#Brittania Hospital

[ilovemarkhamill]

He’s smoking! Smoking hot that is! 😍 🔥

[deadpresidents]

Burial At Sea: The Odyssey of JFK's Original Casket

It was approximately 1:00 PM when a man called Vernon B. O'Neal of O'Neal's Funeral Home and asked for the best casket that O'Neal had available.  The man on the phone, simultaneously calm and tense, needed the coffin quickly and O'Neal had a slight problem.  Of the 18 people who worked at O'Neal's Funeral Home, 17 of them were out to lunch.  After all, it was a beautiful Friday day for November in Texas.

O'Neal picked out a solid-bronze coffin with white satin lining tagged at a sales price of $3,995 from his storeroom and waited for three more of his employees to return from lunch.  The bulky Handley Brittania casket from the Elgin Casket Company weighed over 400 pounds when it was empty and O'Neal certainly couldn't lift it into his Cadillac hearse by himself.  Once he had it loaded, he rushed to Parkland Memorial Hospital on the most important delivery of his career.

The man who had ordered the casket, Clint Hill, was a Secret Service agent and less than an hour earlier he had climbed on to the back of a moving limousine to try to get to the subject he was charged to protect.  He was unsuccessful.  The casket was for the President of the United States, John Fitzgerald Kennedy.

When the casket arrived at Parkland Hospital, O'Neal was met by agents from the Secret Service and some of President Kennedy's aides.  They helped O'Neal push the coffin into the hospital and down a corridor towards Trauma Room One where the President had been officially pronounced dead just minutes earlier.  One of the President's aides and the doctor who had just worked on Kennedy tried to distract the President's grieving wife so that she wasn't anguished further by the sight of the coffin that her now-dead husband was about to be placed in.  

Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy refused to turn away and begged to be let into the Trauma Room to see her husband once more.  The doctor didn't want her to see anything else, but Jackie insisted, telling the doctor "How can I see anything worse than what I've seen?" and pointing out that "His blood is all over me!"  The doctor let her in the Trauma Room as O'Neal wheeled the casket inside and she placed her wedding ring on JFK's finger before retreating back to the outer hallway once again.

Vernon O'Neal was horrified when he saw the condition of the President's body.  Blood was everywhere and a gaping wound exposed brain matter which was seeping out of John F. Kennedy's head.  Not wanting to damage the beautiful and expensive casket that he had picked out for the President, O'Neal and several emergency room nurses went to work.  The bottom of the inside of the coffin was lined with a plastic mattress covering and the President's body was wrapped in a bed sheet.  The nurses went even further and spent 20 minutes carefully wrapping President Kennedy's head in numerous white bed sheets so that blood didn't seep through and stain the lining of the casket.

After Kennedy's body was placed in the coffin, preparations were made to leave Parkland Hospital and take the President back to Air Force One at Dallas's Love Field so that they could transport him back to Washington, D.C.  As the Secret Service and the President's aides (many of whom were longtime, close friends of JFK) wheeled his casket towards the exit, they were stopped by Dr. Earl Rose, the medical examiner for Dallas County, Texas.  In 1963, it was not a federal crime to kill the President of the United States.  Because of this, there was no federal jurisdiction for John F. Kennedy's murder -- only local.  Despite tsxxxshe scale of the crime to the nation, it was technically just another murder in Dallas, Texas on November 22, 1963 (because of the laws at the time, on a purely legal basis, the murder of Dallas police offer J.D. Tippit about 45 minutes after Kennedy's shooting was a far more serious crime than the President's assassination).   Because of this, Dr. Rose informed the men escorting the President's body that they needed to leave it in Dallas.  Rose noted that he needed to autopsy the body before they took it anywhere.  To Dr. Rose, a homicide victim was a homicide victim and he had a job to do.

