,745,538. That’s an increase of 9.7 percent from the 281,421,906 in the 2000 census — the smallest proportional increase than in any decade other than the Depression 1930s but a pretty robust increase for an advanced nation. It’s hard to get a grasp on such large numbers. So let me share a few observations on what they mean.
First, the great engine of growth in America is not the Northeast Megalopolis, which was growing faster than average in the mid-20th century, or California, which grew lustily in the succeeding half-century. It is Texas.
Its population grew 21 percent in the past decade, from nearly 21 million to more than 25 million. That was more rapid growth than in any states except for four much smaller ones (Nevada, Arizona, Utah and Idaho).
Texas’ diversified economy, business-friendly regulations and low taxes have attracted not only immigrants but substantial inflow from the other 49 states. As a result, the 2010 reapportionment gives Texas four additional House seats. In contrast, California gets no new House seats, for the first time since it was admitted to the Union in 1850.
There’s a similar lesson in the fact that Florida gains two seats in the reapportionment and New York loses two.
This leads to a second point, which is that growth tends to be stronger where taxes are lower. Seven of the nine states that do not levy an income tax grew faster than the national average. The other two, South Dakota and New Hampshire, had the fastest growth in their regions, the Midwest and New England.
Altogether, 35 percent of the nation’s total population growth occurred in these nine non-taxing states, which accounted for just 19 percent of total population at the beginning of the decade.
First day as husband and wife: Newlyweds William and Kate emerged holding hands into the morning sunshine at Buckingham Palace before they left by helicopter for a mini honeymoon at a mystery location
Up, up and away: The couple walked across a gravel path in the palace gardens to a waiting maroon helicopter which whisked them away for the weekend.
Prince William and Kate moved in together about a year ago. In this clip above the commentator suggested that maybe Prince Charles and Princess Diana would not have divorced if they had lived together before marriage. Actually Diana was a virgin, and it was Charles’ uncle (Louis Mountbatten) that gave him the advice that he should seek to marry a virgin.
I really do wish Kate and William success in their marriage. Nevertheless, I do not think it is best to live together before marriage like they did, and I am writing this series to help couples see how best to prepare for marriage.
The experience Al and Alicia had is all too common of cohabitating relationships. According to The National Marriage Project, an estimated half of all couples now cohabitate before they marry. The fact that Al and Alicia married at all, and are still together, is a testament to their vibrant faith in Christ.
Unfortunately, many couples don’t fare the same. In fact, study after study shows that cohabitation is linked to poorer marital communication, lower marital satisfaction, higher levels of domestic violence and a greater chance of divorce.
Young people today are cynical concerning the validity and longevity of the marital union. Indeed, with fifty percent of all marriages ending in divorce, men and women believe it’s a good idea to try out different partners.
“Couples say that they need to kick the tires a little before settling down,” says Dr. Brad Wilcox, an associate professor of sociology at the University of Virginia, and director of the Marriage Matters Project. “But what they don’t understand is that once you adopt a consumer mentality, you undercut marriage and open yourself up to marital breakup and unhappiness.”
This assertion is backed up by plenty of research, including a 2002 report issued by the Center for Disease Control and Prevention’s National Center for Health Statistics that states, “The probability of a first marriage ending in separation or divorce within 5 years is 20 percent while the probability of a premarital cohabitation breaking up within 5 years is 49 percent. After 10 years, the probability of a first marriage ending is 33 percent, compared with 62 percent for cohabitation.”
Jason and Aerobics
(3/5) Adrian Rogers – No Other Way to Heaven Except Through Jesus
A Predator surveillance drone equipped with Hellfire missiles. A US drone has killed two local Al-Qaeda members after launching an attack on a Saudi Al-Qaeda leader in southern Yemen, a security source and witnesses told AFP
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Sounds like President Obama is really get after Al-Qaeda now.
A US drone attacked a Saudi Al-Qaeda leader in southern Yemen on Thursday, but missed and killed two local Al-Qaeda members, a security source and witnesses told AFP.
The drone had targeted the Saudi as he drove to the home of local Al-Qaeda men, the security source said, asking not to be identified.
When the two local Qaeda men rushed out in their own car, they were hit and killed by the drone.
The security source did not specify that the unmanned aircraft was American and there was no official word from the Yemeni authorities on who carried out the strike.
But the witnesses insisted it was a US drone that fired the missile.
The defence ministry confirmed the killing of two brothers, but did not elaborate on the circumstances of their deaths. Security sources identified the two brothers as Abdullah and Mubarak al-Harad.
