God bless our veterans and many thanks to them and their families for their service. Local veterans will be recognized Veterans Day in both Meeker and Rangely and I encourage everyone to not only participate and thank them on this special day, which happens to be 11-11-11, but to keep them in your prayers everyday.
In Meeker, a flag-raising ceremony, singing of the National Anthem, 21-gun salute and ceremonial reading during a flag-folding will be followed by the V.F.W. Ladies’ Auxiliary POW/MIA ceremony. Lunch for all veterans and their families will follow the ceremonies at the Mountain Valley Bank community room. Barone Middle School will also honor Veterans’ Day with an assembly starting at 2:30 in the gymnasium. In Rangely, Alliance Energy invites all local veterans and their families to a barbecue in their honor at the Elks Lodge, starting at noon. Thanks again to all those who have served our country, protecting the rights and freedoms of the citizens of the greatest country in the world.
I recently heard about a study that revealed smiling can immediately change one’s attitude and something else on the Internet healthier living through “laughing yoga,” where one laughs for the health of it.
I’ll share a story, which my wife, coworkers and others have been using to practice their laughing yoga the past couple days. I’m glad to be helping them improve their health and glad no physical harm was done to anything but my elbow and hamstring.
The Herald Times office is upstairs in the Hugus Building, with a front and back entrance. Running late, which is par for the course for me, I was on my way to a school board meeting when I remembered my notepad was on my desk. My mom tells me I’m lucky my head is attached.
I pulled around the back and parked parallel to the loading dock, turned off the car and ran upstairs to get my notebook. It couldn’t have taken more than 30 seconds. When I opened the back door, my car was gone! It was 6:55 p.m, so it was dark already. I looked to my left, then to my right, and saw my car rolling backwards across Sixth Street towards the WREA building in slow motion.
I believe this is the funny part: use your imagination to picture a little more than slightly-overweight 50-year-old jumping off the dock and sprinting (my legs were moving as fast as I can remember) towards my car as the back tires slowly rolled onto the curb on the WREA side of the street. Again, I’m running as fast as I can, when I feel a terrible pain in my right leg, which causes me to fall forward. Leading with my left elbow, I tuck and roll, then jump back to my feet (quickly looking to see if anyone is watching) and continue to my car. I reach my car, start it and pull it off the sidewalk, then look for damage. There was no evidence of my car hitting the building and none could be found the next day when my friend Dale Dunbar, who works for the WREA, checked it out with me. He got a good laugh and suggested I stretch before sprinting next time to avoid pulling my hamstrings, which I did. Man, does it hurt!
