The National Champion Tennessee Lady Vols had all five starters picked in the WNBA draft this morning.
__1st - Candace Parker
__4th - Alexis Hornbuckle
_15th - Shannon Bobbitt
_16th - Nickie Anosike
_35th - Alberta Auguste
The Champs had two regular season losses, to Stanford and LSU.
The Lady Vols defeated LSU in the SEC tournament and again, in
the NCAA semifinals, 47-46. They avenged the loss to Stanford
in the Championship Game by a decisive 64-48.
Tennessee has been National Champions eight times:
1987
1989
1991
1996
1997
1998
2007
2008
Congratulations, Lady Vols!
Wednesday, April 9, 2008
Tuesday, April 8, 2008
The Soliloqy
Knowing that Forrest was already AARP-eligible when he made his now-famous call to Nashville Now in the mid-`80's, knowing that he had later moved from his home in Port Charlotte, Florida, to a long-term care facility across the bay in Punta Gorda, and thinking, based upon information given to me by a FEMA Regional Director that Forrest had expired in Hurricane Andrew, it was a true surprise when I finally met him, in person last week at one of the local Tributes to Dan Fogelberg, held at Opryland Hotel.
One of the tributes was attended by celebrities plus anyone who could prove attendance at either the April, 1985, Nashville debut of Dan's High Country Snows album at the Opryhouse or the live Nashville Now TV show hosted by Jimmy Buffet that same week.
Although I never attended either, I do have one of the two original video tapes of the Nashville Now airing, which I have viewed many times, and I have a bootleg cassette tape of the concert at the Opry House, which has entertained me on many road trips. I gained attendance by answering all the screeners' questions properly. About halfway through one of the tributes, a clip of Forrest's phone call was played, and, as always, there was hearty laughter from the crowd. After that clip, Jimmy said something to the effect of "Now, hold on everybody; we've got a real treat for you tonight. All the way from Port Charlotte, please welcome Forrest Mankin!" The crowd went wild as the elderly, but far from frail, 92-year-old Forrest took the microphone, and said, after the cheering died down, "I still don't know what Dan's favorite song was that he wrote ..... otherwise." You couldn't have heard an atom bomb drop for the laughter and raucious cheering. More laughter followed as Jimmy added: "..but you did learn that Dan's favorite Dan Haggerty song was the theme song from Grizzly Adams - right?"
Then Jimmy read a few facts about Forrest and Port Charlotte, then asked, "Well, Forrest, tell us what you've been doing for the past twenty years." Forrest straightened himself, cleared his throat politely, and began to talk slowly:
"I've been suffering the slings and arrows of outrageous misfortune, sleeping, dreaming, bearing the whips and scorns of time, grunting and sweating under a weary life, and, maybe worst of all, bearing fardels."
Quiet, scattered laughter, then quiet polite applause.
Jimmy: "Fardels?" More laughter, louder this time.
Forrest: "Fardels; bearing fardels." More pockets of laughter.
Pause.
Jimmy: "I guess maybe more cheese and less beans?" Roaring laughter, wild applause.
Jimmy: "We gotta go to a commercial. Everbody run google "fardels" and the first person to call in with an explanation of "fardels" wins a pair of ugly green marsh boots.
[commercial]
==================================
==================================
For the blog readers who might not be as educated
or well-read as Forrest, er, ah, rather, as the person
who wrote his script for his response to Jimmy's
inquiry as to what he had been doing for twenty years,
we include below a snippet from Hamlet, Act III, Scene I:
To be, or not to be: that is the question:
Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,
And by opposing end them? To die: to sleep;
No more; and by a sleep to say we end
The heart-ache and the thousand natural shocks
That flesh is heir to, 'tis a consummation
Devoutly to be wish'd. To die, to sleep;
To sleep: perchance to dream: ay, there's the rub;
For in that sleep of death what dreams may come
When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,
Must give us pause: there's the respect
That makes calamity of so long life;
For who would bear the whips and scorns of time,
The oppressor's wrong, the proud man's contumely,
The pangs of despised love, the law's delay,
The insolence of office and the spurns
That patient merit of the unworthy takes,
When he himself might his quietus make
With a bare bodkin? who would fardels bear,
To grunt and sweat under a weary life,
But that the dread of something after death,
The undiscover'd country from whose bourn
No traveller returns, puzzles the will
And makes us rather bear those ills we have
Than fly to others that we know not of?
