BEN STEIN: Everything You Wanted to Know About the Credit Crisis…
September 23, 2008 | Items of Interest | Comments [2]
Very important stuff for every American to understand. Is it doom? How does it affect us as individuals?
FWIW, the prophets have continually told us to “have our houses in order.” I hope we do.
Houston Chronicle Web Page
September 15, 2008 | Items of Interest | Comments [1]
Thought some of you might be interested in news from the local paper here. Those poor folks down south of town are really hurtin’!
I DON’T Like Ike!
September 11, 2008 | Items of Interest | Comments [3]
Okay, after several false alarms over the last few years – Hurricane Rita (which caused a lot of panic here in the Houston area, if little actual damage) ; T.S. Gus; and Hurricane Gustav – it looks like we’re in for the real thing.
Yep: “It’s the big one, Elizabeth!”
Hurricane Ike is bearing down on us, probably hit around Matagorda Bay as a Category 3, and that means that our area will be in the dreaded Northeast quarter of the storm. High winds, lots of rain, and potentially many tornadoes.
We should be safe enough from most of it; we’re on fairly high ground, not in a flood zone (and we have flood insurance to boot). We are on the Katy Prairie, so there aren’t lots of trees to worry about.
BUT…
When the power goes out, it will probably STAY out for a L-O-O-O-NG time. And of course stores and businesses will be closed. We could go to San Antonio – that’s our ward’s typical fallback plan – but that would be cutting right across the path of the storm.
A few years ago I figured a “back-alleys” route to get to Birmingham, so we may head for Beth’s house if it looks like power’s going out for an extended period of time. We’ll see.
Hurricane Ike Tracking Map Here
Keep us in your prayers!
* * *UPDATE* * ** * *UPDATE* * ** * *UPDATE* * ** * *UPDATE* * *
Thursday 8:30 PM CDT
Eerie. The storm track is beginning to slide a bit off to the east. If it continues to do this, we’re going to be out of the dangerous Northeast quarter, and the storm’s effects will be a lot less. We’ll be on the “dry side.”
This is exactly what happened with Hurricane Rita almost exactly three years ago (less a couple of weeks). Rita ended up coming ashore, not at Freeport but all the way over to just east of the Texas-Louisiana state line, and we got nothing but a bit of rain.
The “Golden Triangle” of Texas (Beaumont, Port Arthur, Orange) and Lake Charles, LA, however, were devastated. In fact, there was a lot more damage there than Katrina had done a month earlier in New Orleans – but who the heck cares about some whitey part of the country when “Chocolate City” is available for Jesse Jackson and the Democrat Party to scream and yell about?
Anyway, if this trend continues, we’ll dodge another bullet. But this time, we drug out our 72-hour kit which Nancy had packed up last year, and I have my little portable Ham Radio (KE5JYY at your service!) for when the cell phones go out.
Keep prayin’, folks, it’s working!
Better News on Beth
August 28, 2008 | Items of Interest | Comments [4]
Beth got the news on her MRI. It is not another collapsed disc, thank goodness. It is swelling caused by the surgery, but still may need to be corrected by more surgery, which will be done on Tuesday, if the swelling doesn’t go down by then. She’s being treated with (Cortisone packs???)
Anyway, her phone went dead, so I didn’t get much information.
New Grandbaby
August 28, 2008 | Items of Interest | Comments [1]
Ben and Julie know the gender (sex?) of their baby. I thought Ben posted it, but guess not. I’ll leave that for one of them to announce, and let all of you stew until they do. Meanwhile, i’m trying to find out about Beth.
Phone is busy.
Beth – New Problems
August 26, 2008 | Items of Interest | Comments [8]
Just spoke to our sister on the phone.
She’s been doing just fine until yesterday when she noticed weakness in her LEFT arm. She says she can barely lift it, and the pain is very great, extending into her shoulder. This is unusual because until now it has been her RIGHT side that has been affected by the spinal cord problems.
While I talked to her it was apparent that she is very upset, and very frightened. This has been heightened by their inability to get in touch with her surgeon, who has been almost continually occupied with surgery during this time. She began to cry, and said that she feels that she has reached the end of her rope, she’s so distressed.
