Washed Away

This must be the hardest thing to deal with to watch your six-year-old daughter washed away by a tsunami wave knowing that you can't do anything to stop it:

Embedded video from CNN Video

Mom Watches Girl Vanish in Wave
Ted Rowlands , CNN
posted: 2 HOURS 52 MINUTES AGOcomments: 385filed under: World News
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LEONE, American Samoa (Oct. 3) -- Taitasi Fitiao was holding her six-year-old daughter's hand when a tsunami wave crashed onto their coastal village in American Samoa.
"I held her hand. The wave got us and that's when her hand just left mine and I could hear her say, 'Mom, please.' And then I saw her, I saw her floating away. And I knew right then that she was gone, she was taken from us."

Read more: Here.

Pray for the Fitiao family as they deal with the grief of such a horrific and tragic loss.

This Is Sad

Couple Jump From Cliff With Son's Body
AOL
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(June 2) -- British police are investigating what one resident has called a "terrible tragedy" -- the apparent suicide of a couple whose 5-year-old son died of natural causes.
The bodies of Neil and Kazumi Puttick were spotted Sunday at the base of Beachy Head, a notorious suicide spot in East Sussex, London's Daily Mail reported. The couple had placed the body of their son, Sam, in a rucksack before they jumped, police said, and it was found next to them.

Sam, whose spinal cord was injured when a car hit him at age 1, was paralyzed from the neck down and used a ventilator 24 hours a day, the newspaper said. He had been hospitalized with pneumococcal meningitis, an inflammation of the brain and spinal cord, and was discharged Friday so that he could die peacefully at home, a hospital spokesman told the Mail.
Sam died that night. Police said that the Putticks made the 100-mile trip from their home to Beachy Head on Sunday. There were two rucksacks found near Neil and Kazumi's Puttick's bodies. One contained their son, and the other held some of his toys.

Police are investigating whether the Putticks "were so overcome with grief at their son's fairly sudden death that they decided they could not bear to go on without him," a source told the Mail.
The family's neighbors were stunned by the deaths.

"It is a terrible tragedy and I can't believe it has happened," one told the newspaper. "This is too shocking for words."
Another said that Kazumi, 44, and Neil, 34, were devoted to their child. "They were a lovely couple and they did 150 per cent for that boy."
The Daily Mail has more details on the probe.

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2009-06-02 08:54:32

People deal with grief in different ways, but it is always sad to see grief carried out to such tragic consequences. When this happens---we are always left with questions of how, why and what if? We also wonder---could this event have been avoided or not? What should have the church done to have helped this situation before it got to that point? Anyways, my condolences to the Puttick family and may God be with them!

Last Survivor of Titanic Dies in England

Gerry Penny, AFP / Getty Images

Death Comes on 98th Anniversary of Launch of Famous Ship
By JILL LAWLESS, AP
posted: 56 MINUTES AGOcomments: 324filed under: World NewsPrintShareText SizeAAA

LONDON (May 31) -- Millvina Dean, who as a baby was wrapped in a sack and lowered into a lifeboat in the frigid North Atlantic, died Sunday, having been the last survivor of 1912 sinking of the RMS Titanic.
She was 97 years old, and she died where she had lived — in Southampton, England, the city her family had tried to leave behind when it took the ship's ill-fated maiden voyage, bound for America. She died in her sleep early Sunday, her friend Gunter Babler told the Associated Press. It was the 98th anniversary of the launch of the ship that was billed as "practically unsinkable." Babler said Dean's longtime companion, Bruno Nordmanis, called him in Switzerland to say staff at Woodlands Ridge Nursing Home in Southampton discovered Dean in her room Sunday morning. He said she had been hospitalized with pneumonia last week but she had recovered and returned to the home.

A staff nurse at the nursing home said late Sunday that no one would comment until administrators came on duty Monday morning. Dean just over 2 months old when the Titanic hit an iceberg on the night of April 14, 1912. The ship sank in less than three hours. Dean was one of 706 people — mostly women and children — who survived. Her father was among the 1,517 who died. Babler, who is head of the Switzerland Titanic Society, said Dean was a "very good friend of very many years." "I met her through the Titanic society but she became a friend and I went to see very every month or so," he said.

