Happy Valentine's Day

Happy Valentine's Day to my family! I hope you relax and enjoy the chance to love and feel loved. At the mall today I saw a bunch of men at Hallmark Cards looking kind of lost and sick, and men walking out of the jewelry shop with packages early in the morning. i can imagine the pressure guys must feel. But buck up! We're not that high maintenance, and you should have been thinking about it earlier. (I guess there's no easy way out of this...)

Things not to buy:

appliances
something you like to eat
40 dozen wilted roses that need trimming and a bucket to fit in
something she probably will have to return


Things to buy:

something you have discussed earlier with your girl
a card with a handwritten gift certificate that you honor with your life
something pretty (good luck)
that thing she has been talking about hinting about for weeks
three to six beautiful roses or carnations

Anyway. I love you all.

Book review of "The Unbroken" by Laura Hillenbrand. This book has really shaken me up. I like her writing. She doesn't editorilize or exaggerate, and packs so much info in that it's almost overwhelming, but very fast-paced. The book is about Louis Zamperini, a man from Torrance, California who ran in the Olympics in Germany in 1936. He may have been the fastest runner in modern track history. He later joined the Air Force in WWII (drafted, I think) and ended up a POW in Japan. The details about his personality, family and life are fascinating. But I'm traumatized by it. I have never read about such brutal experiences. He was lost at sea for 40 something days on an open raft. He and his friend set a record for surviving the most days at sea on an open raft. Then he lands on a Japanese-occupied Island in the Pacific. He survives some of the most brutal places and guards there ever were. He returns home and is completely (like most of the POW's) traumatized and angry and unable to function, and sick. After totally screwing up his life and marriage he attends a revival meeting led by Reverend Billy Graham and remembers that he promised God a few things on the raft, and he decides to learn to forgive like Christ did. He lives until he is in his nineties (I don't know that he is dead even now). He lives a wonderful fun life of service and celebration. The book is a shocker. I don't know how anyone did what he did. I don't think I ruined it for you by telling you the plot. Maybe if you know, you'll stick with the horrendous details. It is truly a study of surviving and overcoming challenges and of who can and why they can. (that question is never totally answered, just addressed.) If a lot of folks are reading this, there's going to be a lot of changed people. I don't think I can put it behind me without rethinking a lot of things. (Dawn's Dad said there is an airpot named after him (Zamperini) in Southern California and that he is a very popular man locally.)

I'm glad I read it, but I need to process it. I'm ready for some light reading.


LOve, Mom