Shelly Winters Rest In Peace
My favorite character played by Ms. Winters was in The Poseidon Adventure. In that movie she was an overweight has-been who swore she had one more last swim under-water in her. Which she did. Winters’ character swam some distance under-water as the plot required to get the remaining cast to safety. Winters’ character died after that swim but the rest were saved.
May Shelly Winters rest in peace in heaven where everyone is skinny and can swim under-water for hours.
Now This Is Neat
Imagine how much genuine comet dust would get on E-bay. Even more so from a comet named Wild 2.
The possibilities are endless. Comet dust enclosed in necklaces. Comet dust sprinkled throughout the burned ashes of the cremated. Comet dust good luck charms could get some buyers.
Then again, consider the scams.
Heh.
From Pajamas Media:
DUGWAY PROVING GROUND, Utah, Jan. 15, 2006 (AP Online delivered by Newstex) -- After a seven-year journey, a NASA space capsule returned safely to Earth on Sunday with the first dust ever fetched from a comet, a cosmic bounty that scientists hope will yield clues to how the solar system formed.
The capsule's blazing plunge through the atmosphere lit up parts of the western sky as it capped a mission in which the Stardust spacecraft swooped past a comet known as Wild 2.
"This is not the finish line. This is just the intermediate pit stop," said project manager Tom Duxbury of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., which managed the $212 million mission.
Ebert and Roeper’s Worst Movies of 2005
Provided as a public service. I never saw a single one.
Roger Ebert's Worst Movies of 2005:
1. "Deuce Bigalow: European Gigolo"
2. "Dukes of Hazzard"
3. "Dirty Love"
4. "D.E.B.S."
5. "Son of the Mask"
6. "Doom"
7. "Constantine"
8. "Undead"
9. "Elektra"
10. "Fantastic Four"
Richard Roeper's Worst Movies of 2005:
1. "Dukes of Hazzard"
2. "Deuce Bigalow: European Gigolo"
3. "Monster in Law"
4. "The Longest Yard"
5. "Stealth"
6. "Miss Congeniality 2"
7. "The Man"
8. "Guess Who"
9. "Bewitched"
10. "The Legend of Zorro"
”Dr. Who” Comes to America
A cult classic, soon to be available on the Sci Fi Channel.
From The DemocraticDaily:
The BBC has reached an agreement with Sci Fi Channel to air the first season of the new Dr. Who series starting in March. It will air at 9:00 p.m. on Fridays as part of Sci Fi Friday, along with shows such as the remake of Battlestar Gallactica. The original Dr. Who series was a cult favorite when it aired in the United States on PBS. The new series was success on BBC both in terms of critical review and ratings.
Sci Fi Channel also has an option on the second series. As part of the arrangement, release of the DVD set of the first season has been delayed until July 4, 2006 rather than around March as originally planned.
An Action Rife for Derision
Pamela Anderson, she of the big boobs, is on a quest. It’s an important one so don’t snort. The lady wants the bust, heh, of KFC founder Colonel Sanders, removed from Kentucky’s state Capitol building.
What was the good Colonel’s crime that has Pam so upset?
He’s guilty of cruelty to chickens, says Pam of the great intellect.
At times, ladies and gems, the actresses and actors of our world must embrace a cause for purposes of publicity. Why Pamela Anderson chose alleged cruelty to chickens as her cause can cause smirks. Lots of guffaws about breasts and such come to mind.
How serious can such an action be? Banning a bust of the very innocent Colonel Sanders, now how much traction is this going to get?
Heh.
From MSN.com:
Pamela Anderson Takes Aim at KFCFRANKFORT, Ky. -- Pamela Anderson is leading a charge to remove a bust of KFC founder Colonel Harland Sanders from the state Capitol.
The actress called the Kentucky native's likeness "a monument to cruelty" to chickens in a statement issued by People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, the animal rights group.