I asked her to make sure to say a prayer, to ask the Lord to help her understand the reason for her difficulty, for there is always a reason for everything, even the most intense pain and suffering. I told her that I would pray just as soon as we hung up. I closed my office door and did so.
I would ask that we all do that when we have a spare moment. I feel impressed that there are lessons that Beth and all of her family and friends are expected to learn from her ordeal. I also feel that she’ll be okay, ultimately, but right now I know that things seem very dark for her. A lot of that is her mental state. It is weighing her down greatly.
Let us all express our love and concern for her in the best way we can.
The Sun Peeked Through
August 22, 2008 | Items of Interest | No Comments
For a little while. I think it’s over,though. I believe the storm has moved out of our area at last. it rained hard all night and all day until a little while ago (about 4:00 PM). Luis did work in the yard for a little while, but had to scoot back inside, when it started raining again, but now it’s stopped, and i think maybe for good. It has really been an experience. Five days and nights of constant hard rain and winds from 20 to 45 MPH. Debary has been in the middle of the mix. We were hit from three directions, as Fay made a circular sweep on her slow trek inland. Don’t know where she is now, but maybe some folks that really need the rain are getting it.
Beth’s Home!
August 20, 2008 | Items of Interest | Comments [5]
She was released from the hospital today; Paul has driven her home and although she said she felt pretty good (according to Paul), she conked out again as soon as they got home.
The boys are supposed to come home this afternoon (he said “on the bus” so I assume school’s back in session in Hoover). They haven’t been read the riot act yet about leaving Mom alone but Paul assured me it would be done.
That’s about it. She’s able to converse on the phone, I think, so of course everyone call her and bug the heck out of her so that she’s completely worn out from all the yakking. She likes nothing better.*
* I’M KIDDING!!!!
P.S. B. Hussein Obama trails John McCain in most of the latest Presidential preference polling as of this morning, as I understand. Completely off-topic, I just thought I’d get all the good news in at once.
Love, Bill
Beth
August 15, 2008 | Items of Interest | Comments [1]
As most of you know by now, Beth is going under the knife on Tuesday. I have found what I believe to be a good description of the procedure HERE. Basically, if she doesn’t have the surgery, she is risking almost certain paralysis. Already she is experiencing a feeling of deadening in her extremities.
Beth has promised me to contact her home teachers to receive a priesthood blessing prior to the surgery. Of course, she is in need of all our prayers. She is very frightened, as I’m sure any of us would be under the circumstances.
Dad/Bill Sr. will be at the hospital during the procedure along with Paul (and I’m sure, others). He will be in charge of letting Lainie, Buddy and me know what’s going on, and we’ll contact Mom as soon as we hear from him. One of us will post any updates here on the blog as soon as possible.
Again, please remember Beth, Paul, Ryder and Dylan in your prayers. In fact, I’m sure EACH of us could use a prayer as well. I know speaking for myself, I’m very preoccupied with worrying about it.
Love to all.
Uncle Fred Polhemus
August 10, 2008 | Items of Interest | Comments [8]
Do any of you Polhemus children know anything more about your uncle?
“I Am Bill’s Gall Bladder”
July 25, 2008 | Items of Interest | Comments [2]
When I was a kid, back before Al Gore invented the Internet, before ATM machines, automatic transmissions, raised-letter tires, and continuous-roll toilet paper (forget it; you don’t want to know), “Papa Luis” had a perpetual subscription to “Reader’s Digest.”
It was ubiquitous in our household, even before the “1048 Sunset Boulevard” era (roughly co-terminous with the Upper Permian geologic epoch). There was always a pile of back-issues sitting on the toilet tank in the bath-room; I think the issue reporting on the George Washington Inaugural was permanently adhered to that of the “pink bathroom” for about 150 years or so.
Anyway, as a voracious reader I was enthralled with the magazine and its articles. I would read the many regular topical “jokes” columns that appeared monthly (such as the one regarding military life, called “Humor in the Athenian Phalanx Formation,” or that depicting daily life in general, “Life In These Loosely-Federated States of the Holy Roman Empire,” etc.), and I very much enjoyed the many “condensed books” installments (the serialization of “Plato’s Republic,” which had just come out in paperback in CXI A.D. was a particular favorite).