The pride of the White Star line, the Titanic had a mahogany-paneled smoking room, a swimming pool and a squash court. But it did not have enough lifeboats for all of its 2,200 passengers and crew. Dean's family were steerage passengers setting out from the English port of Southampton for a new life in the United States. Her father had sold his pub and hoped to open a tobacconists' shop in Kansas City, Missouri, where his wife had relatives. Initially scheduled to travel on another ship, the family was transferred to the Titanic because of a coal strike. Four days out of port and about 600 kilometers (380 miles) southeast of Newfoundland, the ship hit an iceberg. The impact buckled the Titanic's hull and sent sea water pouring into six of its supposedly watertight compartments.

Dean said her father's quick actions saved his family. He felt the ship scrape the iceberg and hustled the family out of its third-class quarters and toward the lifeboat that would take them to safety. "That's partly what saved us — because he was so quick. Some people thought the ship was unsinkable," Dean told the British Broadcasting Corp. in 1998. Wrapped in a sack against the Atlantic chill, Dean was lowered into a lifeboat. Her 2-year-old brother Bertram and her mother Georgette also survived. "She said goodbye to my father and he said he'd be along later," Dean said in 2002. "I was put into lifeboat 13. It was a bitterly cold night and eventually we were picked up by the Carpathia." The family was taken to New York, then returned to England with other survivors aboard the rescue ship Adriatic. Dean did not know she had been aboard the Titanic until she was 8 years old, when her mother, about to remarry, told her about her father's death. Her mother, always reticent about the tragedy, died in 1975 at age 95.

Born in London on Feb. 2, 1912, Elizabeth Gladys "Millvina" Dean spent most of her life in the English seaside town of Southampton, Titanic's home port. She never married, and worked as a secretary, retiring in 1972 from an engineering firm.She moved into a nursing home after breaking her hip about three years ago. She had to sell several Titanic mementoes to raise funds, prompting her friends to set up a fund to subsidize her nursing home fees. Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet, the stars of the film "Titanic," pledged their support to the fund last month. For most of her life Dean had no contact with Titanic enthusiasts and rarely spoke about the disaster. Dean said she had seen the 1958 film "A Night to Remember" with other survivors, but found it so upsetting that she declined to watch any other attempts to put the disaster on celluloid, including the 1997 blockbuster "Titanic."

She began to take part in Titanic-related activities in the 1980s, after the discovery of the ship's wreck in 1985 sparked renewed interest in the disaster. At a memorial service in England, Dean met a group of American Titanic enthusiasts who invited her to a meeting in the U.S. She visited Belfast to see where the ship was built, attended Titanic conventions around the world — where she was mobbed by autograph seekers — and participated in radio and television documentaries about the sinking. Charles Haas, president of the New-Jersey based Titanic International Society, said Dean was happy to talk to children about the Titanic. "She had a soft spot for children," he said. "I remember watching was little tiny children came over clutching pieces of paper for her to sign. She was very good with them, very warm."

In 1997, Dean crossed the Atlantic by boat for the first time, on the QEII luxury liner, and finally visited Kansas City, declaring it "so lovely I could stay here five years." She was active well into her 90s, but missed the commemoration of the 95th anniversary of the disaster in 2007 after breaking her hip. Dean had no memories of the sinking and said she preferred it that way. "I wouldn't want to remember, really," she told The Associated Press in 1997. She opposed attempts to raise the wreck 4,000 meters (13,000 feet) from the sea bed.

"I don't want them to raise it, I think the other survivors would say exactly the same," she said in 1997. "That would be horrible." The last survivor with memories of the sinking — and the last American survivor — was Lillian Asplund, who was 5 at the time. She died in May 2006 at the age of 99. The second-last survivor, Barbara Joyce West Dainton of Truro, England, died in October 2007 aged 96.

Copyright 2009 The Associated Press. The information contained in the AP news report may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or otherwise distributed without the prior written authority of The Associated Press. Active hyperlinks have been inserted by AOL.
2009-05-31 16:42:25

And so we bid farewell to another patron of history... at least, we have Ms. Dean's stories as well as other Titanic survivors' stories recorded for future generations. I can agree with Ms. Dean and the other survivors that it would be horrible to raise the Titanic, but I do hope Titanic researchers bring up as many artifacts as they can as those artifacts are beneficial to the study of history. My hope is that they eventually find The Great Omar, 'the Holy Grail of the Titanic,' but with it being lost at least it provides source material for literary legends and Hollywood. The Great Omar, of course, is a:

special book bound by the famous craft bookbinding firm of Sangorski & Sutcliffe as the centre-piece.

