Friday stuff to think about ….

Blazing Saddles, starring Harvey Korman,
is still hysterically funny years later.

• Harvey Korman died yesterday at age 81. Korman was a star when comedy was comedy, when an actor or actress didn’t have to say a word to generate laughs. The Carol Burnett Show was the high-water mark of American family comedy television, and there won’t be TV like it again. Korman was tall and imposing and could glare his way through scenes. Blazing Saddles is still hysterically funny all these years later, and he was perfect as the conniving politician.

• Congrats to the Quincy High School graduates who walk tonight. The weather wasn’t looking good this morning, hopefully they’ll be able to pull it off at Flinn Stadium. I also appreciated the letter to the editor Thursday about being respectful at the ceremony. Every name deserves to be heard loudly and clearly. Keep the air horns home!

• Big rock show tonight at Turner Hall. St. Amy’s, the three young guys who formed just to play a few acoustic songs at the show, sounded really good at practice the other night. Washington Park’s Blues in the District starts in two weeks and the Blues Fest isn’t that far off in July, either.

• Who won American Idol and Dancing With The Stars? Too busy to know, life gets in the way sometimes I guess.

• WGEM’s Tyler Tomlinson and Herald-Whig Sports Editor Don O’Brien were stellar announcing Gus Macker Dream Court games last Sunday. Sadly, the weather cut Dream Court games short. Hopefully we’ll get them back next year. Bill Shuler of Y-101 did a great job Saturday announcing games, as well.

Bob Rouner describes sailing alone as
"quite spectacular at times, and
very lonely, difficult, and discouraging
at others."

Quincy native Bob Rouner, a retired Houston lawyer, is sailing from Mexico to Australia or New Zealand.

Two years ago, he bought a 45-foot aluminum sloop, custom built in Seattle for the original owner.  She was in Puerto Rico and he sailed her back to Houston, changed her name to Boomerang, and put Quincy on the stern as the port of call, as required by the U.S. Coast Guard.

He rigged her for single handing. In May 2007, he sailed to Mexico, Honduras, Panama, the San Blas Islands, then to Cartegena, Columbia and back to Panama by October. He got through the Panama Canal by January, sailed up the Pacific coast of Central America before ending up in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico.

After flying back to Houston, Rouner returned to the Boomerang in April and started his latest trek.
He’s closing in on Hiva Oa, Marquesas, French Polynesia. From there, to the atolls of the Tuamotus, on to Tahiti, Bora Bora, Moorea, then to the Cooks, over to Tonga, then to Fiji.

He’ll go to New Zealand or Australia by Nov 1, which is the beginning of the hurricane season in the southern hemisphere.

In an e-mail to The Herald-Whig, Rouner described sailing alone as "quite spectacular at times, and very lonely, difficult, and discouraging at others. It is like a drug in some ways. Once you have had a taste of it, you can’t get enough of it.

"Yes it can be uncomfortable, but the rewards are tremendous. You are in raw contact with the real world 24 hours a day, whatever you do has an immediate impact on your life, getting food and water are your main concern. You stay fit and don’t need to diet."

E-mailing is done through a special modem via a marine single side band radio, basically a marine ham radio. Rouner has a communications system in the boat and stays in contact with other boats.

Are you going to go see the new Indiana Jones movie?

Like the original Star Wars triology, the first Indiana Jones film was great, second one bad, third one the best.

“Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull" is a bad title and is getting mixed reviews. It’s sure to do well because it’s a holiday weekend, the economy is bad (which means people are paying to escape) and Harrison Ford’s character will draw people no matter what.

If you go, drop me a line and let me know what you think.

Driving to work Monday I noticed the familiar late May sign that Gus Macker is coming — the tape is down on the city streets marking courts around Washington Park, down Fifth Street toward the Masonic Temple Parking lot and other streets.

This is my favorite weekend in Quincy. True hoops fanatics revel in Gus making his annual Memorial Day weekend appearance. Seeing the tape gets Gus and everybody involved fired up.

The Macker national staff begins trickling into town tonight. They love coming to Quincy, because the Exchange Club does a fantastic job organizing the tournament, and they are always made welcome.

I’ll see you this weekend on the Dream Court at Fifth and Maine. Welcome back, Gus!

I love busy weekends in Quincy, and this one is no exception.

Saturday features a bunch of history displays, including walking tours of Woodland Cemetery and tours of the Washington Theater on Hampshire.

Sunday features the Can Jam at Turner Hall, featuring Fielder, The Blue Healers, Ben Bumbry & The Messengers, Antidote and The Classics.

Get out there and enjoy a great weekend!

A short and poignant police memorial service took place this morning at City Hall.

Quincy Police Chief Rob Copley decided to observe the national day of recognizing slain law enforcement officers by gathering QPD, Adams County Sheriff’s Department and Illinois State Police officers in the parking lot by the Sept. 11 memorial.

Detectives Bryan Dusch, Adam Yates and A.J. Stovall carried flags and raised them to half-mast. Jeff Schuecking then played taps from the back of the parking lot behind the assembled officers and QPD staff, his trumpet filling the chilly early morning air with the sad tune.

Four QPD officers have died in the line of duty — William Dallas (1876), Thomas Seehorn (1878), Osmer Milbert (1957) and Frank Howell (1964). They are honored with a memorial on the east side of City Hall by the QPD parking garage entrance.