The statement did little to ruffle feathers in Gov. Ernie Fletcher's office.
"Colonel Sanders was one of Kentucky's most distinguished citizens, a great entrepreneur and a fine charitable man of faith, and he certainly has a place in Kentucky history. We believe he warrants appropriate recognition as such," Fletcher spokeswoman Jodi Whitaker said.
It Was Bound to Happen
Seems it’s mostly the female unborn in India that do not get born.
Cultural factors in India make pre-natal selection more of a factor than it might be elsewhere. Female children are expected to provide handsome dowries upon marriage. A male child not only carries on the family name, but is the recipient of those dowries.
Which is why there’s a problem in India with the live births of female children, coincidentally more amongst the wealthier and more-educated in India.
In our own country, thanks to a Supreme Court ruling which took the legislation and oversight of abortion out of the lawmaking process on to a federal right, many late-term partial birth abortions are for the purposes of sex selection. It’s a little known fact and for now, thankfully, partial birth abortion is rare though the civilized would argue it shouldn’t happen at all.
Thus begins the mucking up of nature’s plan. With no human or scientific intervention, Mother Nature manages to get it pretty much right, with female and male births practically equal.
Does not anyone see the problem here? A country with a higher percentage of males than females might soon be the norm. How on earth can this ever be a good thing?
By Scott Baldauf,
Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor
Fri Jan 13, 3:00 AM ET
NEW DELHI - Banned by Indian law for more than a decade, the practice of prenatal selection and selective abortion remains a common practice in India, claiming up to half a million female children each year, according to a recent study by the British medical journal, The Lancet.
The use of ultrasound equipment to determine the sex of an unborn child - introduced to India in 1979 - has now spread to every district in the country. The study found it played a crucial role in the termination of an estimated 10 million female fetuses in the two decades leading up to 1998, and 5 million since 1994, the year the practice was banned. Few doctors in regular clinics offer the service openly, but activists estimate that sex-selection is a $100 million business in India, largely through mobile sex-selection clinics that
can drive into almost any village or neighborhood.
The practice is common among all religious groups - Hindus, Sikhs, Jains, Muslims, and Christians - but appears to be most common among educated women, a fact that befuddles public health officials and women's rights activists alike.
Blind Item Fun
ASKED
BEN WIDDICOMBE'S GATECRASHER
Which emaciated actress was grinding her teeth so hard while presenting at the National Board of Review Awards that the crowd was making bets how much booger sugar she had loaded up on before the ceremony?
Some Additional Info:
"Other stars in the audience who came to present awards included Sigourney Weaver, Susan Sarandon, Queen Latifah, Ellen Barkin, Martin Scorsese, Eric Bogosian, Gretchen Mol, director Tod Williams, director Kenneth Lonergan (suffering from laryngitis), Amanda Peet, S. Epatha Mekerson, “Transamerica” director Duncan Taylor, “Mrs. Henderson” writer Martin Sherman, “Good Night and Good Luck” star David Strathairn and actor/director Reuben Santiago Hudson, who’s inherited the legacy of directing plays left behind by the late August Wilson."
GUESSED
Ellen Barkin admitted she was drunk.
Amanda Peet looking too thin in a dress that just hung on her.
Sigourney Weaver
Gretchen Mol (presenter)
Solving the Rubik’s Cube in 11.13 Seconds
Myself spent many hours trying to solve the Rubik’s cube. A puzzle game that was all the rage when I was a younger (much younger) woman.11.13 seconds? While they bring their own cube to the competition, a computer program randomly sorts the squares so all contestants start with a properly mixed cube.
Well I’m impressed all to hell.
From Breitbart.com:
A 20-year-old California Institute of Technology student set a new world's record for solving the popular Rubik's Cube puzzle, turning the tiled brain-twister from scrambled to solved in 11.13 seconds.