This exquisitely bound edition of The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam was lost when it went down with the Titanic in 1912, she said. It took two years of continuous work to create the Great Omar, boasting over 1,000 precious and semi-precious stones and 1,500 separate pieces of leather. The binding is recognised as one of the finest examples of the bookbinder's craft. The only visual record of the book is an old black and white photograph and recently discovered glass negative. With the help of the original patterns and contemporary descriptions the binding has been recreated digitally to actual size by Richard Green and Trickles & Webb.

I decided to buy the poster and have it framed and hung in my living room above my bookshelves. Today, everytime I look at the Great Omar, as the book is affectionately known, I cannot help feeling nostalgic at the loss of such a stunning thing. The Great Omar now lies in an oak casket at the bottom of the Atlantic. Another copy was destroyed during the Blitz during WW2 and the third edition is locked up somewhere in the British Library.

I smell a new Indiana Jones adventure! See also: The Great Omar Poster, The Great Omar, This Old Book: The Great Omar and Fate of Titanic Treasures in Judge's Hands.

More Violence In The News

Woman Kills Son, Self at Gun Range
AP
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CASSELBERRY, Fla. (April 7) - A Florida woman fatally shot her son and then turned the gun on herself at a central Florida gun range, authorities said. Marie Moore, 44, of Altamonte Springs and her 20-year-old son, Mitchell, were sharing a firing lane at the Shoot Straight range Sunday, Casselberry police said. Shooters in an adjacent lane said the mother and son seemed to be getting along fine. A security video shows Moore walk up behind her son, point a revolver at the back of his head and fire a single shot, police said. She then put the gun in her mouth and pulled the trigger.
The son died at the scene, and the mother died later at the hospital. Family members told police that Moore had a history of mental illness.
The gun was rented from the shooting range.

Copyright 2009 The Associated Press. The information contained in the AP news report may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or otherwise distributed without the prior written authority of The Associated Press. Active hyperlinks have been inserted by AOL.
2009-04-07 13:54:04

Mom Stabbed Child 100 Times, Cops Say
AP
posted: 3 DAYS 21 HOURS AGOcomments: 637filed under: Crime News, National NewsPrintShareText SizeAAA



GARDNER, Mass. (April 3) - A woman who believes she was being stalked by a cult has been charged with stabbing her 2-year-old daughter 100 times with scissors, her lawyer and police have said, and can be heard yelling "Die! Die!" on a 911 call.
Susan Johnson's screams can be heard on the 911 call made by a security guard who helped to subdue her in a laundry room at a Gardner apartment building Wednesday night.

Johnson, 38, also used an electrical cord from a dryer to try and strangle the toddler, police said, but the security guard and two residents separated mother and child just before police arrived.
"I heard a woman screaming very loudly that she was going to 'Kill, kill, I have to kill you, Die, die, die,'" said resident Real Belliveau, 65, who lives just down the hall from the laundry room. He was watching a Boston Celtics game on TV when he heard the commotion.
When he ran to the laundry room he thought the child was already dead because she was limp, covered in blood and had the cord wrapped around her neck.
The girl was taken to a hospital suffering from as many as 100 wounds to her head, neck and torso, but many of them were superficial, police Chief Neil Erickson said. The child, who is now in the custody of state child welfare authorities, was taken to a hospital and is expected to survive.

The state Department of Children and Families made a check on the girl at her home in Turners Falls, about 35 miles west of Gardner, the day before the attack, the Worcester Telegram & Gazette and WBZ-TV reported. Department spokeswoman Alison Goodwin refused to confirm the report Thursday and said only the department is now investigating.
It's unclear what she was doing in the apartment building. She has family in Gardner, defense attorney Peter Binder said.
Johnson has a history of depression and had not been taking her medication, Binder said, adding she does not remember the attack in the laundry room.
"She seems to be very paranoid," he said.
Johnson was held without bail on a number of charges including attempted murder and ordered to undergo a competency evaluation at her arraignment Thursday in Gardner District Court. A dangerousness hearing was scheduled for April 17.