Witnesses said they saw a missile fired by an aircraft hit the two brothers in the province of Shabwa, where Al-Qaeda is well entrenched. The men died instantly.
A third person was wounded in the attack in the town of Nissab, the witnesses added.
The Washington Post reported in November that President Barack Obama’s administration had deployed unmanned Predator drones in Yemen to hunt for Al-Qaeda operatives.
Yemen has come under intense pressure to crack down on jihadists’ local franchise, Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, since a December 2009 attempt to blow up a US airliner that was claimed by AQAP.
Washington has expressed fears that Al-Qaeda could take advantage of a prolonged political crisis in Yemen, where President Ali Abdullah Saleh has faced mass protests since late January calling for him to step down.
Saleh, who is clinging to power, has been a close US ally in Washington’s fight against Al-Qaeda. Political violence has claimed the lives of 150 people since the start of this year.
An AQAP leader on Wednesday vowed revenge for the killing of Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden in a US special forces raid in Pakistan announced by the White House late on Sunday.
“We will take revenge for the death of our Sheikh Osama bin Laden and we will prove this to the enemies of God,” he told AFP, contacted by telephone from Abyan.
“They will see what they haven’t expected… We are preparing a plan to continue jihad in the coming period.”
President Obama on Death of Osama bin Laden
President Obama praises those Americans who carried out the operation to kill Osama bin Laden, tells the families of the victims of September 11, 2001 that they have never been forgotten, and calls on Americans to remember the unity of that tragic day.
The Bible maintains several characteristics that prove it is from God. One of those is the fact that the Bible is accurate in every one of its details. The field of archaeology brings to light this amazing accuracy.
From time to time you will read articles in the Arkansas press by such writers as John Brummett, Max Brantley and Gene Lyons that poke fun at those that actually believe the Bible is historically accurate when in fact the Bible is backed up by many archaeological facts. The Book of Mormon is blindly accepted even though archaeology has disproven many of the facts that are claimed by it. For instance, the Book of Mormon has it wrong concerning rusted metal swords.
Apologists counter that most references to swords do not speak of the material they were made of, and that they may refer to a number of weapons such as the Macuahuitl, a “sword” made of obsidian blades that was used by the Aztecs. It was very sharp and could decapitate a man or horse.[85] However obsidian (volcanic glass), cannot rust.
Could Hazael seen here be the same man who was anointed by Elijah?This Ivory Statuette standing nearly 7 inches tall represents Hazael, ancient King of Aram Damascus (Syria) who fought against Israel. In the Bible the Lord sent the prophet Elijah to anoint Hazael to be king over Syria in the future. Many years later the Syrian king Hadadezer became very sick and Hazael suffocated him and seized the throne. Hazael reigned for about 37 years (842-805 B.C.). He went to war with Israel in the north and Judah in the south. Assyrian records indicate wars with Syria, and an inscription by Shalmaneser III mention Hazael and his son Ben-hadad by name:“I fought with Ben-hadad. I accomplished his defeat. Hazael, son of a nobody, seized his throne.”“In the 18th year of my reign for the 16th time I crossed the Euphrates. Hazael of Damascus trusted to the strength of his armies and mustered his troops in full force. Senir (Mount Hermon), a mountain summit which is in front of Lebanon, he made his stronghold. I fought with him; his defeat I accomplished; 600 of his soldiers with weapons I laid low; 1,121 of his chariots, 470 of his horses, with his camp I took from him. To save his life, he retreated; I pursued him; in Damascus, his royal city, I shut him up. His plantations I cut down. As far as the mountains of the Hauran I marched. Cities without number I wrecked, razed, and burnt with fire. Their spoil beyond count I carried away. As far as the mountains of Baal-Rosh, which is a headland of the sea (at the mouth of the Nahr el-Kelb, Dog River), I marched; my royal likeness I there set up. At that time I received the tribute of the Syrians and Sidonians and of Yahua (Jehu) the son of Khumri (Omri)” – Shalmaneser III 842 B.C.“Ben-Hadad II (Heb.), was the king of Aram Damascus at the time of the battle of Qarqar at 853 BC. He, along with Irhuleni of Hamath, led a coalition of eleven kings (listed as twelve) against the Assyrian king Shalmaneser III, at Qarqar, and fought Shalmaneser six times with the aid of Irhuleni twice more and possibly the rest of the coalition that fought at Qarqar. He appears again in the Tel Dan Stele as most likely the unknown author’s father. ” – WikipediaThis ivory statuette came from the palace of Hazael the ancient king of Damascus. It was discovered in the ruins of Arslan Tash in north Syria (ancient Hadatu) and is important in the study of Biblical archaeology. Several artifacts from the palace of Hazael are now in the Aleppo Museum in Syria.