Leyan Lo is part of Caltech's Rubik's Cube Club, a brainy clutch of students that hosted the competition at the Exploratorium museum in San Francisco. Lo's record-setting time came early Saturday, among his first five tries in the preliminary rounds.
More Gossip/Speculation HERE
=============
The Screaming Angels
Dear Harry,
I can't tell you how pleased my husband and I are over your assuming managership of the boys' band. We are quite pleased with the success of their song "Devilish Angel" but frankly, not as surprised as the rest of the world seems to be.
You've asked me to write up a history of the band and below I have done just this. It's a good story and if you will forgive me for the drama of the thing, you will also see just why we are not surprised at Kevin's determination and perseverance. The story really began, you will see, when Kevin was four years old.
We've both looked at your mockup of the band's logo and understand that all members of the band approve. My husband and I also approve, quite heartily.
What a beautiful blue and white angel.
===================================
"Do you think you could keep the racket down just a bit, Kevin?" I shouted over the cacophony that these boys called "music" and deigned to "practice" in our off-the-kitchen garage.
"Aw, Mom. Have a heart. We got a big gig this Thursday night and we need the practice."
"Thursday night?" I asked with this revelatory disclosure. Kevin knew week nights were not band nights.
"I told you, Mom. It's a school dance, for Christ’s sake. Amy Pitcher recommended us, but we had to try out before the committee just like any other band. We only found out last week that we got the job."
"Kevin," I said, quietly but with that unmistakable tone of a lecture now upon. "Can I please see you in the kitchen?"
"I thought I told you no band dates on school nights. I don't know when you supposedly told me this, but I have no recollection. It's part of the deal, you know."
Kevin removed his baseball cap, wiped his brow with the sleeve of his shirt, and replaced the cap over his sweaty hair.
"Mom, I told both you and Dad about this dance. The thing is over by 11:00 pm. It's being sponsored by the booster club. We're going to sing only songs with the word "angel" in them. It's a great way to advertise our band, especially at school and with all the end of year dances coming up."
If I'd had a baseball cap I'd have thrown it at him.
"You didn't tell us about the dance being on a school night. Or was this a convenient oversight?"
Kevin removed his baseball cap yet again and threw it across the kitchen in disgust. He then stormed from the room in adolescent angst at parents that would prevent band gigs on school nights.
I calmly watched all this action and sighed. Kevin's grades were good. But I would insist they were good because John and I kept after him. And one way we kept after him was to confine his band practice and actual gigs to after school and non-school nights. Not that he and his ragtag crew that called themselves "The Screaming Angels" had all that many gigs. Mostly they played at a few wedding receptions and bar mitzvahs. Once they were chosen to be a "filler" band for a famous rock band that stormed our town with a week of concerts. Seems I remember this band has "angel" in their name too, and I wondered if that was why "The Screaming Angels" were picked to begin with.
Still, Kevin was committed to his music and even with the paucity of actual performance dates, what he had garnered was still no small potatoes for what was essentially a garage band.
I heard various car motors come to life and felt the reverberation of slamming doors. Kevin must have sent the band home, I surmised. I was willing to bet that there would be further anguished discussion on this matter when Kevin's father was home.
I picked up Kevin's baseball cap and couldn't help but smile at the picture of the team mascot on its front. I poured myself a cup of coffee and situated myself in a warm sunbeam for the reminisce.
Kevin's band's name was not his own invention, it would seem. The real origin of the screaming angels moniker is an interesting one. In that twilight hours before John arrived home from his long commute to be greeted by an irate Kevin, I considered it time to revisit my memories of the original screaming angels. Such musing is best done in the quiet of solitude and especially before the shouting match soon to come when Kevin dramatically presented his case.
Kevin was only four years old the year he went into a coma. He remained in a coma for six weeks and, I had to smile sitting there in my kitchen sunbeam, they were perhaps the most bizarre six weeks of my life.