Copyright 2009 The Associated Press. The information contained in the AP news report may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or otherwise distributed without the prior written authority of The Associated Press. Active hyperlinks have been inserted by AOL.
2009-04-03 11:12:03

Recent Violence In The News

Body of Missing California Girl, 8, Found
By JULIANA BARBASSA, AP
posted: 4 HOURS 52 MINUTES AGOcomments: 2001filed under: Crime News, National NewsPrintShareText SizeAAA

TRACY, Calif. (April 7) - The body of a missing 8-year-old girl has been found in a suitcase dumped in an irrigation pond a few miles from her northern California home.
Sandra Cantu was found Monday after a 10-day search, authorities announced.
Authorities would not comment on their investigation, but they roped off the mobile home park where Sandra lived. They had previously searched several homes and towed several cars from the park.
No suspects had been identified. "Our heartfelt sympathies go to Sandra's family and friends," said Tracy Police Chief Janet Thiessen. "We will determine the person or persons responsible for this reprehensible act, and we will bring them to justice."
Authorities planned an autopsy to determine the cause of death.
Thiessen said Sandra was found wearing the same clothes she had on when she was last seen on March 27: a pink "Hello Kitty" T-shirt and black leggings.
Sandra's disappearance sparked a widespread search that included hundreds of volunteers and law enforcement officials, including the FBI, and drew more than 1,000 tips. Pictures of the girl with dark brown eyes and light brown hair were posted all over town, on business fronts, car windows and fire hydrants in this city of 78,000 about 60 miles east of San Francisco.
Investigators said they spoke last week to the girl's father, Daniel Cantu, who lives in Mexico and works in southern California. Authorities would not give any details of the discussion, but the father told the Tracy Press newspaper he had not seen his daughter for a year.
Police said the suitcase was found by farmworkers who were draining the irrigation pond to water fields.
Investigators cordoned off the area for hours while they searched the area for clues. The suitcase was eventually opened at the coroner's office, where Sandra's body was positively identified.
More than 100 mourners — some holding candles, others wiping away tears — gathered outside the mobile home park Monday night while police blocked the entrance.
"I am still in shock," said Brandy Robles, 27, who held her 2-year-old son. "You see this in the movies. I never thought it would be real life — real to me."

Copyright 2009 The Associated Press. The information contained in the AP news report may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or otherwise distributed without the prior written authority of The Associated Press. Active hyperlinks have been inserted by AOL.
2009-04-07 05:21:24

5 Children Slain in Trailer Park Home

Police Say Dad Killed Kids Because Wife Was Leaving Him
By PHUONG LE, AP
posted: 1 DAY 6 HOURS AGOcomments: 1178filed under: Crime News, National NewsPrintShareText SizeAAA

GRAHAM, Wash. (April 6) - Authorities and relatives portrayed a father believed to have killed his five children and then himself as a strict parent who had been reprimanded by the state and a jealous husband driven to rage by another man.
The children, aged 7 to 16, were found shot to death Saturday in the family's mobile home in Graham, 15 miles southeast of Tacoma. The father, James Harrison, was found earlier in the day, dead of a self-inflicted gunshot behind the wheel of his idling car 18 miles away in Auburn, about 30 miles south of Seattle.