The Secret Service was incredulous and President Kennedy's loyal aides were even angrier.  In the corridor of Parkland Memorial Hospital, things got tense.  Rose found himself in a shouting match with the Secret Service and some of Kennedy's aides.  Even the doctors at Parkland sided with the Secret Service and pleaded with Rose to release the body so that they could take the President back to Washington.  A justice of the peace arrived, with the power to overrule the medical examiner.  But he didn't.  The justice of the peace said that Kennedy would have to be autopsied in Dallas and ensured the Secret Service that it wouldn't take any more than three hours.

Again, tempers flared and the men in the hallway at Parkland were close to fisticuffs as the medical examiner, Dr. Rose, literally blocked the casket's path with his body in order to keep it inside the hospital.  When the President's close aide, Kenny O'Donnell, appealed to the medical examiner and the justice of the peace for compassion for Jackie Kennedy and an exception for this case so that they could return the dead President to Washington and get Jackie out of Texas as quickly as possible, the justice of the peace, Theron Ward, refused.

"It's just another homicide as far as I'm concerned," said the justice of the peace.  

O'Donnell lost his temper, "Go fuck yourself!  We're leaving.  Get the hell out of the way."

With that, the Secret Service and all the President's men pushed forward.  The medical examiner, the justice of the peace, and several Dallas policemen were forcibly shoved out of the way by Secret Service agents who were ready to draw their guns, if necessary.  Jackie Kennedy was close by, her hand softly guiding the President's bronze casket as it was removed from the hospital and placed in the hearse which raced en route to Love Field and Air Force One.

When the entourage arrived at Air Force One, they found a plane completely encircled by heavily armed Secret Service agents.  The plane’s powerful engines were running, ready to lift off at any moment and push Dallas and everything that happened there behind them as quickly as possible.  Fearing the unknown and suspecting a possible conspiracy to decapitate the entire government, the shades were drawn down over the windows throughout the aircraft in order to protect against any further possible attacks.  On the plane was Lyndon Johnson, soon-to-be sworn in as the 36th President of the United States, and awaiting the arrival of Jackie and the body of the deceased President.  The Secret Service and the President's aides struggled with the extraordinarily heavy casket as they maneuvered it up the steps to Air Foce One and into a holding area in the back of the plane cleared out by removing two rows of seats.

Jackie remained with President Kennedy's casket from almost the entire time she boarded Air Force One until it landed at Andrews Air Force Base near Washington.  The only exception was prior to the plane taking off from Dallas when she stood -- still wearing her blood-stained pink Chanel dress -- on one side of Lyndon Johnson as he took the oath of office as the new President, his hand resting on JFK's book of Catholic missals, which had been found in JFK's private cabin by aides rummaging for a Bible for the oath-taking ceremony.

For four hours, Air Force One flew in a dark cloud of sadness towards the nation's capital.  New President Johnson made numerous phone calls, including calls to the slain President's mother, Rose, and brother, the Attorney General Bobby Kennedy.  In flight, LBJ also hastily made preparations for meetings upon landing in Washington.  In the back of the plane, a silent vigil was held around John F. Kennedy's casket by Jackie and the President's aides, who were so close to Kennedy that they were often referred to as the "Irish Mafia".

President Kennedy's personal physician, Admiral George Burkley, suggested to Jackie that JFK's body be taken to Bethesda Naval Hospital upon arrival in Washington for the autopsy.  Jackie showed great compassion herself on that terrible flight.  She insisted that Bill Greer drive the vehicle carrying the President's casket to Bethesda.  Greer was grief-stricken and apologetic during the flight because he had been driving JFK's limousine in Dallas and made no attempt to speed up or take evasive maneuvers when shots were first fired.  Greer felt partly responsible for President Kennedy's death and Jackie wanted to show her confidence and appreciation in his service to her late husband.