He fell from a tree, this son of mine whose pockets were always full of snakes and snails and puppy dog's tails. He had always been all boy, rough and tumble, scraping and running and injuring himself in all manner. The fall from the tree was his undoing.
I'd left him in the care of my younger sister. She was almost twenty at the time, old enough I would have thought, to mind a four year old for the two hours I required to run to the MVA and renew my driver's license. And she was out in the yard with Kevin when he fell from the tall pine tree he insisted to climb to impress his Aunt. Linda thought he was just so cute and talented, my, she often told me, to be climbing trees so effortlessly at such a young age. Only the tree in question grew alongside our house and towered over the driveway; the asphalt and very hard driveway.
Kevin was unconscious as soon as his head the hard surface and remained that way for almost six weeks. Almost, I pondered, except for that one strange moment of lucidity and awareness that occurred on the fifth day after his accident.
"He has a concussion, Mrs. Connoway. It doesn't appear to be life-threatening but he hasn't regained consciousness yet."
The young doctor was speaking to me and John and the terrified Aunt Linda. We all clung together in the emergency room visitor area, waiting for news yet scared of the news.
"Why is he still unconscious?" John said, to my relief. For myself, my heart was racing and continued to race even during the four hour wait before the young doctor gave us even this bit of information. It was the question I most wanted to ask if I could have gotten words past my dry lips.
"The brain is swollen, Mr. Connoway. Eventually the swelling will go down and we're sure he'll regain consciousness with no after effects. We've done a CT scan and show no skull fracture. But bumps to the head will cause the brain to swell and that young fellow took a pretty hard hit. We're going to admit him, of course. We need to watch that swelling that it doesn't become a problem. Then we wouldn't want to let him go until he is awake and alert and can recognize his mommy and daddy."
This disclosure bought more sobs from Linda and I. The poor little guy, all alone in this big hospital. Suppose he wakes up and is terrified because he didn't know where he was?
"You can sleep right by his side, Mrs. Connoway. The pediatric ward has special accommodations for this. Besides we want someone he knows to be by his side at all times. It's best if you talk to him as if he were fully aware. Comas are strange things...."
Before the doctor could finish this thought, Linda, I and now John launched into a harmony of sobs that caused the doctor to recruit some help with this mob of emotional humans.
I did stay with Kevin the whole time he was in the hospital and in, what I could dare to call after five days, a coma.
The word coma is such a chilling word. I considered it synonymous with death. But to describe someone as remaining unconscious after 24 hours of this sleep-like state was a bit foolish. After a full daily cycle, an unconscious person was in a coma, pure and simple. And after three days that Kevin didn't become conscious, I became determined to drag him, kicking and screaming if necessary, out of that coma.
I played his favorite records. I read him his favorite books. I tuned the TV to his favorite cartoons. And the medical personnel did, indeed, tell me this was the right course of action.
But Kevin would not wake up.
On the fifth day into Kevin's coma, he did regain consciousness, but only for a few minutes and only to leave me with two strange clues that made the next five weeks a hysterical and horrible nightmare.
It was 7:00 am and I awoke to my usual stiff back after my night in the chair-bed provided for parents to stay with their sick children.
I made my usual morning trip, first to the bathroom, than up to the hospital's cafeteria for some coffee. When I returned to Kevin's room, I saw that his eyes were open.
I flew across the room, juggling hot coffee, morning newspaper and a danish.
"Kevin! Kevin! This is mommy! Are you all right Kevin? Does anything hurt?"
Kevin's eyes stared straight ahead. He appeared not to recognize me at all.
"Angels," Kevin said in his four year old voice, complete with lisp.
I had by now disentangled myself from the coffee, purse straps and other morning accoutrements. I rang the bell to call a nurse, then leaned over the bed to speak to my newly conscious son.
"Angels? Honey, did you see angels? Where did you see angels?"
At the time, I was so happy to see his eyes and hear his voice, that I made no connection to heaven and angels and the ominousness of all this.
