click pic above to enlarge1) At last, I have the fresh news you searchers are demanding about a person gone missing during a late night jaunt on a tropical island!
Gilbert Dewey Gaedcke III might not be who you assumed I meant, but dammit, he is a human being, and he has been missing from an island for days. And he also played a foolish part in his vacation misfortune by making an ill-advised night trek, even if his was across desolate black lava fields. And a teenager is involved, since that's who spotted him from a tourist helicopter ride. It's got everything minus the Dutch. No loss there. (I kid whom I love.) This Missing In Paradise story has all the best elements of the other one and a happy ending, too! Vote for Dewey!
2) I am saddened by the loss of another Welker. No matter how inevitable, it's always sorrowful. The esteemed accordionist Myron Floren has died at the laudatory age of 85. In a fitting tribute to a lifelong entertainer, his family has requested donations to the USO in lieu of flowers. Here are excerpts from the most feeling obituary I found in the Herald-Zeitung of New Braunfels, Texas (near San Antonio.) I truly wish more people wrote obits like this. I excerpt and rearrange liberally.
Because of another engagement, Myron Floren will not be coming back to Wurstfest, and our signature sausage and heritage festival will never be the same...News of Floren’s passing came from Wurstfest spokesman, Herb Skoog, who said the entertainer best-known around the world as Lawrence Welk’s accordion-playing sidekick, succumbed to a long illness...
"He was our headline entertainer from his first appearance in the Wursthalle in 1968 through his last show in 2002.” In all, Floren played at Wurstfest for 34 years, only missing 1998 to recover from heart surgery...Skoog said a lot of people scoffed at the idea a national television performer like Floren would consider coming to New Braunfels..."In all the years he entertained at Wurstfest, he remained our ‘Happy Norwiegan.'"
Skoog said Floren had passed a very bad time, and his family suggested he lie down and sleep. A couple hours later, they realized he’d slipped away to play his instrument for the angels...“With the passing of Myron Floren, the Lord has a new, talented member to add to his fold..."
Also, just because she's one of my favorites and patron saint of the insane, please enjoy the saintly stylings of today's honoree, St. Christina the Astonishing, a stander in freezing water and sleeper on rocks who hid in ovens or simply levitated to avoid the odors of other humans.
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