When Air Force One arrived at Andrews Air Force Base after dark on November 22, 1963, Bobby Kennedy rushed on to the plane and directly to Jackie to comfort his sister-in-law, blowing past President Johnson and snubbing LBJ as the new President attempted to offer his condolences to JFK’s devastated brother.  The dead President's aides and Secret Service detail rebuffed a military casket team who arrived to remove the President's coffin from the plane.  Instead they formed a personal honor guard and handled Kennedy’s casket themselves, awkwardly placing it on to a catering lift and lowering it to the ground so that they could place it in a waiting Navy ambulance from Bethesda.  Jackie, with her husband's blood still clearly visible on her bare legs, and Bobby climbed into the back of the ambulance with JFK's casket and drove straight to Bethesda as President Johnson made a statement for the millions of Americans watching the arrival ceremony on live television.

The motorcade transporting the body of President John F. Kennedy from Andrews Air Force Base to Bethesda Naval Hospital for his autopsy arrived right around the same time that President Lyndon Johnson's helicopter landed on the South Lawn of the White House from Andrews so that the new President could take the reins of the government of a nation in shock.  As trusted members of his "Irish Mafia" helped to remove Kennedy's casket from the Navy ambulance, Jackie Kennedy and RFK headed upstairs at Bethesda where private suites were set aside for their comfort and friends and family were waiting to help with the comforting.

Across town, the new President prepared to charge into his new duties.  During the flight home from Dallas, Lyndon Johnson had summoned Cabinet members, diplomats, Members of Congress, current White House aides, former White House aides, and anybody else who had any inkling of what powered the Executive Branch, to meet him at the White House upon his arrival for consultation, directions, and mutual support.  Upon arriving at the White House, Johnson briefly spent a moment by himself in the Oval Office before leaving and walking with aides to the neighboring Old Executive Office Building.  LBJ didn't feel right with immediately setting up shop in the Oval Office just hours after President Kennedy's death.  Instead, Johnson decided to use his Vice Presidential office in the OEOB for the meetings he planned on holding that night.

Before those meetings began, however, President Johnson took a moment for a brief pause in his frenetic assumption of the Presidency.  Requesting a few minutes of privacy, LBJ sat down at his desk in the OEOB and wrote two short letters which became the first pieces of correspondence of the Johnson Administration -- letters which the young recipients couldn't even read yet:

"Dear John--It will be many years before you understand fully what a great man your father was.  His loss is a deep personal tragedy for all of us, but I wanted you particularly to know that I share your grief--You can always be proud of him.  Affectionately, Lyndon Johnson" "Dearest Caroline--Your father's death has been a great tragedy for the Nation, as well as for you at this time.  He was a wise and devoted man.  You can always be proud of what he did for his country.  Affectionately, Lyndon Johnson"

The casket containing the father of those two young children had been wheeled into the hallways leading to Bethesda Naval Hospital's morgue.  Despite the fact that this was being done in a completely secure, private, inner sanctum of the famed military hospital, the casket was that of a man who had started the day as Commander-in-Chief of the United States Military.  Out of respect and duty, an honor guard lifted the coffin from a gurney and carried it through the halls and into the brightly-lit, antiseptic autopsy room where doctors prepared to examine the lifeless body of the 35th President of the United States.

When President Kennedy's casket was opened, it became readily apparent that the hard work of Vernon O'Neal and the nurses at Parkland Hospital in Dallas to protect the inside of the expensive coffin was unsuccessful.  The makeshift bandage which had been carefully wrapped around Kennedy's head did not prevent seepage after all.  Blood soaked through the sheets which made up the "bandage" and the inner lining of Kennedy's ornate casket was obviously damaged.  It was a surreal, eerie sight in the autopsy room as John F. Kennedy was removed from his coffin and placed on the stainless steel autopsy table at Bethesda.  The 35th President was naked and seemed to be in remarkably good physical condition for a 46-year-old man who was known to suffer from serious health problems.  Most shocking for those in the room during the autopsy, however, was the fact that this seemingly young and vital President who had inspired a new generation was now very much dead with a massive gunshot wound to the head that exposed the part of his brain still contained within it and left the top of his skull jaggedly disfigured with missing pieces of bone and flesh.  Kennedy's eyes were fixed open, staring vacantly into space with dilated pupils that could no longer envision ambitious goals for his nation.  The mouth which formed his famous words, framed his most inspirational messages, and spoke that unmistakable Boston accent now hung open, forever silenced and permanently paralyzed in a final expression which seemed to mirror the mood of the entire country:  a combination of shock, pain, horror, and perplexity. 

