IT’S ALL HYPE and show as the Super Bowl looms. You know we’ve gone overboard on the whole cultural event thing when the fact commercials are available online BEFORE the dang game even starts makes news.
Not that it’s a bad thing, though Ferris’ buddy isn’t wearing a Gordie Howe Red Wings jersey in this clip.
By the way, the Giants are playing the Patriots. In case you care.
SUNDAY MORNING WAS a bit treacherous around here, the day after warmer temps, then more cold overnight.
Slip sliding away … great song by Paul Simon, applicable for a Monday morning. It just feels like a Monday, actually.
I’m not going to laugh at the gal in this video. Then again, I can laugh at myself ….
SCOTT GARNER PASSED away last night. Prayers and peace to Scott and his wife, Sherry, and their families.
Here’s the H-W column I wrote on their wedding day, April 30, 2011.
THE GROOM IS usually a bit nervous heading down the aisle on his wedding day.
Not Scott Garner. He’s just glad to be walking at all.
Scott, 49, has lung cancer. He was diagnosed last November and given three months to three years to live. He’s getting married today to Sherry Hills, the well-known Quincy Realtor. A setback in his chemo treatments meant he spent part of this week in Blessing Hospital, recovering from dehydration and low blood pressure.“Nah, I’m not nervous,” Scott said Thursday from his hospital bed. “I’ll be fine, just gotta get better so I can get out of here.”
Scott and Sherry have been together for a couple of years. When he asked her to marry him in January, and there was no hesitation — “I knew she would accept,” Scott says with a shrug.
The fact her fiancee has terminal cancer hasn’t thrown Sherry. The wedding at 929 Church in Calftown today is small. The reception tonight is bigger.
Faith and love, in the end, are huge.
“God will take care of him. I plan on sticking by him,” Sherry said Thursday, standing in the fifth floor hallway outside Scott’s room. “I’ve just been praying. We are all terminal, you know. I mean, today, you might fall in front of a truck.”
Scott owns SGL Motors in Quincy, the Scrub-A-Dub Laundromat and various properties in town. He smoked for many years. In November, doctors found a 6-inch mass in his lung.
He’s been blasted with chemotherapy since, and the mass has shrunk to about 3 inches.
“I am cautiously optimistic,” Scott says. “I’m very encouraged because it’s still treatable, not curable. And sure, I’m afraid to die, I don’t want to die.
“Sure, there’s been days I’ve been mad at God, the ‘why me’ thing, but when I’m done I’m OK. I’m just trying to be grateful and feel fortunate for the days I get and I go from there.”
Scott says his oncologist, Dr. Sabbir Safdar of St. Louis, has been a great doctor, and Safdar will be at the wedding today. Safdar actually started crying when delivering the news Scott had cancer, and he encouraged Scott to face his fears head on.
“He told me I couldn’t be afraid to die,” Scott says. “He said God would take care of me.”
Scott and Sherry have found comfort in faith, unbelievable support from family and friends, and they appreciate a new-found perspective. There was an issue with the wedding flowers this week, and Sherry simply shrugged it off and said, “It will be fine.”
Scott was doing well with the chemo until this week. He started getting sick on Easter Sunday and spent several days in bed battling nausea until he finally checked in Wednesday to Blessing.
On Friday, he was told he’d have to stay in the hospital due to a low white blood cell count. But Scott talked his doctor into letting him at least go to the wedding today. The reception at the Microtel Inn is still being planned, as well.
Scott and Sherry talked about the wedding, about what to do if he wasn’t quite up to getting to the church.
“Have it here,” Sherry said, pointing to Scott’s room.
“I’m going to the wedding,” Scott said. “The rehearsal on Friday, now that I can skip.”
Battling a terminal disease, Scott has decided attitude, faith and support from family and friends will make the difference.
“I have never been so content in my life,” he says.
ETIQUETTE IN A technology-drenched world is a challenge. The recent news of cameras being allowed in courtrooms has raised a lot of questions, and some are against it because they fear cell phones could be considered cameras.
The Adams County Courthouse does not allow cell phones. This started a few years ago after a person used their cell phone to take photos and record a witness in a trial. Then they started going off during hearings and judges were not amused. As usual, a few wreck it for all of us.
Attorneys are allowed to have cell phones in the courthouse, and there’s more than one or two lawyers who live in mortal fear of forgetting to turn them off. Just minutes before a very important hearing a few years ago, an attorney who shall remain unnamed came up to me in the back of the courtroom in a state of panic and handed me his phone. “Take this thing out of here,” he said. “I have no idea how to turn it off!”
It is now standard before meetings and concerts for the audience to be reminded about turning off cell phones. The request sometimes goes unheeded.
You gotta love how this musician dealt with it ….
DeLonjay
Steele
METH BUSTS AREN’T uncommon around here, unfortunately.
It’s the stories behind the story, even more sadly, that need to be told.
Tuesday in Quincy, seven people were arrested in connection with meth being found in two separate search warrant operations. One of the men arrested, Shawn Steele, had a really bad day.
Court records show he was supposed to be in court Tuesday afternoon in connection with a meth charge from last summer made in the Sixth and Jefferson area. The agreement was for Steele to plead guilty and get an eight-year sentence.