A Grim Tally: In Past Month, US Mass Shootings Claimed 53 Lives

The night before, the father and his eldest daughter went in search of the wife, Angela Harrison. The daughter used a GPS feature in her mother's cell phone to find her with another man at a convenience store in Auburn, said Ed Troyer, a spokesman for the Pierce County Sheriff.
The woman told her husband she was not coming home, and was leaving him for the man with her at the store. The father and the daughter left, distraught, Troyer said. Sometime after the children went to sleep, he shot them each multiple times. Four died in their beds. The fifth was found in the mobile home's bathroom, surrounded by signs of violent struggle.
"He wanted the kids dead," Troyer said. "It wasn't like he shot a few rounds. He shot several rounds."
Investigators believe he then returned to the area near the convenience store looking for his wife. His body was found near the store, Troyer said. Investigators believe he then returned to the area near the convenience store looking for his wife. His body was found near the store, Troyer said.
"A working theory is that he probably went back up there looking for her, wasn't able to find her, realized the gravity of what he'd done and shot himself," Troyer said.
Several weapons were found in the home.
Authorities have not released the names of the family, relatives identified the couple as Angela and James Harrison and the children as Maxine, Samantha, Heather, Jamie and James.
Candy Johnson, Angela Harrison's aunt, described James Harrison as a strict, controlling husband and father who didn't allow his wife to make any decisions without asking him first.
"My niece has been so controlled from the time she was young," Johnson said, adding that James Harrison had impregnated Angela when she was 13.
"It's unbelievable," Johnson said. "My whole family is in shock. How does this happen? How does anyone do that?"
The father worked as a diesel mechanic, and the mother works at Wal-Mart, said another of Angela Harrison's aunts, Penny Flansburg. Troyer, however, said he worked as a security guard at a casino.
Ron Vorak, who lives across the street from the family's trailer at the Deer Run mobile home park, said James Harrison "wasn't too friendly a person."
"He was always hollering at the kids. He seemed to be strict with them."
Harrison was put on a parenting plan by state child welfare officials in 2007 after what Troyer describes as a "minor assault" on one of the children. He agreed to the plan and the case was closed, Troyer said.
Ryan Peden, daughter Maxine's classmate, had said she told him Friday night that her parents had gotten into a fight and her mother had left. The father followed the mother and tried to get her to return, said Peden.
"Maxine texted me at 11 p.m. Friday. She said: "I'm tired of crying. I'm going to bed.''" His text to her the next day went unanswered.
Outside the mobile home, neighbors left cards and bouquets of flowers. The yellow crime-scene tape and dozens of investigators who responded to the scene on Saturday were gone. The home's front yard was littered with unused bicycles, a swing set, a trampoline and a basketball hoop.
A few people drove slowly by the scene, a neatly kept mobile home in a quiet park nestled among towering evergreens.
"How do you make sense out of something like this?" asked Jeff Davis, superintendent of the 2,100-student Orting School District where all five children attended school.
"In a small community like this, we know these kids," Davis said. " Teachers know the kids. All the kids know the kids."

Associated Press Photographer Ted S. Warren contributed to this story.---Copyright 2009 The Associated Press. The information contained in the AP news report may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or otherwise distributed without the prior written authority of The Associated Press. Active hyperlinks have been inserted by AOL.
2009-04-05 06:48:20

More On "The Day The Music Died"

Read these posts.

Buddy Holly Tours

On Buddy Holly's Baptist Faith: In Memory of Buddy Holly: The Day the Music Still Lives:

February 3, 2009, marks the 50th anniversary of "the day the music died." A half-century ago, a 23-year-old Buddy Holly boarded a plane on a wintry Iowa night with fellow package show headliners the Big Bopper and adolescent Richie Valens. After a now legendary coin toss with band bass player Waylon Jennings, the three stars took their flight into rock and roll lore. In terms of rock history, the tragedy of that light aircraft crash in Iowa marked the end the era of 50's rock. It was a time and a place when innocence could still be truly innocent. While Elvis was out womanizing, Johnny Cash was popping pills and Jerry Lee Lewis was marrying his 13-year-old cousin, Buddy Holly was still sending 10% of his income to his Baptist church in Lubbock, Texas. Holly didn't womanize or do drugs, instead, he got married to a woman his own age. For Buddy Holly, the Christian ethic and world view were a given, without question. It was such a part of his life, he never thought to doubt the faith of his fathers as neatly woven into his career.

The Buddy Holly Story biopic falsely portrays his parents and his pastor disapproving of his rock and roll music. In reality, they were all thrilled with both his music and his success. While other small town Texas communities encouraged sports as the main point of achievement, for Lubbock, musicianship was of equal, if not superior value. After all, this was the land of Bob Wills and The Sons of the Pioneers. From my own amateur rock historian perspective, I often wonder what would have happened to rock and roll had Holly lived on. My innocence envisions him leading The Beatles to the Lord and ushering in an eternal age of youth and clear-eyed innocence. But, this is, I admit, at best naive. Its hard to say where Buddy Holly's musical journey would have led him. As it was, he was beginning to form partnerships with more pop driven artists like Paul Anka and using some pretty un-rock and roll sounding strings and arrangements on his latter day recordings. Listen to "True Love Ways." Its beautiful, yes, but not the raw, joyful sound of "That'll Be The Day."

An old girlfriend of Buddy's speaks on their relationship.

Buddy Holly's Church---a loony historical revisionist fundamentalist King James Only church/cult: Tabernacle Baptist Church Lubbock Texas.