2 Kings 13:1-3 “And the anger of The Lord was kindled against Israel, and he delivered them into the hand of Hazael king of Syria, and into the hand of Benhadad the son of Hazael, all their days.”
Note: The Stele of Zakkur also mentions “Bar Hadad, son of Hazael”.
Vehicles crushed by a collapsed wall in Mito city, Ibaraki prefecture after a massive 8.9 magnitude earthquake rocked Japan. Tsunami warnings are now in place across the Pacific Ocean. Photo: Jiji press/ AFP
I grew up as a member of Bellevue Church where Adrian Rogers was pastor. Here is a clip from a fine message of his on salvation (part 4):
Despite the organised nature of their shot, they look relaxed, their smiles unforced, and her hand rests on his knee.
Mario Testino may have received praise for his engagement portraits of William and Kate, but their choice of Hugo Burnand to take their official wedding pictures has cemented the latter’s status as the Royal Family’s favourite photographer.
Mr Burnand, 47, has been entrusted with capturing many of the royals’ most important occasions in recent years, including Prince Charles’s 60th birthday and his marriage to Camilla. He has also won the respect of the Queen and Princes William and Harry after taking their pictures on previous occasions.
The family photo: Front row left to right, Grace van Cutsem, Eliza Lopes, The Duke of Edinburgh, The Queen, Margarita Armstrong-Jones, Louise Windsor, William Lowther-Pinkerton. Back Row left to right, Tom Pettifer, Camilla, Charles, Prince Harry, Prince William and Kate, Michael Middleton, Carole Middleton, James Middleton and Philippa Middleton.
I really do wish Kate and William success in their marriage. I hope they truly are committed to each other, and if they are then the result will be a marriage that lasts their whole lifetime. Nevertheless, I do not think it is best to live together before marriage like they did, and I am writing this series to help couples see how best to prepare for marriage.
Al and Alicia just celebrated their tenth wedding anniversary. When they met, Alicia was a brand new believer, and Al was a non-Christian. They became intimate almost immediately and lived together for a time before getting married.
“We slept together on the second date,” said Alicia. “There was no hesitation; it just seemed like what you do.”
“We never articulated sex as bad because we were not married,” said Al. “So it was perplexing to me why Alicia felt the way she did. There was this deep sadness in her, and she’d cry during intimate times. On my part, it took me a long time to figure out how to be in a sexual relationship that didn’t involve objectification. So on the one hand, Alicia is experiencing tremendous regret, emptiness and scarring. And I have totally different expectations. I was this guy that had to learn it wasn’t about having fun sex all of the time.”
Alicia and Al spoke of the difficulties in their relationship, and how they eventually carried those into marriage.
“It’s a miracle we made it through those first years,” said Alicia. “We were on a different page for so long; it took me time to work through memories and the choices I made pre-marriage.
Tim Hawkins on Bananas – Playground Mishaps
(2/5) Adrian Rogers – No Other Way to Heaven Except Through Jesus
WH press secretary Jay Carney speaks about President Obama’s decision to not release the graphic photos of Osama bin Laden’s corpse, saying it was against national security
White House Press Secretary Jay Carney
White House Press Secretary Jay Carney tells reporters that President Barack Obama will not release photos of Osama bin Laden’s body, Wednesday, May 4, 2011, during the daily briefing at the White House in Washington
President Barack Obama ordered grisly photographs of Osama bin Laden in death sealed from public view on Wednesday, declaring, “We don’t need to spike the football” in triumph after this week’s daring middle-of-the-night raid. The terrorist leader was killed by American commandos who burst into his room and feared he was reaching for a nearby weapon, U.S. officials said.
Several weapons were found in the room where the terror chief died, including AK-47 assault rifles and side arms, the officials said. They spoke on condition of anonymity as they offered the most recent in a series of increasingly detailed and sometimes-shifting accounts of bin Laden’s final minutes after a decade on the run.
Obama said releasing the photographs taken by the Navy SEAL raiders was “not who we are” as a country. Though some may deny his death, “the fact of the matter is you will not see bin Laden walking this earth again,” the president said in an interview taped for CBS’ “60 Minutes.”
He said any release of the photos could become a propaganda tool for bin Laden’s adherents eager to incite violence.
White House press secretary Jay Carney said the president’s decision applied to photographs of bin Laden, said to show a portion of his skull blown away from a gunshot wound to the area of his left eye, as well as to a video recording of his burial several hours later in the North Arabian Sea.