But by far my favorite semi-regular feature was that detailing the various organs and members of the human body, called “I Am Joes [FILL IN THE NAME OF THE BODY-PART DU JOUR ].” For example, you’d have “I Am Joe’s Heart,” about the primary muscle of the circulatory system; or “I Am Joe’s Pancreas,” which oddly enough dealt with the pancreas.
The stories were written in “first person” (or perhaps I should say “first organ”) style, so that the Heart is telling its own story – an amazing feat since no one knew that the human heart could write, much less hire a literary agent. For instance, an introductory sentence to “I Am Joe’s Lungs” reads:
“Without me, Joe could not take in oxygen to feed his red blood cells”.
Yeah, pretty riveting stuff. But it did feed a lot of factual information that later on served me well as “crib notes” for biology class, and I learned a lot of stuff I did not actually know, like the fact that “hormones” are produced by “ductless” organs (mostly residing, of course, in the the body of Joe at 15 or 16 years of age).
Oh, and who WAS Joe? Just a composite average red-blooded American male of indeterminate age (well, except for the part in “I Am Joe’s Circulatory System” that dealt with anemia).
As you might expect, given my teen-aged state at the time, and the natural curiosity about some of the more interesting parts of the body that I had kept in occasional contact with, I was very much interested to see how some of those were going to be treated. Alas, however, such articles never appeared at least in the issues that we had on the toilet tank (Mother might well have kept those out of sight, however; very unfair of her under the circumstances).
But there’s another interesting organ that I do not remember ever seeing treated in the season: “I Am Joe’s Gall Bladder.” I may well have missed it – over time, I began to skip some of the titles that promised little in the way of titillating…er, I mean to say EDUCATIONAL content.
So, herewith is my modest contribution in the spirit of that dearly-beloved Reader’s Digest series, which I have for some reason decided to call “I Am Bill’s Gall Bladder.”
I am Bill’s Gall Bladder. Not having much time or inclination toward basic research, I’m not really at all sure what I’m supposed to be doing, residing as I do in Bill’s increasingly-capacious abdominal cavity, near (or even attached to) the Liver. But I do know that I secrete a substance known throughout antiquity as “gall,” hence my rather clever name. “Gall,” or “bile,” is known over the many centuries of Western civilization as comprising two – “yellow” and “black” bile – of the four essential “humours” circulating through the human body, along with “blood” and “phlegm.” The term “bilious” arose from this belief that originated, it seems, with the ancient Greeks.
(There are rumors – or I guess I should spell it “rumours” to keep in the spirit of things – of a so-called “fifth humour”: fartus maximus, which was known to be particularly exhbited (or expressed) by males with a fondness for legumes and summer sausage, but it was eventually dropped from the lexicon of ancient medical art at the insistence of the approximate one-half of the human race known as the “female,” on the theory that “denial isn’t just a river in Egypt.” But I digress).
At some point in the life of the average Bill (or Nancy), I, the Gall Bladder, seek to gain greater attention and notoriety chiefly through the subtle act of making Bill feel like a 6′-8″ cop with a pointy riot-stick has made him the object of his attentions by poking the thing hard just under BIll’s ribs and halfway into his thoracic cavity, all without, amazingly enough, actually breaking the skin.
“Oof,” says Bill, and we’re off and running. Bill is often inclined to express his appreciation for the decades of my quiet service until that point, by visiting his primary care physician, negotiating the mounds of HMO referral paperwork (and a ten-day waiting period), and seeking to have me completely extracted from his abdomen, where I have served faithfully since a couple of months before his birth, and thrown into the nearest Biohazard container.
Yeah, thanks for nothin’.
Anyway, I apologize for the brief nature of the foregoing, but I haven’t had much of a chance to clean up the prose any, spending a great deal of my time the last couple of days since the ol’ gall bladder flare-up, popping Vicodin and moaning and groaning on the bed, much to the delight of my wife who is probably in favor of euthanasia as a possible solution to my ills, about now.
So if I appear particularly, well, “bilious,” at the family get-together next week, please don’t hold it against me.
It’s all the fault of my @#&% gall bladder which, after nearly fifty-one years of quiet reflection, has decided to thump on the ceiling of its apartment – repeatedly – to let me know how things are with it.