The pathologists who performed John F. Kennedy’s autopsy finished their work shortly after midnight on November 23, 1963.  Photographs and drawings were taken of Kennedy’s body during the autopsy, and when the autopsy was finished, morticians from one of the capital’s finest funeral parlors arrived on the scene.  A team from Gawler’s Funeral Home entered the autopsy room at Bethesda Naval Hospital to embalm the President and attempt to make him presentable.  The casket that brought JFK back to Washington from Dallas would not work.  While the casket from O’Neal’s was a beauty from the exterior, the interior was a mess.  All of the safeguards attempted by O’Neal and the Parkland nurses in Dallas were not quite enough to protect the inside of the Handley Brittania from the gruesome wound that had killed the President.

The question many might have is why would there be such a need to make John F. Kennedy’s remains presentable when JFK was obviously in no condition to be viewed?  Why couldn’t they simply close that beautiful Handley Brittania casket that was purchased in Dallas and bury Kennedy in the container which carried him back to Washington?  

At the orders of Jackie Kennedy, aides went to the Library of Congress in the hours after President Kennedy’s body returned to Washington, D.C. and researched the historic, iconic, epic state funeral of Abraham Lincoln – the first American President to be assassinated, almost exactly a century earlier.  Kennedy’s funeral preparations would be steeped in tradition and either perfectly replicate or closely mirror the funerals of other fallen American Presidents including Lincoln, James Garfield, William McKinley, Warren G. Harding, and Franklin D. Roosevelt.  As information about these past Presidential funerals (along with the funerals of famous Congressional and military leaders throughout United States history) was brought forward, one constant was apparent:  in almost every case, the fallen leader was viewed by a grieving public in an open casket display.  For many Americans, streaming past the open casket of a former President or American military hero was an opportunity to pay tribute, look upon the face of a fallen hero, and find closure in another storied chapter of American History.

Yet, as much as Jackie wished to replicate Lincoln’s funeral, she was dismayed at the thought of an open casket for John F. Kennedy.  Jackie had seen what the assassin’s bullet had done to her husband.  As Kennedy’s motorcade raced to Parkland Memorial Hospital in Dallas minutes after the shooting, Jackie wouldn’t allow doctors and Secret Service agents to remove President Kennedy’s body from the limousine until an agent covered Kennedy’s head with his suit jacket, shielded the President from the view of others, and preserved some of the dignity that was so important to the Kennedy image.  As the morticians from Gawler’s worked on JFK, Jackie once again expressed her wish that her husband’s coffin would be closed.  Bobby Kennedy, however, didn’t think that the decision was up to the family.  RFK felt strongly that JFK belonged to the people, too, and that the American people would want their opportunity to say goodbye.

Following his assassination in 1865, Abraham Lincoln’s remains embarked on an epic, 20-day-long train trip that retraced the route he took to Washington in 1861 prior to his Inauguration.  In major cities throughout the Northeast and Upper Midwest, hundreds of thousands of Americans turned out to pay their respects to their “martyred” President.  Embalming was a relatively newly-mastered American art at the time of Lincoln’s death – a technique which had been much-improved upon and much-practiced during the Civil War when young men frequently died far from home and families looked to preserve their fallen loved ones so that they could have one last look at them before they were laid to rest.  