Kevin shook his head affirmative. The action was almost as if slow motion, as if the movement sucked all of his strength. In fact, I watched his eyes droop heavily as if about to close again. This re-fueled my panic.
"Kevin, where did you see angels? What did the angels say? Do you want Mommy to get you more angels?"
He opened his eyes again, with apparent great effort. My God, I thought, I'm losing him again.
"What did the angels say, Kevin?"
I'm not sure why I kept asking Kevin what the angels said, except I had this crazy idea in my head that maybe the angels were calling him home or something. "Follow the light," or some such. In my hysteria, fear and confusion, I just wanted my four year old to tell me what the angels were telling him. I wanted to warn him not to follow the angels, to stay here with Mommy.
"Screaming, Mommy. The angels were screaming. Please bring back the angels, Mommy. I liked the angels."
These were the last words my son said for the next five weeks.
The doctors were greatly heartened by the fact that Kevin regained consciousness and were certain that it was a matter of time until he fully regained it forever. For after Kevin told me about the screaming angels, he lapsed back into a coma.
For almost a week Kevin was subjected to every neurological and radiological test known to medicine. A pediatric neuro-surgeon from St. Jude's children's hospital was called in for a consultation. Cat scans were made and regarded by the medical professionals.
"We can see no reason why your son doesn't regain consciousness, Mr. and Mrs. Connoway. The best in the business can find nothing neurologically wrong with him. We detect no swelling in his brain. Our best assumption is that he bruised some part of his brain that will just have to heal. Meanwhile, I think it best you continue to talk to him and occupy his unconscious mind with familiar things. It's probably the best way to bring him around once that bruise heals."
John and I clung to each other as Kevin's pediatrician told us all this, which basically told us nothing.
"Meanwhile, we're going to be moving Kevin up on the neurological ward until he regains consciousness. They have better access to the cat scans and know far more about brain injuries than we do here on the pediatric ward. Once he regains consciousness we'll bring him back down to peds for a couple days of observation."
My heart broke as they wheeled my unconscious son out of his bright room with its walls full of cartoon Micky Mouses and Donald Ducks.
I spent the better part of the next week reading the unconscious Kevin his favorite stories, telling him about the goings on in our household, and reminding him that Skipper, our Scottish terrier, missed him terribly.
By the end of this second week, I was exhausted and frustrated. I began to ponder the significance of the screaming angels.
"Well there's a baseball team called the Angels," my husband said in the first of many brainstorming sessions to ascertain what Kevin might have seen and just how we could make him see it again. Assuming this brought him to consciousness to begin with, which we did not know for sure. We did know that he was still unconscious. I was convinced that the screaming angels were the key to bringing him back to reality. Only I didn't know what the hell the screaming angels were.
"Maybe he was listening to a baseball game on TV and heard the screaming fans. Maybe he heard the announcer call the team the angels."
I wrote all this down.
"I think there was some sort of kid's movie called the screaming angels...by Walt Disney or something like that. Maybe one of the kids on the peds ward was playing a tape of it."
This from my Uncle Marvin, also one of the family cabal called to help with the mystery.
"It seems to me that one of Kevin's favorite coloring books has a picture of angels in it. In the picture, the angels are playing trumpets. Maybe he thought the trumpets were a kind of screaming."
My mother and Kevin's grandmother offered this thought.
I kept writing.
"Isn't there a TV show on, something about angels? Stars that guy used to be in Bonanza?"
I noted this, my father's observation.
"Christmas songs!" I threw down my pen and shouted. "Maybe he heard Christmas songs...'Angels We Have Heard on High'...'Hark the Herald Angels Sing'...Christmas is only six weeks away. Could have heard it on the radio from the nurse's station."
I made a note of my own genius.
"Miss Carol, we have angels in our classroom," Sandy Burke tugged at my sweater and whispered in my ear. Sandy was Kevin's friend who also happened to live next store. She was better than two years older than Kevin and was thus familiar with classrooms unknown as yet to Kevin.