My doctor assures me that it’s not simply a question of age, as young people can have gall bladder problems as well. But all I can say is “if I could live without it, why the heck is it rocking the boat right now? Doesn’t it know that the Biohazard bucket is waiting?”
Can’t wait to see everybody.
Comics & Twilight Series
July 24, 2008 | Items of Interest | Comments [6]
So…Julie…I am thinking maybe You, Maria, Jordan and Myself will be sneaking off one night say around midnight to hit the closest Walmart or Book Store?? Are you in??
Ben, Jason wants to know if there are any comics you might be looking for or are interrested in. He has a few boxes full but doesn’t know what you might like. Mostly stuff around the time of Avengers, and…well…I don’t know. Can’t remember. Anyway… let me know. -carmen
This Kind Goeth Not Out But By Prayer and Fasting
July 21, 2008 | Items of Interest | Comments [3]
Greetings, family. We’re of course counting down the days until we all meet in Alabama. Just a little over a week till our family leaves!
Now, I have a special request, from myself, but on behalf of our daughter, sister, wife, mother and aunt Beth Polhemus Rohrach, whom most all of you know. She and I have always had a special relationship and we still talk from time to time.
I spoke with her last week and she revealed that she has had some health problems of late, related to her back. I hope she’ll forgive me if I don’t have all the facts straight, and I’m sure she’ll correct anything that I have wrong.
She had been complaining of lower back pain, and went to see an Orthopaedist. He told her she’d probably need surgery for what looked like a herniated, or perhaps ruptured disc between two of her vertabrae. This isn’t an unusual procedure any more; our father Bill Sr. had it done about thirty years ago, and I’m sure the procedure has improved much since that time.
In the meantime, the Orthopaedist recommended that she get a “pain block” (epidural, I’m assuming) under a surgeon’s care, as she and her family were about to leave on vacation. She had that done, but just a few days later, while they were away, it “broke,” and she spent a couple of agonizing days on her hotel bed, downing pain pills, until they could get her home.
Upon examination by the surgeon, it was discovered that somehow the pain-block procedure had actually caused direct damage to the spinal cord itself, causing some bruising, perhaps even ongoing bleeding. At that point she also consulted a neurologist. Of the three physicians, the orthopaedist, surgeon and neurologist, two recommended the disc surgery and one strenuously recommended against it.
So Beth is left with the lingering pain which COULD actually get worse at some point, and a decision to make regarding the surgery. She wanted my input.
I suggested that this was something a bit beyond human understanding, given the risks, and I thought that we should have a family fast and prayer day on next Sunday, July 27, which is the Sunday before our reunion, and also that we gather to give her a priesthood blessing, those who would desire to do so, and hopefully we can give her some relief and also help her to decide what she ought to do.
So please, plan to fast and pray on this coming Sunday, on behalf of Beth, if you would. Those who have the opportunity to do so should also consider putting her name on the temple prayer roll.
Here is a scripture that came to my mind when I was talking to Beth about it:
14 …there came to him a certain man, kneeling down to him, and saying,
15 Lord, have mercy on my son: for he is lunatick, and sore vexed: for ofttimes he afalleth into the fire, and oft into the water.
16 And I brought him to thy disciples, and they could not cure him.
17 Then Jesus answered and said, O afaithless and bperverse generation, how long shall I be with you? how long shall I suffer you? bring him hither to me.
18 And Jesus rebuked the devil; and he departed out of him: and the child was cured from that very hour.
19 Then came the disciples to Jesus apart, and said, Why could not we cast him out?
20 And Jesus said unto them, Because of your aunbelief: for verily I say unto you, If ye have bfaith as a grain of mustard seed, ye shall say unto this cmountain, Remove hence to yonder place; and it shall remove; and nothing shall be dimpossible unto you.
21 Howbeit this akind goeth not out but by prayer and bfasting.
Matthew 17:14-21
I hope we can have a good participation on Beth’s behalf.
Love, Bro. Bill.
Sister Ursula Guthrie Died
June 27, 2008 | Items of Interest | Comments [2]
For those of you who remember her. She was the grandmother of Karey and Karen (I can’t remember their last names), but Beth knows, because she and Karey were big buddies.