We remember them today, along with all officers who gave the ultimate sacrifice.

Clarence Starks received eight years in jail
for stealing a truck in Oct. 2007.

It was one of the more unusual chases in Quincy, but it didn’t seem like that big of a deal at the time.

It was Oct. 8, 2007. Clarence Starks, a homeless Quincy man, stole a truck near Fifth and Hampshire and bolted north. Quincy Police Department canine officer Adam Gibson responded, stopped the truck near Einhaus Lane and Bonansinga Drive, but the vehicle fled south.

The vehicle went through the intersection of Broadway and Bonansinga Drive, plowed through a hedge and a metal railing in Clat Adams Park, and came to rest several hundred feet south of the intersection on the railroad tracks.

I heard the chase on the scanner, then headed to the park when Gibson reported the crash. They were just putting Starks in the back of a squad car when I got there.

He had what appeared to be mud on this pants and shoes, but I wasn’t that close and didn’t figure it was that big of a deal. The truck was removed from the tracks, and Starks eventually received eight years in prison after pleading guilty to stealing the truck.

Three weeks later, John Kelley’s body was found in an abandoned North Sixth Street residence. Kelley, like Starks, was homeless. Kelley had been dead for about three weeks when his body was found.

Authorities officially declined to comment when I asked if there was a connection between Starks and Kelley. But sometimes silence speaks volumes. They were waiting on lab results, which often takes months.

Starks was indicted this month for Kelley’s murder. Turns out Starks killed a young Quincy child more than 20 years ago, was sentenced to 40 years in prison, served about half the sentence and was back in Quincy last year.

Starks is innocent until proven guilty and, for now, only God knows for sure what happened in that abandoned house the day Kelley was killed.

We will all know more soon, though.

John Frank is an ordained Baptist pastor. He doesn’t preside over a church, instead working at the Illinois Veterans Home in the dietary department and attending The Crossing.

Saturday on Quinsippi Island, Frank presided over the log cabin wedding of Diane Jordan and Randy Stump. It was the first wedding inside the church in 27 years.

“Actually, I did a wedding here about four years ago,” Frank said with a grin Saturday, as the happy bride and groom greeted friends and family after the ceremony. “We had to do it outside of the church because the door was locked.”

Diane and Randy need to be commended for doing something different but real. Randy lives in Liberty and Diane in Quincy, and Diane firmly said the couple wasn’t going to live with each other until they got married.

Frank should be recognized for realizing two people in love wanted a Christian wedding. He made sure to read the famous I Corinthians 13 scripture about love, and made sure everybody knew God was present inside the rustic setting.

Maybe other pastors wouldn’t do it. Maybe other people frown on things like the Quinsippi Island wedding because it didn’t have a fancy ceremony in a big church. There was no organ or flute music for Randy and Diane. No lighting of candles, reciting laborious vows or hosting an expensive reception, either.

Just two people in love, doing the right thing.

“It’s just like when Jesus went to Canaan for the wedding,” Frank said. “Jesus is for everyone.

“We have to break outside the doors of the church,” he continued. “People of the church need to make themselves available.”

That, friends, deserves a rousing “Amen.”

They should have canceled classes at John Wood Community College Monday and made every student attend Sarah Panzau’s presentation about drinking and driving.

Surprisingly few JWCC students attended the event, sponsored by Anheuser Busch. Panzau, 26, detailed the gruesome and life-changing effects of drinking and driving in her life.

I know, I know. It’s near the end of the semester, people are busy, it’s hard to rearrange schedules, etc. And forcing a student to attend something like this is unfair, a waste of time, blah blah blah.

I counted about 50 or 60 college students. The rest were from several area high schools, and the kids listened respectfully to Sarah’s riveting story. She stood in a tank top and shorts, not afraid to show the scars from 36 surgeries and the nub of her left arm, torn off after an August 2003 car crash caused by her intoxicated driving.

Earlier in the day, Quincy Notre Dame students — all required to attend during a school assembly — gave Sarah a standing ovation after her talk.

A local educator recently told me the key to informing kids about the dangers of alcohol and substance abuse is to get them at an early age.

“By the time they are in high school, if they haven’t learned, it’s too late,” the person said.

There’s a lot of truth to that statement. But if we just stop and give up now, we’re not doing the right thing.

Our job is to present information, then hope and pray our young people do the right thing.

I know Jim Rinella of Rinella Distributing and Mike Elbe of JWCC tirelessly promoted the event and made sure everybody knew about it.

Sarah’s story was beyond awesome, especially the way she interacted with students.

Most of them at John Wood missed out, and that’s a shame.

A coffin shaped like a PBR can, eh?
What do you want to be buried in?

Did you hear the story about a Chicago man who bought a casket shaped like a Pabst Blue Ribbon beer can? He recently used the coffin as a cooler at a party.

To quote Monty Python in "Search For The Holy Grail," he’s "not dead yet." Also, Pabst can be used to kill weeds, bugs and other wildlife, so you gotta admire a guy who gets a lot of use from the product.

This, of course, leads to the inevitable question … what do you want to be buried in?

When I go, spread my ashes over Lake Michigan and put a few in the 18th hole cup at Westview. It would be the first time I ever sank anything in there, anyway.