GOOD MORNING FRANKLIN COUNTY
By Staff
Today is Friday, January 21, 2005. It should be mostly sunny today with temperatures around 58. Today is National Hugging Day so give someone you know a big hug and blame it on me. On this day in history:
1789 – The first American novel, "The Power of Sympathy" by W.H. Brown, is published.
1880 – Memphis, Tennessee, is the first American city with a sewage system in place and working.
1915 – Kiwanis International is founded in Detroit, Michigan.
1950 – Author George Orwell passes away in London.
1954 – The world's first nuclear powered submarine, the USS Nautilus, is launched.
1967 – Peggy Fleming wins the US female figure skating championship.
1978 – The album "Saturday Night Fever" is number one for the twenty-fourth straight week.
1995 – "Forest Gump" wins best picture at the Golden Globe Awards.
IT IS A HAPPY DAY
Today is a happy day because it is my birthday. I was thinking about some memorable birthdays over my lifetime and I came up with the following:
1967: I planned my 11th birthday party and invited 10 friends to my house for a hot dog cookout without telling my parents.
1969: I spent my 13th birthday with my church friends at a Baptist Crusade in Macon, Georgia.
1973: I had my first real date with Amy Dorough. We went to the school library for research and she gave me some ceramic bookends.
1984: A lot of excitement on this day as I anxiously awaited the birth of our first daughter. Lauren was born 8 days later.
1986: For my 30th birthday the youth at First Baptist Church in Sheffield gave me a roll of toilet paper with money rolled up inside.
1996: First Baptist in Russellville surprises me with a 40th birthday party. Dan Terry gives me a roll of toilet paper with toilet paper rolled up inside!
So what will January 21, 2005, bring my way? I will be spending the day with seventy teenagers and adults from my church at a youth conference. What more could a youth minister ask for!
A FEW TO GO
I was looking through this new book titled, "1,000 Places You Must See Before You Die" and according to my calculations I have visited 19 of them. So my conclusion is that I have either got to get busy traveling or put off dying until I'm about 145 years old.
SPEL CZECH
The St. Paul, Minnesota, Public Schools recently sent out a catalog to the home of every student in the school system. The catalog was spell checked by a computer and by five assistants. The cover of the 176-page publication contains the following words:
St. Paul Public School's 2005-2006 School Choices and Sevices Catalog
BOOKS I AM
CURRENTLY READING
OUTRAGEOUS
When Hurricane Charley hit Cape Coral, Florida, last August, so many structures were damaged that city officials could not keep up with the tremendous number of building permits. Gulf Coast Baptist Church was heavily damaged and a gaping hole was left on one side of the sanctuary. Fearing additional damage yet unable to secure a building permit, church leaders had no choice but to repair their worship center anyway. Now, city hall is fining the church for each time the building is used because repairs were made without a building permit. Outrageous!
PARTING SHOTS
Jerry Duran of Arvada, Colorado, had not had his class ring long back in 1978 when he accidentally flushed it down the toilet. Now, twenty-six years later, the ring has been returned. On Tuesday during a routine sewer line cleaning a worker spotted a class ring and started a hunt for the owner. John Carlson, the worker who found the ring, did a little Internet research and eventually found the owner and returned the class ring. In a strange twist, it turns out that Jerry Duran and John Carlson both went to Pomona High School and graduated just one year apart!
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.