The president made no public remarks during the day about the raid, apart from the taped interview. But he arranged a visit for Thursday to ground zero in Manhattan, where the World Trade Center twin towers once stood.
Residents surround the compound where al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden was reported to have been killed in this ariel view in Abbottabad May 4, 2011. Bin Laden was unarmed when U.S. special forces shot and killed him, the White House said, as it tried to establish whether its ally Pakistan had helped the al Qaeda leader elude a worldwide manhunt. REUTERS/Faisal Mahmood
White House press secretary Jay Carney said Tuesday that Osama bin Laden was not armed when a Navy SEAL raiding party confronted him during an assault on his compound in Pakistan. (May 3)
After two days of shifting accounts of the dramatic raid, Carney said he would no longer provide details of the 40-minute operation by the team of elite Navy SEALs. That left unresolved numerous mysteries, prominent among them an exact accounting of bin Laden’s demise. Officials have said he was unarmed but resisted when an unknown number of commandos burst into his room inside the high-security compound.
The officials who gave the latest details said a U.S. commando grabbed a woman who charged toward the SEALs inside the room. They said the raiders were concerned that she might be wearing a suicide vest.
Administration officials have said bin Laden’s body was identified by several means, including a DNA test. Members of Congress who received a briefing during the day said a sample from the body killed at the compound in Pakistan was compared to known DNA from bin Laden’s mother and three sons.
After two days of speculation about releasing the photographs, there was no detectable public debate in the U.S. about the merits of the raid itself against the man behind the terror attacks that killed nearly 3,000 Americans on Sept. 11, 2001.
Attorney General Eric Holder told Congress the operation was “entirely lawful and consistent with our values” and justified as “an action of national self-defense.” Noting that bin Laden had admitted his involvement in the events of nearly a decade ago, he said, “It’s lawful to target an enemy commander in the field.”
Holder also said the team that carried out the raid had been trained to take bin Laden alive if he was willing to surrender. “It was a kill-or-capture mission,” he said. “He made no attempt to surrender.”
Bin Laden had evaded capture for nearly a decade, and officials said he had currency as well as two telephone numbers sewn into his clothing when he was killed, suggesting he was prepared to leave his surroundings on a moment’s notice if he sensed danger.
Administration officials said the two dozen SEALs involved in the operation were back at their home base outside Virginia Beach, Va., and the extensive debriefing they underwent was complete. Saluted as heroes nationwide, they remained publicly unidentified because of security concerns.
In addition to bin Laden’s body, the SEALs helicoptered out of the compound with computer files, flash drives, DVDs and documents that intelligence officials have begun analyzing in hopes the information will help them degrade or destroy the network bin Laden left behind.
In New York on Thursday, Carney said, Obama will lay a wreath at the World Trade Center site and hold a private meeting with relatives of some of the victims of the attacks, in which jetliners hijacked by terrorists were flown into the side of first one tower, then the other.
The buildings collapsed within minutes, dooming office workers as well as rescuers who had run in hoping to save them.
A few days later, then-President George W. Bush stood amid the rubble and spoke through a bullhorn. When one worker yelled, “I can’t hear you,” the president responded, “I can hear you! The rest of the world hears you! And the people — and the people who knocked these buildings down will hear all of us soon!”
A decade — and long wars in Iraq and Afghanistan later — Obama said he had no intention of gloating.
Obama’s decision not to release any photographs was unlikely to be the final word, though.
Some members of Congress have been shown at least one photo of bin Laden, and others have asked to see it, an indication of the intense interest generated by the raid.
This is the pregame broadcast of the Arkansas-Texas game at Razorback Stadium in 1985. It features both the Razorback and Lonhorn bands and the 1964 punt return by Ken Hatfield.
I got to hear former Arkansas Razorback Football Coach Ken Hatfield speak and it was very encouraging and enjoyable. The “Zone Luncheon” is held the first Wednesday of every month at 11:45am at Little Rock’s First Baptist Church where Jim LaGrone is the pastor.
This month’s guest was former Razorback football coach Ken Hatfield. Dr. LaGrone introduced him as the coach who brought us back to back trips to the Cotton Bowl in 1989 and 1990 with our two conference championships. LaGrone continued by pointing out that Coach Hatfield was best known most for his Christian character and for how much he loved and cared for his players.
Coach Hatfield said so many inspiring things in his talk that I am starting a new series of posts that will go through many of the points he made in his talk.
In a quiet chapel where no one could see, Don kneeled and asked the Lord into his heart. In Don’s words, “that was the conversion of this cantankerous soul.”
