Larry Writes it Down is BACK

It’s been almost a year since I posted my first blog entry, Father’s Day, 2011.  And, it’s been almost 10 months since I posted my last blog entry, our Wedding Anniversary, 2011.  I think I’ve figured out a way to post entries more frequently.  My plan is to draw from previously published accounts, via the big letter, to list important events from the past and remind everyone what was going on 30, 20 and 10 years ago.  I think it will be fun to remember these things and reminisce.  With this in mind, let’s go back to 1982, 1992 and 2002 to see what the Thede family was up to.

June        1982:  We attend Laurie’s 10-year high school reunion.  Adam attends VBS, draws picture of our house and lists the occupants as Mommie, Daddy, Emily, Adam and Fido – the teacher asked Adam if he had a dog and apparently he thought we did so put it in the house.  On the way home, he asked Laurie if we had a dog . . .

June        1992:  Laurie and Emily go on an overnight scout camping trip. Laurie’s parents visit and bring us Nebraska peony plants.  Laurie’s hip bothers her. She gets a cortisone shot. We see ‘Sister Act’ for her birthday.  Larry gets a leaf blower for Father’s Day.

June        2002:  We host an end of year potluck party for the Meistersingers. Emily begins working at the Spanish TV station. Rosie takes a job at Park Meadows.  Larry begins a new job at Quovadx on June 10 and goes on a trip to Detroit, Milwaukee and Minneapolis on his second day on the job. The biggest wild fire in Colorado history starts – the Hayman Fire. It burns 138,000 acres and 133 homes.  Laurie and Adam go to Omaha and move her parents to Brighton Gardens. They bring the trailer home with furniture, etc.  Emily and Rosie clean the house, mow the lawn and wash both cars for Larry’s Father’s Day present, and Rosie makes a strawberry rhubarb pie. Adam attends a Semester at Sea reunion in Las Vegas.

In addition to family history, I think it’s important to highlight significant world events in my blog.  With this in mind, here is an account of June 2002 and June 2007 from Dave Berry:

June, 2002

. . . Britain's Queen Elizabeth II celebrates the 50th year of her reign at a star-studded gala concert featuring performances by Paul McCartney, Phil Collins, Eric Clapton and Ozzy Osbourne, who, in the dramatic highlight of the evening, bites the head off one of the Queen's Welsh corgis.

But the mood is not so jubilant in the Middle East, where, following a series of Palestinian attacks, Israeli tanks again surround the headquarters of Yasser Arafat and slowly press against it until it is the size of a twin bed. The crafty Arafat escapes again by claiming he has a dental appointment.

Speaking of close calls: On June 14 a giant asteroid, discovered only three days earlier, passes within 75,000 miles of the Earth. Congress immediately holds hearings, with the Democrats charging that the Bush administration should have known about it sooner, and the Republicans noting that the asteroid had been heading this way during all eight years of the Clinton administration. The CIA acknowledges, under questioning, that at one point it was tracking the asteroid, but lost the file. In the end, all parties agree that airport security needs to be tightened.

In another alarming story, wildfires rage out of control in Colorado and several other western states, burning thousands of acres and destroying dozens of homes. Investigators searching an area where one of the largest blazes originated find a Zippo lighter bearing a thumbprint belonging to . . . Iraq.

The nation's Color Code Security Status is quickly raised to Maroon (''Dark Brownish Red'').

On Wall Street, the bad news continues. First, WorldCom announces that it has improperly accounted for $3.9 billion and has ''at least six'' movies seriously overdue for return to Blockbuster. Next Xerox, under pressure from investigators, admits that its second-quarter profits were actually a copy of its first-quarter profits. Next Martha Stewart is linked to a string of bank robberies. The stock market drops 11,600 points.

Ann Landers dies, but continues to dispense common-sense advice.

In legal news, a Dayton, Ohio, jury, in a unanimous verdict, orders five cigarette companies to pay $128 billion to a 67-year-old man, despite the fact that the man (a) is not a smoker; (b) has not sued anybody; and (c) is in fact on trial for littering. The American Trial Lawyers Association hails this as ''a major victory for our Porsche dealership.'' In California, a federal appeals court rules that schools cannot compel American schoolchildren to say the Pledge of Allegiance, on the grounds that ''allegiance'' has too many syllables.

JUNE, 2007
. . . the nation is riveted by the drama of Paris Hilton, who, after a string of motor-vehicle violations including driving with a suspended license, driving at excessive speed through a nightclub, driving over the young of an endangered species and driving with the brain functionality of a cabbage, is ordered to go to jail, then is released from jail, and then -- in what many observers see as an unfair punishment, based solely on resentment of her celebrity status -- is burned at the stake.
No, seriously: Paris is sent back to jail for several brutal weeks, during which she is repeatedly subjected to a harsh generic hair conditioner. Somehow she survives this ordeal and, upon leaving jail, adopts a low public profile, except for appearing with Larry King, who does a fine job once he realizes, about 40 minutes into the interview, that she is not Goldie Hawn.
In other June TV highlights:
• Cuban television broadcasts an interview of Fidel Castro, apparently intended to prove that the ailing dictator is still alive; cynics note, however, that the interview was conducted by Edward R. Murrow.
• The hit HBO series The Sopranos comes to an ambiguous end when, in mid-scene, the screen goes black. Many viewers at first think this is a technical problem; cable-TV companies log 3 million complaint calls, nearly 30 percent of them from the White House.
In other government action, the U.S. Senate discovers that its comprehensive immigration reform bill, despite having been painstakingly crafted behind closed doors by veteran bill-crafters, is unpopular with a segment of the U.S. population defined as ''the public.'' The Senate responds swiftly, dropping the immigration issue like a bag of rat sputum and returning to its traditional role of funding large unnecessary projects in West Virginia named after Robert Byrd.
In sports, the Anaheim Ducks defeat the Ottawa Senators in a Stanley Cup playoff series watched, worldwide, by most of the players' parents.
But the biggest story in June, as well as the history of the universe, is the release of the Apple iPhone, which, in addition to enabling you to make phone calls, has all kinds of brilliant and innovative features, including AutoFondle, an application that enables the iPhone to fondle itself during those times when you are unable to fondle it manually because you're sleeping or undergoing surgery from wounds you sustained when friends or co-workers finally lost it and beat you senseless to make you shut up about your freaking iPhone already.