He never made it to court — police said he was he was found 90 minutes before his court appearance in a Sixth and College residence with numerous meth making materials and meth manufacturing waste. Now he’s looking at up to 74 years, plus serving 85 percent of the sentence, if convicted of the latest charges.
Another guy who had a really bad day was Andrew DeLonjay. Last April, DeLonjay pleaded guilty to a meth charge after authorities said they found a meth lab at 326 S. 10th, and he got an eight-year sentence. He asked for impact incarceration, a boot camp program which takes four to six months to complete, and Illinois Department of Corrections records show he was released from prison in August.
Not bad, serving four months for an eight-year sentence. He did do a few months in the Adams County Jail before he was sentenced, if that counts for anything.
On Tuesday, he was arrested with five other people. And just where was he arrested? The exact same place the 2010 meth lab was found, 326 S. 10th.
Now DeLonjay is looking at serving up to 60 years in prison if convicted, with no chance of impact incarceration, and serving 85 percent of the sentence.
The price of meth is something we all pay for, in one way or the other. DeLonjay and Steele are, sadly, prime examples.
BEFORE EVERYBODY GETS too fired up about cameras in courtrooms, there are some questions that need to be answered.
The Illinois Supreme Court has ruled cameras will be allowed in court on a trial basis, starting immediately. Click on the PDF link below for some specific guidelines.
We’ll have a story Wednesday with local comment, which is mixed. And we don’t know just yet if the chief judge of the 8th Judicial Circuit is going to allow this “pilot program” to take place in Quincy.
The new policy will only allow “established” media to record court proceedings. So just what is “established,” anyway? Right now our Internet bloggers won’t be allowed to have cameras. That doesn’t break my heart, but we also will be using this for our websites, so what is the difference?
Hmmmm. Lots to chew on here.
You can read the actual Supreme Court PDFs here.
No ice means no skating and no fun.
JUST WHEN WE had a decent cold snap, just when the local ponds started getting thick enough ice to go skating … it warmed up.
Rats and double rats.
I live for the two weeks or so when it actually gets cold enough to have ice and get invited to play in a good old-fashioned pond hockey game. I’m sure everybody else in the free world didn’t mind it warming up Sunday, but not me.
Winter is a fickle thing in Quincy. Some years we have ice for a month or so. And some years, not at all.
It’s all right. My skate blades are dull anyway, and there are muscles I didn’t even know existed waiting to be pulled.
Still … RATS.
JOSE OLMEDA: Serving a 32-year sentence in the Illinois Department of Corrections.
NEWS OF THE recent pot busts on I-80 near Chicago brings back some fond memories.
Remember Jose Olmeda, the guy from Mexico illegally in the country who got caught in Quincy with 550 pounds of cannabis? Well, who could forget? Click here for a gentle reminder.
Last Sunday, troopers pulled over a Honda Accord on I-80 near the Cicero exit and said they found about 250 pounds of cannabis, with two Calumet City men later arrested. The next day, a Massachusetts man was arrested after more than 90 pounds of pot was found in his truck on I-80.
Troopers estimate the seized cannabis is worth about $650,000 in street value.
Ah, the memories ….
DUSTIN DIAMOND, WHO played the legendary Screech on “Saved By The Bell,” is appearing Saturday in Canton, Mo., of all placed.
The fact a guy who has name-recognition is a good thing, I suppose. Unfortunately, I have other plans Saturday night.
However, I would drop them if one of his Saved By The Bell co-stars also appeared with him.
Well, maybe not.
I couldn't help it that the judges last year were blinded by my dazzling afro and flashing sunglasses. And mean footwork. Really.
IT’S TAKEN ABOUT a year, but I’m over the fact I didn’t win last year’s Cornerstone Dancing With The Local Stars contest.
Click herefor the column about this year’s Feb. 3 gala at The Ambiance in Quincy. If you want tickets, get them now because they are selling fast and there won’t be any left when the big day rolls around. Call Cornerstone at (217) 222-8254 to reserve yours now.
We talked about the event toward the end of this morning’s segment on WGEM NewsTalk Live 105.1 FM. In case you missed it last week, here’s the list of the contestants, and may the best hoofer win. Since I’m judging this year, bribes and gifts are not encouraged unless they are under the table. Thank you.
JAZZ
Beau Hicks, Koretta Sykes
Korey Haner, Sondi Brockmiller
Cheeks McGee, LeAnn Zwick
Dave Johnson, Kate Bergman Martin
Instructor: Bob Clelland
Lenny Bart, Tricia Bart
Michael Mitchell, Nadine Mitchell
Scott Phillips, Cindy Phillips
Roberto Stellino, Terry Britton
Richie Hawkins, Mecki Kosin
Instructor: Cindy Vancil Studio
Robert Bentley, Erin Bentley
Joe Henning, Allison Hall
Rick Mewes, Tegan Orpet
Terry Traeder, Darla Pullins
Instructor: Tiffany Tomlinson Frese
Frankie Murphy Giesing, Emy Nutt
Dan Hayden, Jill Tracy
Christopher Kelley, Melissa Reis
Gerry Kettler, Mary Oakley
James Tomlinson, Megan Williams