Over the years, Don collected articles that mentioned sports personalities willing to talk about their faith. These courageous athletes were his heroes. One by one, Don wrote to each of them. He never gave up. He wanted the inspiration and strength of hearing their stories, personally and professionally. A new dream was nudging him.
Finally he got a response from Pittsburgh Pirate General Manager, Branch Rickey. Don was told that he could have a five minute appointment. The five minutes stretched into five hours. Together they imagined Don’s dream, “The Fellowship of Christian Athletes.” Rickey found some start-up funds, and Don did the footwork. Don made the contacts, shared the vision, and did more fund-raising and organizing. It took so much time that Don had to leave his coaching job. He and his wife and (by then) three children lived on very little. But step-by-step the dream became a reality.
The Fellowship of Christian Athletes is over fifty years old now, and is the largest inter-denominational, school-based, Christian organization in America. It even reaches athletes internationally. The FCA encourages coaches and athletes on the professional, college, high school, middle school, and youth levels to use athletics to “impact the world through their faith and example.”
The Fellowship of Christian Athletes was his first big dream. It joined his hungry spirit with his love of sports. Step by step, his vision grew, far beyond where he ever dreamed. But he was still bothered by racial differences, and the uneven distribution of wealth.
His longtime questions about money and race and faith have led him all over the globe. After he created the FCA, Don founded Washington Lift, Inc. (an inner-city youth ministry), the Ministry of Money, Inc., and Harvest Time, Inc. When I asked him why he started these organizations, Don’s words were simple. “I thought somebody else would take it and run with it. When no one did, I did.”
Although Don doesn’t play sports anymore (except golf), he still dreams dreams and works to make them come true. Don’s playing field has changed, but at 81 years old, he’s still in the action. Like the mower that splash-landed in the mayor’s pond, Don’s dreams have rippled out all around the world. He hopes that by one strategy or another, he has helped kids around the world to climb mountains.
That story is very inspiring, but I just want you to know that the things you do today may continue to have influence on others many years later.
Melvin Pickens,
Let me give you one example. Recently I talked to Melvin Pickens who has been selling brooms in Little Rock for over 60 years. I have known Melvin for almost 30 years and I have always known that he is a big Los Angeles Dodgers fan. Then just the other day I asked him how he came around to pulling for the Dodgers. He told me that in 1947 when he was at Henry Clay Yerger High School in Hope, Arkansas, Branch Rickey (the general manager of the Brooklyn Dodgers) stood up for Jackie Robinson and made him the first black baseball player to play professional baseball with the whites.
Every person he knew at Henry Clay Yerger High School became a Dodger fan that year, and he has been a faithful fan ever since!!!
On the Road: 81-year-old salesman sweeps customers off their feet
Published on Sep 20, 2013
As part of our continuing series “On the Road,” Steve Hartman meets an 81-year-old salesman who’s been in business for over six decades selling one simple product that everyone needs.
In the history of Razorback football, few figures loom larger than Ken Hatfield. Not only does he have the highest winning percentage of any head coach in the program’s history, he also was a star punt returner and defensive back for the Razorbacks’ one and only national championship team. After a six-year coaching tenure in Fayetteville, he left for Clemson in 1990 and was later the head coach at Rice for 12 seasons.
Now retired from football, Hatfield lives in northwest Arkansas, where he serves on the board of the local chapter of the Fellowship of Christian Athletes; is involved with Horses for Healing, non-profit therapeutic horseback riding center for individuals with special needs; and is state director for Arkansas Drug Card.com, which provides free discount prescription cards to uninsured and underinsured residents of Arkansas.
In the first part of a three-part Q&A, Hatfield discusses his unforgettable 81-yard punt return for a touchdown in an upset of Texas in 1964 and the start of his coaching career. (And before we started, a quick note of thanks to the invaluable Hogdb.com for several of the photos in today’s installment.)
A touching story about when Adrian Rogers accepted Jesus Christ as his Savior
The
First day as husband and wife: Newlyweds William and Kate emerged holding hands into the morning sunshine at Buckingham Palace before they left by helicopter for a mini honeymoon at a mystery location
Up, up and away: The couple walked across a gravel path in the palace gardens to a waiting maroon helicopter which whisked them away for the weekend.
The family photo: Front row left to right, Grace van Cutsem, Eliza Lopes, The Duke of Edinburgh, The Queen, Margarita Armstrong-Jones, Louise Windsor, William Lowther-Pinkerton. Back Row left to right, Tom Pettifer, Camilla, Charles, Prince Harry, Prince William and Kate, Michael Middleton, Carole Middleton, James Middleton and Philippa Middleton.
Melvin Pickens,
