General MacArthur said “I shall return!” It took him two years to return to the Philippines. We departed Port Richey, Florida, on Sunday, and have returned only five days later. To be honest, we didn’t have to fight the Imperial Japanese Navy and Army to get here like MacArthur did (although to be fair to Douglas, he did have Navy patrol boats giving him a lift out of Corregidor and the entire United States Navy’s Pacific Fleet (including dozens of battleships and aircraft carriers and hundreds of cruisers, destroyers, submarines, and amphibious ships) to sink the Japanese Navy and to support the amphibious landing when he walked out of that landing craft for the AP photographers. (Frankly, I always thought that his pipe was a bit ridiculous…)
In any case, we are back in Port Richey, where tonight we had a private viewing of the Messages of Hope documentary, the last official stop on our 2012 Messages of Hope Tour. Rev. Barbara Williams, pastor of Unity Truth Center of Port Richey, is seen here introducing Suzanne. We had an excellent turnout of sixty eight attendees, and the movie was extremely well received.
There was a heartwarming round of applause for Rudy the Sailing Wiener Dog and his sister Gretchen at the end of the movie, and Suzanne was quite busy signing books after the event.
I had planned on ending tonight with a series of (half) witty remarks about Minnesota in response to our good friend Terri Horsmann’s epic email from last night. Imagine my surprise when I returned to The Bus to find the following poem sent electronically, not by dog sled, from The Frozen North. (I have to sleep on this tonight, as we have a 0600 reveille in the morning to prepare for Suzanne’s S.O.A.R! Workshop). Thank you, Terri….
Short I must be,
Lest Mr. Blogmeister tell on me.
My thoughts are quick, and typing fingers faster,
Truncated missives, I do not always master.
Tales of Minnesotans I do tell,
Sven and Ole, many know well.
But get down to the most exciting facts,
And it is there, some may think we are lax.
Yet exciting things happen here,
From White House pardoned turkeys to Schell’s Beer.
Alligators to cattle to humans we feed,
About that, it is here you may read.
Bless our fair state – so many are jealous,
They’re just so afraid to simply tell us!
The snow and cold? Just an exaggerated cover,
Designed to prevent outsiders, from coming to hover.
Yet we can never resist telling a story,
Of how we love our home in all its glory.
The result is that transplants abound,
We must admit — we like having them around.