Thus conscience does make cowards of us all;
And thus the native hue of resolution
Is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought,
And enterprises of great pith and moment
With this regard their currents turn awry,
And lose the name of action. - Soft you now!
The fair Ophelia! Nymph, in thy orisons
Be all my sins remember'd.
One of the tributes was attended by celebrities plus anyone who could prove attendance at either the April, 1985, Nashville debut of Dan's High Country Snows album at the Opryhouse or the live Nashville Now TV show hosted by Jimmy Buffet that same week.
Although I never attended either, I do have one of the two original video tapes of the Nashville Now airing, which I have viewed many times, and I have a bootleg cassette tape of the concert at the Opry House, which has entertained me on many road trips. I gained attendance by answering all the screeners' questions properly. About halfway through one of the tributes, a clip of Forrest's phone call was played, and, as always, there was hearty laughter from the crowd. After that clip, Jimmy said something to the effect of "Now, hold on everybody; we've got a real treat for you tonight. All the way from Port Charlotte, please welcome Forrest Mankin!" The crowd went wild as the elderly, but far from frail, 92-year-old Forrest took the microphone, and said, after the cheering died down, "I still don't know what Dan's favorite song was that he wrote ..... otherwise." You couldn't have heard an atom bomb drop for the laughter and raucious cheering. More laughter followed as Jimmy added: "..but you did learn that Dan's favorite Dan Haggerty song was the theme song from Grizzly Adams - right?"
Then Jimmy read a few facts about Forrest and Port Charlotte, then asked, "Well, Forrest, tell us what you've been doing for the past twenty years." Forrest straightened himself, cleared his throat politely, and began to talk slowly:
"I've been suffering the slings and arrows of outrageous misfortune, sleeping, dreaming, bearing the whips and scorns of time, grunting and sweating under a weary life, and, maybe worst of all, bearing fardels."
Quiet, scattered laughter, then quiet polite applause.
Jimmy: "Fardels?" More laughter, louder this time.
Forrest: "Fardels; bearing fardels." More pockets of laughter.
Pause.
Jimmy: "I guess maybe more cheese and less beans?" Roaring laughter, wild applause.
Jimmy: "We gotta go to a commercial. Everbody run google "fardels" and the first person to call in with an explanation of "fardels" wins a pair of ugly green marsh boots.
[commercial]
==================================
==================================
For the blog readers who might not be as educated
or well-read as Forrest, er, ah, rather, as the person
who wrote his script for his response to Jimmy's
inquiry as to what he had been doing for twenty years,
we include below a snippet from Hamlet, Act III, Scene I:
To be, or not to be: that is the question:
Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,
And by opposing end them? To die: to sleep;
No more; and by a sleep to say we end
The heart-ache and the thousand natural shocks
That flesh is heir to, 'tis a consummation
Devoutly to be wish'd. To die, to sleep;
To sleep: perchance to dream: ay, there's the rub;
For in that sleep of death what dreams may come
When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,
Must give us pause: there's the respect
That makes calamity of so long life;
For who would bear the whips and scorns of time,
The oppressor's wrong, the proud man's contumely,
The pangs of despised love, the law's delay,
The insolence of office and the spurns
That patient merit of the unworthy takes,
When he himself might his quietus make
With a bare bodkin? who would fardels bear,
To grunt and sweat under a weary life,
But that the dread of something after death,
The undiscover'd country from whose bourn
No traveller returns, puzzles the will
And makes us rather bear those ills we have
Than fly to others that we know not of?
Thus conscience does make cowards of us all;
And thus the native hue of resolution
Is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought,
And enterprises of great pith and moment
With this regard their currents turn awry,
And lose the name of action. - Soft you now!
The fair Ophelia! Nymph, in thy orisons
Be all my sins remember'd.
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