Big Bopper exhumed and Big Bopper's casket a macabre marketable on eBay

Buddy Holly's Widow Speaks On "The Day The Music Died"

For those of you who missed it, Feb. 3rd was the 50th Anniversary of "the day the music died" when:

On February 3, 1959, a small-plane crash near Clear Lake, Iowa, United States killed three American rock and roll musicians: Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens, and J. P. "The Big Bopper" Richardson, as well as the pilot, Roger Peterson [1]. The day was later called The Day the Music Died by Don McLean in his 1971 song "American Pie".[2][3]

Buddy Holly's widow said this of the late Buddy Holly:

Buddy Holly Makes His Widow's Heart Go Boom 50 Years Later

The third of February marks the 50th anniversary of the plane crash that took the lives of Buddy Holly, the Big Bopper and Ritchie Valens -- an occasion immortalized in Don McLean's 'American Pie' as "the day the music died." However, for Holly's widow, Maria Elena, he has never been far from her side. She has spent the past half century keeping his music and legacy alive.

Best known for hits including 'That'll Be the Day,' 'Peggy Sue,' 'Maybe Baby' and 'Rave On,' Holly is one of rock 'n' roll's true pioneers, creating a larger, lasting body of work in two years than most artists build during a lifetime. Holly's music, alone and with the Crickets, is plumbed in two new compilations: the 60-cut 'Memorial Collection' and the 59-selection 'Down the Line: The Rarities,' both of which contain previously unreleased material.

To commemorate the tragic anniversary, Maria Holly will be in Clear Lake, Iowa, at the Surf Ballroom & Museum, the site of Holly's last show, for a Feb. 2 concert organized by the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. She talked with Spinner about her brief yet magical time with Holly, new directions he was exploring musically and culturally, and her enduring love for him in the years after his death.

You met Buddy when he came into Peer-Southern Music, the music publishing company in New York where you worked. Were you a fan?

I'd never seen a picture of him or even knew who he was in person, because when I met him he'd just come from a tour in the U.K. I knew of him because I used to mail the 45s to the disc jockeys, I knew the name and songs.

Did you think he was cute?

I thought he was sexy-looking. It was like, "Boom!" It was strange to me, since I'd never been on a date. And he felt the same way. It was, like they say, love at first sight. I didn't hear the bells, but I felt the boom, boom. I felt it in my heart.

Two months after meeting, you and Buddy married. You lived in New York's Greenwich Village surrounded by various folk and jazz clubs. How did that influence his music?

We were both night people. He'd get up in the middle of the night and start writing. He was a little restless; we'd roll up our pajamas and put our coats on. He enjoyed listening to the poetry. Sometimes people would play the guitar in some of the coffee houses. It was something to put his mind at ease because he was so involved in writing. He loved anything to do with poetry and music.

Did you ever play any music for him from artists that you liked?

Yes I did. As a matter of fact, he was planning with my aunt, who was one of the execs at Southern Music, to do an album [in Spanish]. [At the time of his death, he] was in the process of my aunt trying to get songs that he would be able to do. At the same time, I was trying to teach him how to pronounce the words correctly and with a person from Texas, that's not so easy [laughs]. But, you know what -- he was really learning.

'Rarities' includes undubbed versions of what are known as the 'Apartment Tapes.' They showcase Buddy's voice in its unadorned purity.

He had that little [Ampex tape recorder] there with that mic and it was just very raw. He would erase and come back while he was composing. He would come first sometimes with the music, and then he'd write lyrics, or vice versa. A lot of people ask, "What comes first?" and I say I saw it both ways.

The Apartment Tapes also include a snippet of a conversation you and Buddy had in your apartment in 1958. What runs through your head when you hear that?

Oh, dear, that was the most difficult one when I was listening. I had to stop and I went back and pictured myself in the apartment. I started visualizing where he was sitting. Where I was. The whole apartment. It was pretty hard for me to listen to this, but I wanted to hear. [In the conversation] I was trying to get him to take a break because he was constantly writing ... I did a lot of different things to bring him out of what he was doing and sometimes even to get him to eat something. He forgot about everything else when he was writing.

He was exploring different musical paths when he died at 22. What direction do you think he was going in?