Bobby Giles and his whole family (wife and four children)were in a terrible automobile accident. They were all injured, but by far the worse was Stacey, Bobby’s wife. Her esophagus was split in half, but they repaired it somehow, by removing a vein from one place(I don’t know where), and fitting it to serve as the other half of the esophagus. But the worst injuries were the two broken bones in the back. She is obviously bedridden at this time, and is still being fed intraveneously. I think their little baby is only a year or two old.
T-Shirt Simplicity
June 17, 2008 | Items of Interest | Comments [8]
Here is my entry into the T-Shirt realm.
I think it says it all.
I think all the families will know who they are.
I don’t think the population around DeSoto Caverns cares who is adding to their local economy.
I think this is thought provoking and can be worn again and again while people ponder exactly what kind of chemical reaction produces this sort of an ION!!!!
Deaths in the Family
May 23, 2008 | Items of Interest | Comments [1]
You will not know them, but they are my mother’s people. I grew up with them, and they were very dear to me. They are members of the McLure family.
I called my friend of (many years), Mary Jo. We have been friends since we were fourteen years old. It was time for us to check in with one another again. I kept having the urge to call her….like there was something I needed to know, and at the same time, I was thinking about my Aunt Ann McLure, the last member of that family. I knew she must be 86-88 years old. Mary Jo told me right away that she had just read about Ann’s death in the Macon Telegraph. I pulled up the information on the MJacon Telegraph’s Obituaries. Then I went to Whitepages.com, and got her son, Larry, (that would be my first cousin) phone number….called him…he answered, and we chatted with twenty-one years to make up. The last time I saw Larry was in 1987 when his father (my Uncle Frank) died. He told my that my cousin, Cherry, had died of Cancer. Cherry would be 57 years old now. I don’t know when she died. I didn’t get that from Larry before I hung up. Alex is going to call him and get all the information. Alex and Larry were like Siamese Twins practically. They were inseparable when they were little boys. Where there was one….there was the other. Alex hasn’t talked to Larry since he (Alex) married Jeanette in 1960. Or somewhere around that time, anyway. i don’t always get my facts straight. The older you get, the more your brain is expected to handle.
And my brain has had it for the day. Crystal…don’t forget to look for Ursula Guthrie.
last update
May 21, 2008 | Items of Interest | Comments [3]
ok this is the last update on any of my artsy stuff for awhile because I am sure its annoying…. hehehe…
I have added 2 new chapters to my story and I know they are VERY short and I have a reason for that…
If you visit my site often you would know that if a new photo manipulation appears like the one above, it means there is a new chapter… but it must have the title chronicles of Ortha somewhere on the photo or artist comment ^^
James Franklin McLure
May 7, 2008 | Items of Interest | Comments [4]
I will interrupt my hot pursuit of information about my kindred dead via the NEWFAMILY program, which is becoming more of a puzzle to me each day. However, as I dig through my stacks of notes and disorganized “stuff” I run across items of interest. Here is one. It simply says, “James Franklin died fighting for the Confederate States of America.” He was my GG Grandfather, and that, of course, would make him your (meaning my children) GGG Grandfather, and my grandchildren (Lanie Beth, Jordan, etc>) He would be their GGGG Grandfather. He fought for a lost cause, but evidently it was a cause that he believed in. I don’t know if he was wealthy, and owned many slaves, thus….wanting to keep them in bondage, or if he thought that the southern states had a right to secede from the northern states, and form a union of their own. However, he fought and died. He was born in 1828, and died in 1862, making him thirty-four years old, and leaving his wife, Delia (29) with at least four children. I’m not too sure about that. I know we are descendants of James Alec Mclure.
If They Made A Movie About Mom…
May 5, 2008 | Items of Interest | Comments [9]
…what actress would they get to play her?
(I just saw this on the news-screen in the elevator here in our building).
Who?
Incredible Tornado Footage (Pawnee Co. Oklahoma)
May 2, 2008 | Items of Interest | Comments [8]
Hey, Mom, remember how afraid I was of tornadoes when I was a kid? I read a book about them when I was in the second grade, and right about that time we had a tornado warning in Warner Robbins GA where we were living. It scared the bejeebers out of me and it took a few years for me to get over it.
Kids have it rough.