"Honey," I whispered back, appreciating her offering especially in view that she was specifically recruited for her child's perspective, "Kevin doesn't go to school. He wouldn't have seen an angel in your classroom."
Sandy tugged again, and I leaned down to hear her shy whisper.
"He could have seen the picture on my book."
"What book, Sandy? Go home and bring the book with the angel picture back."
The brainstorming group discussed and tossed about other angel options while we waited on Sandy. Sure enough she returned with her catechism and right on the front was a picture of a little girl followed by a huge angel.
"This is a guardian angel," Sandy whispered to me. Sandy attended a Catholic school so the catechism made sense. What didn't make sense was whether Kevin had ever seen this book. But Sandy said that he had seen it many times; that many days she stopped by after school and before going into her house. She had her books along and Kevin liked to look at them.
"Okay...here's what we have," I said, and scanned my list.
"A Disney movie about angels, angels with trumpets, California Angels, a Michael Landon angel TV show, Christmas songs about angels, and a great big picture of an angel on the front of Sandy's catechism."
"Only one of those I could think of as screaming is the baseball team," Uncle Marvin pointed out. We launched into a fifteen minute free for all debating a large guardian angel translated as screaming, the tv show turned up VERY loud, Christmas songs in late October much less screaming, and the Disney movie that was really "The Bad News Bears" because Uncle Marvin was confused.
"Whatever it takes, I'm going to find some facsimile of screaming angels and present them to Kevin until he wakes up from this coma!"
I ended the family argument with this proclamation and stomped from the room.
The next five weeks were horrible, disappointing, frustrating and fruitless. Twice I was almost thrown in jail and once I was banned from the hospital for twenty-four hours.
The neurology ward in a hospital is a somber place. Kevin was in what they called a constant care unit, a gloomy room shared by three other patients who were either in a coma or in some state of mental disorientation. We didn't help matters with our endless procession of angels.
It was the eight foot angel that caused the first incident. I had decided to get this possibility out of the way immediately because I was certain Kevin would not interpret Sandy's picture of a guardian angel as "screaming angels". And I warned Uncle Marvin to stay in the bathroom until I told him it was okay to come out, but no...he has to come right into the room, wobbling on those stilts and wearing that ridiculous ratty sheet and aluminum foil halo. The idea was that he would stand over Kevin's bed as the large guardian angel stood over the child on Sandy's catechism. Only Uncle Marvin falls off the stilts first thing and one of Kevin's roommates was not yet fully asleep and his mind was not working right to begin with.
The patient runs screaming to the nurse's station that a ghost is in the room and trying to kill him. I'm shoving stilts and sheets under Kevin's bed before the ladies in white descended en masse to catch me in the middle of my little play. The medical personnel, it turned out, did not place much faith in my screaming angel scenario and hence, discouraged attempts to blare Christmas music or sneak Michael Landon onto the ward. And I thought I had everything hidden when a cavalcade of nurses marched into the room, collective hands on hips and ready to rip off the heads of those who caused this disturbance. Uncle Marvin and I stood nervously by Kevin's bed, stiltless and normally attired, and tried to pretend ignorance to the patient's ghostly rants. The nurses only guffawed at our pathetic lies until my eyes followed theirs in the direction of Uncle Marvin's head. Sure enough, he still had his foil halo firmly attached to his skull, even as he explained his just recent arrival to the hospital directly from his job.
We really did get Michael Landon to come and visit Kevin. He wasn't dead then. And the nurses couldn't do anything about this because Kevin was allowed two visitors and there was nothing saying one of them couldn't be a guy who plays an angel on television.
When that didn't work, John quizzed all of his friends for forgotten tapes of California angel baseball games. He especially requested tapes where the crowd is really screaming. John finally obtained such a tape, and we played it over and over for the better part of 24 hours until the same patient that saw the ghost now told the nurse he was Rod Carew and had to leave for batting practice.
