TV news had it wrong, LA Times has it right.

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-pchcrash25-2008sep25,0,5325658.story

Mr. Keillor's timeline was correct and his article was deeply touching. Every day is a treasure.

For your pleasure, I will fly you to the brightside of the Moon. Fasten your safety belts and remember to keep hands and feet in the vehicle at all times. Some of you may have to shield your eyes.

If you are present, you will witness a camel slip through the eye of a needle. At no time will my hands leave my wrists nor will my nose elongate, for this is a true story.

Find a brief moment to divert yourself from the inhumanity of Darfur. Experience a temporarylapse into reason, and forget about our nation’s compromisedstandards as we bail the naughtyboys out of fiscal detention.

If your health is suffering due to your inability to access sufficienthealthcare, or you have surrendered skin in a Billy goat fight with a mismanagedHMO, allow me to lift you from your misery, if only for a brief moment.

Perhaps you are struggling with tremendousdecisions concerning an aging parent. Maybe your marriage is failing or your ball team is not performing as you wished. Are you morally mitigated by the legality of prostitution? Does the teacher lack understanding concerning your little prince or princess? Is your pussycat leaving little presents in your tub? Again? Still?

Did someone block your air,your light, AND your ability to see the neighbor shower? Right now, forget about it. There is always Hope. Where there is Hope, there is Life. Death has no sting when you reside in Heaven.

You contain the ability to transcend all you resist. When you return, you will be better equipped to ride the wave. Here, take this surfboard. If you are a troll, make a break for it, and crawl under my bridge. It is not for sale, but you are welcome to camp here as long as you like. And while you are at it, even if you are a jaded MinnesotaRep’blican (there is no “you’), consider voting for Al Franken based solely upon his gift to make you laugh and his egalitarian prowess. Get ready. Set. Go!

With the promise of a new life ahead, a long time ago, a young couple, surnamed Haar, boarded a sailing ship in order to make the arduous journey across the Atlantic Ocean to the United States. Through a series of events, direhardship, and seemingly insurmountableobstacles, their path has led me to you today.

They huddled in the damp stink familiar to livestock boxed, cramped in a cattle car. A coal fire and the welcoming warmth of shared body heat were their least and greatest comforts. Cholera, tuberculosis, and dysentery stole the breath of life from their fellow passengers.

She had become ill during passage. Unrelenting fever burned in her body and then one morning, as he lay next to her wondering what the day would bring, worrying she would not survive this, he found he could not rouse her.

The ship’s doctor, summoned. could not find a heartbeat and the beloved was pronounced dead. This devastated the young man. He was inconsolable as he bitterly wept over the lifeless body of his new bride.

Her body, carefully wrapped in a coarse shroud, and carried up on deck, laid to wait beside the other corpses on the planks wet with sea spray. There was no eulogy as the crew unceremoniously dumped the diseasedflesh into the deep dark depths of the cold Atlantic.

The groom could not bear the impending sight of his bride’s remains lifted over the gunwales. What had brought them here? What would her parents say?

“Why, O God, have you done this to me?” He thought in suffrage. At that moment, he ran to the side of the ship, not sure if he would throw himself over board alongside her. He grabbed the boson’s wrist and shouted, “Wait! Wait! Just let me kiss her goodbye one last time.”

The ship’s crew, habituated to the loss of life and familiar with this face of grief, reluctantly obliged the immigrant. Gingerly, they lowered his wife’s body back down, and unwrapped it to receive its last kiss.

The man knelt on deck and lifted her limp body to his breast, tears streaming down his face. As he kissed her cold skin over, and over again, weeping, shaking, and holding her close in the salt air, he heard a long sigh escape from her lips. Her eyelids fluttered and she awoke.

Eventually they made their way to the Land of the Free and they homesteaded in the Midwest. She bore him many healthy children. One of her offspring, a greatgrandchild, answered a spiritualcalling to teach for the

Lutheran church. This, in turn, led to a teachingposition in a newly established parochial school out East.

Arriving in the summer of 1975, there in the back field behind that tiny house of God, a mission church, Susan Haar, 28 years old, pitched her tent. She was a good Lutheran and did not want to impose upon the congregation for her lodging.

There were ten of us enrolled that first year, and ten diminutive second hand school desks, still stained with old graphite, were set up in the back of the sanctuary. This was where we held school. I was eleven when MissHaar posed the question, “Why did EleanorRigby keep her face in a jar by the door of the church?” Then she instructed me to write about it.

Through many hours of hard work and the tenacity of a woman with the indomitable spirit of an explorer, SusanHaar rigorously cultivated a love of literature and proper expression of the written word.

Against all odds, while separated from the love of her life, in faith she traveled to a foreign land. There, far away from her family, estranged from her culture, she was made to consume steamed blue crab, and showed up in my life so I could be with you here today. All for a kiss meant only as a rose on a grave.

1OCTOBER2008.1444HRSALLRIGHTSRESERVED.Scintilla FlyTHISWASWRITTENBEFORETHEOPEDPIECE.Achillesheel?Callmepsychic.Itoffendsme.