He wasn't afraid to try things, so that was a plus for him. I think he would have gone into different ways. As a matter of fact, he also was very much interested in music like Mahalia Jackson and Ray Charles, gospel. We even went to California, looking for [Charles], but unfortunately he was on tour. [Buddy] wanted to do a duet with him and also with Mahalia. He said, "I'll get him sometime or another."

People talk about Buddy's voice, his songwriting and his glasses. What else do you wish people know about him?

Buddy was very, very generous. Even though he was the one closing the shows, he was not hesitating to sit for others. With the Everly Brothers, he sat down and played the drums because the drummer didn't show up. It never fazed him if he had to sit in for someone or do something for the others. He was sure of himself. He never contemplated the status; [it was] "If you need me, I'm here." I admire him for that. And love him more and more every day.

You've said you couldn't listen to his music for years after he died. What was it like the first time you finally heard it again?

I still have problems. I can hear it when I go on appearances when they have a special tribute because I see the fans being so energized, but here in the house, it's sometimes very difficult. I just can not handle it. So even after this day, after 50 years, it's something...People say time cures all and I say it does not, it does not cure that and especially the way I loved him. He was here one moment and he's gone the next day.

What do you remember about that last trip? You didn't go because you were pregnant.

I remember distinctly that I already had my suitcases done and I had them at the door and he said, "No, honey, I don't want you to go. Take care of my baby and I'll be back in two weeks. So don't worry, I' ll call you every night." [Maria Elena miscarried after Buddy's death. She later had three children with her second husband.] I still blame myself. If I had insisted on going and said, "No, I'm going," I'm sure ... OK, I was a little pushy when I needed to be, so, actually, this is the only regret that I have about what happened to him. I still remember constantly and I say, I wonder, if I had [gone], if he would still be [here] because I would not have let him get on that small plane. I didn't know he did that, absolutely not ... I still sometimes get upset.

Christmas Tragedies And Christmas Miracles

Girl Dies in Christmas Parade Accident AP
posted: 14 DAYS 8 HOURS AGOcomments: 348filed under: National News

BEAUMONT, Texas (Dec. 7) - A trailer carrying children in a Christmas parade struck and killed a 10-year-old girl who had jumped out of a pickup truck driving among the floats Saturday, police said.
The girl had been jumping on and off during the parade route and was told to stop before falling and hitting her head, said Monica Smith, a Beaumont police dispatcher. The girl was then struck by the trailer behind her.
A number of parade watchers saw the accident unfold, Beaumont police officer Crystal Holmes told Beaumont television station KBMT.
Authorities said the girl was taken to a hospital with severe head injuries and pronounced dead.
Smith did not have any details about what group the girl was with in the parade.
Stephanie Molina, who attended the parade but didn't see the accident, said the city had considered canceling the Christmas parade this year because of the destruction wrought to the area by Hurricane Ike. Molina works for the city's convention and visitor's bureau.
"We decided to do this for the community because we needed something positive," she said.
Hundreds attended the parade in downtown Beaumont. The grand marshall was former Buffalo Bills tight end Kevin Everett, a native of nearby Port Arthur who was temporarily paralyzed from the neck down while attempting to make a tackle in a game last season.
The Christmas parade accident was the second this week in Texas. Ten members of a Cub Scout troop in Overton were injured Monday when they were struck by a pickup truck. The 82-year-old driver was charged with reckless driving.
Copyright 2008 The Associated Press. The information contained in the AP news report may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or otherwise distributed without the prior written authority of The Associated Press. Active hyperlinks have been inserted by AOL.
2008-12-07 01:18:19

Ernest Coleman, The Enquirer / AP
A sign outside the Crossroads Community Church in Cincinnati advertises the Christmas show that turned fatal for one young actress.

Christmas Show Actress Falls to Her Death
By TERRY KINNEY, AP
posted: 2 DAYS 5 HOURS AGOcomments: 407filed under: National News

