Et cetera…

By Staff
GOOD MORNING FRANKLIN COUNTY
Today is Friday, September 8, 2006. Today is International Literacy Day.
Expect partly cloudy skies this afternoon with a high of around 89. On this day in history:
1636 – Harvard College is established.
1892 – Frances Bellamy writes "The Pledge of Allegiance" to honor the 400th anniversary of Columbus discovering America.
1900 – A hurricane hits Galveston, Texas, killing 6,000 people.
1921 – Margaret Gorman of Washington, D.C. is crowned the first Miss America.
1930 – The comic strip "Blondie" appears in newspapers for the first time.
1932 – Patsy Cline is born.
1943 – Italy surrenders to allied forces in World War II.
1952 – Ernest Hemingway's "The Old Man and the Sea" is published.
1966 – "Star Trek" and "That Girl" both premiere on network television.
1971 – The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts opens in Washington, D.C.
1974 – President Gerald Ford pardons former president Richard Nixon of all federal crimes.
1997 – America Online acquires CompuServe.
People celebrating birthdays today include: actor Jonathan Taylor Thomas is 25; actor Davis Arquette is 35; actress Heather Thomas is 49; former Pittsburgh Steeler L.C. Greenwood is 60; pro football Hall of Famer Lem Barney is 61; former U.S. Senator Sam Nunn is 68; and entertainer Sid Caesar is 84.
FOOTBALL FEVER
Week two of the high school football season is under way across Franklin County. Go out and support your favorite team. Tharptown played at Mount Hope last night. The schedule for Friday, September 8, includes:
Phil Campbell at Red Bay
Russellville at Brewer
Vina at Shoals Christian
IDENTITY CRISIS
For years I have had different people at various times call me Buzzy McKinney. I thought that was odd until I told Buzzy about it one day and he told me he has people call him Richard Parker. I can understand the confusion because we are both fairly good looking guys. So this week I was not shocked when a man walked up to me in Wal-Mart and said, "I bet people say you look like him all the time." Expecting the guy to say Buzzy McKinney, I was really shocked when he said, "Yeah, you look just like Dr. Phil."
COST OF A YEAR
You can't put a price tag on a human life but a new study published last week in "The New England Journal of Medicine" guesstimates the cost of an extra year of life. According to research done by Harvard and the University of Michigan, each year we live past the age of life expectancy cost us $19,900 in medical costs. Each extra year costs our medical insurance providers around $100,000. So I guess you can say, medically, a year of life is worth about $120,000. That comes out to $328.77 per day.
No matter what the cost of preserving life, the Bible points out that each day of life is precious. The older I get the more I understand those words. King Solomon, the wisest man who ever lived, said in Ecclesiastes 11:8, "When people live to be very old, let them rejoice in every day of life."
SPEAKING OF LIVING LONG
The founder of a gerontology research group in California says long life might be more dependent on genetics than lifestyle. Dr. L. Stephen Coles from UCLA doesn't discount the effect of eating right and avoiding bad habits but says the evidence for good genes creating a longer life is substantial. Coles referred to the case of a man in California, George Johnson, who recently passed away at the age of 112 due to pneumonia.
An autopsy revealed Johnson's organs to be in fabulous shape, even though his diet for most of his senior adult years consisted of sausages and waffles. See, I knew evidence would soon prove eating at the Waffle House would help you live longer!
REVISING HISTORY
Target Department Store is offering an interesting item for sale on their web site. Just in time for Christmas you can order a Presidential Talking Action Figure. The items are limited and Target guarantees the president you choose will be in authentic clothing and will be able to speak twenty-five different phrases. The problem is that the pictured example online is the Franklin Roosevelt doll which is dressed in 18th century clothing and bears an amazing resemblance to Ben Franklin.
NOT UNDER COVER
David Leininger of Canby, Oregon, has been arrested and charged with impersonating an officer. Michelle Williams called police when she became suspicious after watching Leininger pull over an eighteen-year-old female driver and handcuff her. What was it that raised William's suspicions? David Leininger was wearing a shirt with the words "Under Cover Police."
SURPRIZE CERTIFICATE
Jim Hickson, 61, of Los Angeles needed a copy of his lost birth certificate for his upcoming cruise. Hickson got the surprise of his life when he received an envelope from the records office two weeks later. Oh, his birth certificate was in there but stamped in big letters across the document was the word DECEASED. According to county records Jim Hickson had been dead since 1979, the year his brother died in a motorcycle accident.
After all of his friends had a good laugh Hickson discovered death is no laughing matter when it comes to government red tape. Now he's got to convince the bureaucrats at city hall that he is alive and do it in time to take his Mexican cruise.
Richard Parker is Minister of Students and Education at First Baptist Church in Russellville. You can e-mail him your comments at RParker@russellvilleFBC.org.