When we brought in the angels with the trumpets it was the first time I was threatened with jail and also the time that the hospital administrator banned me from the hospital. I had no idea they could even do such a thing.
By this time, John was getting concerned with my vehemence not to mention my disruption of the neurological ward. He refused to wear his angel outfit much less play any trumpet.
I really planned things this time, waiting until Kevin's unbalanced roommate was sound asleep and having Uncle Marvin to distract the nurses just enough for me to sneak in with the angels and blare quickly on our trumpets. Ideally we should have blared those trumpets for a few hours or better, but I knew I'd have to settle for one quick burst. I figured it might be enough to call Kevin back from wherever the hell he was.
Only Uncle Marvin took a liking to one nurse and forgot to do his job in his flirting. Me, my mother and my father, barely had time to sneak into the room in our angel attire and get one toot off on the trumpets before we were physically booted out by hospital security.
It really was getting close to Christmas when I resorted to the Christmas songs. This was the second time I was almost thrown in jail but Linda did some quick thinking and promised to only play the music through earphones in Kevin's ears. Which was a pretty good idea and I wish Linda had thought of it sooner because by this point I was getting a bit unraveled. Linda, God love her irresponsible self that let my son climb high trees, wasn't part of all my angel hysteria because she was away at college. She was home for Christmas vacation, in fact, when I asked her to tape as many angel Christmas songs as she could. She'd asked what she could do to help and this was my request.
When she showed up for her visit, I grabbed the tape and proceeded to play it loudly by Kevin's bedside before any sort of explanation. It was a spur of the moment type of thing, as the nurses were having their own Christmas party and when Linda phoned me before riding over to the hospital, I asked her to get here quick and bring the angel tape.
The nurses were not fooled. They ran into Kevin's room as if a white-clad army, yanked the tape-player out of my hand and ejected that tape clear across the room. It was through Linda's intercession and compromise of the ear plugs that I managed to stay out of jail. That and the nurse army didn't want to jail a woman with a son in a coma and so close to Christmas.
"What's the deal with the Christmas songs?" Linda asked, when we finally disentangled from the mad nurses and left to the hospital cafeteria for some coffee.
"I wrote you that Kevin awoke once from his coma, didn't I?"
"Yes. But you didn't write anything about angels."
I held my coffee cup in the air. Maybe I didn't mention anything about angels in my letters to Linda. Then I'd only written about two letters to her, such was my dedication to the angel cause.
I explained about the screaming angels then, finally relaxed enough to regale with the tales of trying to wake Kevin from his coma. I was stopped in the midst of the stories by Linda's furrowed brow.
After several moments of silence I asked, "What?"
"He calls the birds angels," Linda said. I remember that day, we were both in the yard. I showed him the robins and some chickadees. You really should teach that child more about nature," Linda said pointedly and I wanted to slap her. If her idea of teaching a child about nature is allowing them to climb up a tall spindly-limbed pine tree, then no thanks. But I held my tongue to concentrate on my rushing thoughts about bird angels.
"Why call the birds angels?"
"Kevin made it up. He asked if angels had wings and I said they did. Then he asked me if the birds were angels and I said no. But he insisted that if they have wings they must be angels."
I prompted Linda for more, but she had no more than this anecdote. She said that Kevin went off to play or something and he had no more to say about the bird-angels.
We sat quiet and sipped our coffees, pondering birds with wings and a four year old's concept of angels.
"I don't get the screaming thing," I finally said. "Are there any birds that scream?"
Linda furrowed that brow again, Miss nature lover.
She snapped her fingers. "Blue Jays! Blue Jays scream! In fact, there was a Blue Jay in that pine tree and it screamed at him when he tried to climb it. I remember he laughed and called it a screaming angel."
Quick as a flash and with no concern about the white Mafia, I ran up those steps. First I tracked down one nurse, than a doctor, than anyone who was even a hospital employee.