CINCINNATI (Dec. 18) - An actress in a Christmas pageant who was suspended 25 feet in the air by an overhead rope fell headfirst onto a concrete church floor and died, authorities said Thursday.
Keri Shryock, 23, and two other performers were playing wise men on their way to Bethlehem before about 2,000 spectators during Wednesday night's opening performance at Crossroads Community Church.The three were approaching a star when Shryock fell into an aisle in the audience portion of the theater, witnesses told The Cincinnati Enquirer.
"Toward the ending of the song she came loose," Daniel Doepke, 55, of Middletown, told the newspaper. "I can't describe how heart-wrenching it was, her fall to a hard concrete surface."
Shryock was taken to University Hospital, where she died Thursday morning. A hospital spokesman declined to describe her injuries.
Cincinnati police were assisting the Hamilton County coroner in an investigation, a police spokeswoman said.
There was no immediate explanation of how the accident occurred, or if there was an equipment failure.
"Our prayers and heartfelt sympathies go out to her family during this incredibly difficult time," the church said in a statement. "We are shocked and deeply grieved by this tragic accident."
Shryock, from Sylvania, Ohio, near Toledo, graduated from Bowling Green State University this year.
Melissa Davish, a friend and former gymnastics club teammate at Bowling Green, said Shryock had become a surprisingly good gymnast since taking up the sport only two years ago and was excited about performing the rope act.
"She wasn't scared of anything," Davish said. "It's a strange coincidence. I can see her saying, `I'm a gymnast, I can do that.' She was really excited about doing something that unique."
No one involved with the production would be available to talk about the staging, which the church characterized as a contemporary Nativity story, said church spokesman Matt Chandler.
"It was a figurative and artistic version of the Christmas story found in the book of Luke," he said.
Ten remaining performances of the show "Awaited" were canceled. The nondenominational church held an evening of prayer, reflection and worship Thursday night.
About 1,100 people attended the prayer session, said church spokeswoamn Natalie Hastings.
"There was a sense of grief in our community and a need to gather," Hastings told The Enquirer. "This was a way for people to come together and be reminded what God has done for us, even as we are dealing with something that we're having trouble processing."
The church also planned to provide grief counseling for those who witnessed the fall.
The mega-church was founded in 1996 and has grown to a membership of about 10,000, Chandler said. It is known for dramatic and musical presentations at weekend services.
The church's Web site said "Awaited" was seen by more than 20,000 people when it first was presented last year.
Shryock was employed as an assistant in the Office of Commuter Services and Off Campus Living at Xavier University in Cincinnati.
Copyright 2008 The Associated Press. The information contained in the AP news report may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or otherwise distributed without the prior written authority of The Associated Press. Active hyperlinks have been inserted by AOL.
2008-12-19 00:03:14

The families involved in both of these tragedies definitely need our thoughts and prayers during this season for families---but on a somewhat better note though still prayer-worthy---here are some Christmas miracles:

Girl's Santa Letter Leads to Man's Arrest AP
posted: 5 DAYS 5 HOURS AGOcomments: 0filed under: Crime News, National NewsPrintShareText SizeAAAPHARR, Texas (Dec. 15) - A Texas man has been arrested after a 9-year-old girl wrote to Santa Claus asking that a relative stop touching her and her sister.
The Monitor of McAllen reports that Andres Enrique Cantu, from the town of Pharr, was arrested Friday and is in the Hidalgo County jail.
A criminal complaint says the girl turned the letter in at Cesar Chavez Elementary School. Authorities interviewed the girl after a school counselor reported the letter.
The complaint says investigators believe the molestation occurred over a period of four years.
Cantu is charged with continuous sexual abuse of a young child and could face as many as 99 years in prison if convicted.
Copyright 2008 The Associated Press. The information contained in the AP news report may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or otherwise distributed without the prior written authority of The Associated Press. Active hyperlinks have been inserted by AOL.
2008-12-15 22:27:02

Texas Boy Survives Near Decapitation
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posted: 3 HOURS 46 MINUTES AGOcomments: 144filed under: National News, Weird NewsPrintShareText SizeAAA(Dec. 21) - A Hillsboro, Texas, boy who suffered an "orthopedic decapitation" when he was involved in a car accident three months ago has staged an amazing recovery, according to cbs11tv.com.
Nine-year-old Jordan Taylor's head was almost completely detached from his body after a dump truck ran through a stop sign and hit a car he was riding in. "There was no connection between the bones of the neck and the head," said Cook Children Medical Center's Dr. Richard Roberts.
Fortunately, Roberts was able to reconnect Jordan's head to his neck with a metal plate, screws and titanium rods. Now it appears Jordan, who had been given a one to two percent chance of survival, has defied the odds and recovered from an injury that by all accounts should have killed him.
"He's beyond all expectations. He's a rock star. He's doing great," Roberts said.
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2008-12-21 13:25:49