An Alameda Fourth of July
29.06.11
Alameda knows how to sanctify the Fourth of July. Our parade is a magnet for participants and observers, drawing thousands of people through the Tube and over the bridges.
Stars, stripes and turf chairs line the curb along the route from the foot of Park Street to the flyover stand on Webster. It’s one of my favorite days of the year, awakening my inner flag-waver.
When we moved to Alameda in 1986, we lived in a bungalow on Burbank Street. We would report green canvas camping chairs and a cooler of cold drinks down the bar to Central to watch marching bands, floats and sidestepping horses go by.
Back then the tarmac out on the purpose wasn’t weedy, but chock full of Navy personnel. (As a civilian you couldn’t even get history the guard booth without the proper ID.) Alameda was indeed a military town, and several branches marched in build behind their color guard in the annual parade.
I remember watching one year with our neighbor,
Source: Patch.com
Sophie Elliott: I can't forgive
11.06.11
Since the lay low of her daughter Sophie, Lesley Elliott has been a reserved but relentless campaigner. Yet she's also had to encounter her own demons. Adam Dudding spends a day with her at her Dunedin home.
Lesley Elliott suspects she's flourishing to Hell. But she's OK with that.
To get into Heaven instead, she'd really need to forgive Clayton Weatherston for coming into her assembly and knifing her daughter Sophie to death in front of her, for mutilating the body, and for trying to trash Sophie's reputation during the ensuing murder trial.
"The Lord's Prayer says you should overlook. But when I went to church after Sophie died I couldn't say that part ... The bottom line is, if I have to go to torment then so be it. That's my payment. I don't care. I will never give in on that."
But ..."I feel a bit sad about it, because I want to be with Soph."
It looks a bit hellfire and brimstoney once you put it in stamp, wild-eyed even, but that's not how it sounds when it's being said by Lesley Elliott, 64, neonatal sister, lactation consultant, one-time union rep, wife, mother and reluctant media distinction.
Source: Stuff.co.nz
It's under the tree.” Anna was enchant to find one neatly wrapped present under the Christmas tree. She opened it and it was a beautiful wooden jewelry box with a attractive key in a key hole. As she was telling him how much she loved it, she opened it