"The Blue Jays are the screaming angels!" I shouted to all, who responded only with a look of incomprehension.
I tore into Kevin's room, pulled out the ear plugs with the Christmas songs and asked the nurse's assistant changing his bed where I could find a tape of Blue Jay screams. Perhaps the hospital gift shop?
Before the young girl could begin to ponder the strange question, Linda tore into the room after me.
"Carol, Carol...calm down! Look, it's still daylight out there," and then she went over to the window to check this fact.
"This place is surrounded by woods. There's got to be plenty of Blue Jays around and while I bet you can't find a tape of Blue Jay screams in the hospital gift shop, I bet we can get a bag of peanuts. If we can get him moved to a lower level, I bet I could entice some REAL Blue Jays to give us some screams."
It was then I remembered Kevin's old room in the pediatrics' ward. His bed was directly next to a window and yes, it faced a copse of trees. This must have been the source of his "angels' screams."
I realize I was a woman possessed and there was no proof that the angel screams would jolt Kevin out of that coma. All the medical personnel had told me as much. But I was so convinced that I formed a plan.
I told Linda to go find some peanuts and get some Blue Jays around room 203 in the pediatric ward. In fifteen minutes, I told her, I, and Kevin, would be in that room, directly next to that window. There'd better be Blue Jays there, I said, or I'll never forgive her for my son's injury.
Kevin did emerge from his coma that night. And it was after he listened to Blue Jay screams, after I absconded with a white coat and pushed Kevin out of that room down to the elevator as if I had every right to do so. The nurses were by now knee deep in their Christmas party and so was the rest of the hospital judging by how easily I did the deed.
Linda managed to climb to the window of Kevin's old room by scaling ancient brick and window frames. She placed the peanuts directly on the sill and just as soon as I rolled Kevin's bed over to the window, the Blue Jays were already screaming in and snatching peanuts.
It took almost a half an hour for any medical personnel to find out I'd physically abducted Kevin, bed and all. The two young children in Kevin's old room thought it a great game so they didn't tell.
By the time hospital security stormed the room and threatened me with jail once again, I was too driven to care.
"Move this bed and I'll slash my wrists," I shouted, holding a Bic razor threateningly above my arm. "I only want him to hear the Blue Jays for a bit, then you can take him back to his room."
The hospital guards, nurses and curiosity seekers held back, pondering this woman and the window sill full of Blue Jays. Not to mention the woman outside the window hanging by the ledge.
When this didn't snap Kevin out of his coma, I "surrendered". An orderly came to roll Kevin's bed back to the neurology ward. I held my hands out for the handcuffs I thought sure to come.
"Mom," I thought I heard. Then again, louder, "Mommy?"
There was then tears of happiness, hugs and a million questions. Even the nurses forgot their anger at my trickery and gathered around Kevin to finally see his eyes.
Kevin came home the following day, such was the turnabout in his condition. The doctors had no explanation other than the bruise on his brain had finally healed.
I heard the slamming of the car door and was snapped from my memories. John was home. I needed to prepare him for the argument soon to come. Kevin heard it too and was in the kitchen, ready for the debate.
I played with Kevin's baseball cap, twirling it in my hand and smiling at the Blue Jay logo.
"Kevin," I said quickly, wanting to say this before his father came in, "I've changed my mind. Your band can play at the school dance."
And that was when the band first sang their hit song "Devilish Angel", a tune Kevin and the drummer co-wrote as a lark and played only because they needed more songs with the word "angel". The song really took off by word of mouth, then via local radio stations. Finally the song was properly recorded and hit the national airwaves.
In my reminisces, I pondered that Kevin's perseverance in the face of all odds might well be hereditary. I decided that since he came by it naturally, I may as well let his band play at the dance.
The rest, as they say, is history.
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That's the story, Harry. I love that logo of a screaming Blue Jay.
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