One of my regrets in life is that I didn't get to know most of my uncles growing up, as my family moved from Illinois (and almost all of our relatives) to Florida when I was ten.

My the time we moved back to the Midwest, just as I was finishing college, one of them had died and the others were in decline. I never got to know them in their prime, especially my Uncle Stan, the successful inventor.

You were damn lucky Keith.

Hell, I'd even record it on DVD.

I nearly missed your appearance on the National Geographic Channel's 9/11 program. Frankly, I think they gave you short shrift and not enough of a chance to do your stuff. Then again, the whole show was ridiculously weak, managing to almost make the 9/11 conspiracy nuts' arguments seem reasonable, even though they are not.

I could see your series using animation to illustrate many of your technical points, like wind shear, lift and such. It could be great. Hope you find someone to run with it.

As best we can tell, as his plastics business was failing due to the first oil crisis, Dad had another TIA episode.

I can only imagine that this big, strong guy who always made it a point to be the provider, the protector, the bulwark of his family, a guy who saw it as his duty to protect and care for his family, could not countenance being reduced to a near vegetable as his father. It was not for him to be the invalid, the near brain dead vegetable.

So, that one snowy night, almost 36 years ago, he penned a desperate holographic will, went out in that snowy January night, had a last cigarette, then stuck the barrel of a 10 guage shotgun in his right ear and pulled the trigger.

I found his body the next morning. He was dead at 48.

I'm 60 now. I was 24 then.

Strokes flat out scare the shit out of me to this day. Bless you, Garrison. You survived. I hope to God you live a long life.

Once a fan of PHC, I fell away, for a variety of reasons that I won't go into right now.

That said, I still felt the pang of panic when I heard of his stroke. Let me explain.

My paternal grandfather suffered through a series of strokes until the final one took him off this mortal coil in the summer of 1973. The effects of those shook my father to his core.

Then, that coming winter, as we later pieced together, my father had a series of TIAs or mini-strokes. He hid it from Mom and swore my brother to secretcy when he noticed it. However, they kept on and Dad, picturing grandfather's experience, seems to have seen his own fate.

(TBC)

My brother is a supervisor for a Social Security office. He was traveling to Birmingham for Social Security business. All went fine until his return trip. As he went through the metal detector, nothing went off and he assumed everything was fine. Nope.

The screener on duty points to him and says, "Sir, I need you to step over here. Now." Mind you, no alarms went off, nothing. He is told to empty his pockets. He does so. He is told to stand with his arms up and extended out from his sides. He does this. the screener proceeds to wand him, including an extended period over the top of his head. He found that puzzling, telling me, "Hey, I don't have anywhere near the amount of hair to hide something in any more." He complies with all this with no protest. The screener then turns his back to my brother and puts the wand down. At this point, my brother figures that's it and starts to lower his arms. The screener notices this and barks at him, "Sir, do NOT lower your arms!" He then proceeds to do the whole wanding routine all over again.

My brother is now getting a bit pissed over this, but still says nothing, figuring anything he says is just going get him hauled off into some back room for worse. After three or four minutes of standing there, arms out, he is finally allowed to lower his arms. However it is still not over. He is told to take off his belt. He does. The buckle is closely examined. He is told to take his glasses out of his shirt pocket. Those are closely examined. He is told to take his pen out of his shirt pocket. It is disassembled and examined. He is told to roll down the waistband of his trousers. he does. Then, "Sir, I am going to place my hands in your pants." The screener inserts his hands down the waistband and around the whole waist.

After all this, he is told he can go. No thank you for your patience. No explanation of why a then 51 year old government employee/supervisor, traveling on government business is singled out as warranting this. Nothing. Greg assumes it is just some guy pulling a power trip, i.e., "I'm doing this because I can." A fellow teacher I discussed this with today figures it is just that they have to pick a random traveler to go over with the full treatment. Maybe. But at least that could have been explained and the attitude could have been less overbearing. Either way, it seems to me this was very unprofessional

Well, perhaps he might have done that if he had been well.

One can hope that his death might inspire that to come to pass, but I am not holding my breath for it.

There is no question that Sen. Edward Kennedy was, in many ways, a massively flawed person but he did do some good. I'll let it go at that.

Nihil nisi bona de mortuo and all that.