However, even today, embalming can’t guarantee perfect preservation for an extended amount of time.  In 1865, there were definitely some worries about Lincoln’s extended, national funeral.  After all, the warm weather of spring had started throughout the United States and Lincoln would be honored with open casket viewings by Americans in well over a dozen cities between Washington, D.C. and Springfield, Illinois in the twenty days after his death.  Some people worried whether it was appropriate to view Lincoln’s corpse at all considering the fact that he had died from a gunshot wound to the head.  Lincoln’s wound was far less devastating visually than Kennedy’s.  The bullet that killed Lincoln had entered his brain, but did not exit Lincoln’s skull.  The only damage visible was a black eye from bruising of the facial bones close to where John Wilkes Booth’s bullet had lodged in Lincoln’s brain.  Undertakers accompanied Lincoln’s body on the funeral train back to Springfield and as time passed, they certainly became necessary.  Lincoln’s face blackened considerably by the time his remains reached Springfield – partly from the facial bruising, partly from the dirt and dust of twenty days exposure to the elements, but also partly due to the beginning stages of decomposition.  At some cities, the undertakers who accompanied Lincoln home would brush his face with chalk to make him more presentable to the citizens who came to pay their respects.  In a few cities, it also became necessary to surround Lincoln’s casket with fragrant flowers and spray the area with heavy perfumes for reasons that I’m sure aren’t too difficult to surmise.

John F. Kennedy was not going to be viewed by the public for twenty days in over a dozen cities throughout the country and the funeral industry had made even larger strides in the century since Lincoln’s death.  However, JFK was severely disfigured by the bullet that killed him.  Unlike in Lincoln’s case, the bullet that tore through Kennedy’s skull and brain also exited his head, causing major damage that would be difficult for even the most-skilled mortician to disguise.  The team from Gawler’s were perhaps the best in the business, but it wasn’t simply a matter of brushing some chalk or cosmetic makeup on Kennedy’s face to cover up some bruising or minor discoloration.  Entire pieces of JFK’s skull were missing and parts of the President’s head needed to be synthetically reconstructed.  The morticians also had to pack his skull with cotton and Plaster of Paris in the place of his brain -- parts of which were removed during the autopsy and other parts of which were in countless places including (but not limited to) the fabric of his wife’s Pink Chanel dress, the windshields of the motorcycle cops escorting his motorcade in Dallas, the backseat and trunk of his limousine, and all over Dealey Plaza in Dallas.

The mortuary team from Gawler’s took over three hours to work on President Kennedy, clean him up, dress him (in a bluish-gray pinstriped suit with a white shirt, black shoes, and blue tie with dots), place him in a brand-new casket and put a rosary in the hands of the nation’s only Catholic President.  A little after 4:00 AM, President Kennedy, his widow and Bobby Kennedy arrived at the White House after a solemn motorcade through the darkened streets of Washington.  In the first nod to Lincoln’s funeral, JFK’s flag-draped casket was carried by an honor guard into the East Room of the White House and placed on a replica of the black catafalque that Lincoln’s coffin once rested on.  After Kennedy’s casket was situated in the East Room, Jackie Kennedy and Bobby Kennedy entered the room and asked that the lid be opened.  Both Jackie and Bobby were exhausted and emotionally drained, and Jackie was still wearing the Pink Chanel dress that she had cradled her dying husband’s head in.  The front of her dress was smeared with the dried blood and brain matter of the President.  As ghastly as the sight was, Jackie continually refused to change, noting that she wanted everyone to see what “they” did to her husband.  As the casket lid was opened, Jackie snipped a lock of her husband’s hair with scissors and turned to Bobby, saying, “It isn’t Jack” – once again alluding to her wish that the casket remain closed.

Jackie left the East Room and headed upstairs to the White House Residence to finally change her clothes and attempt to sleep.  In the East Room, Bobby remained near his brother’s coffin with a couple of friends, close aides, and Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara.  The stoic RFK – always much tougher than his older brother – was a wreck by this point, after attempting to stay strong and supportive throughout the night for his stunned sister-in-law.  Bobby had not yet looked at JFK’s remains.  To finally make the decision about whether or not JFK would have an open casket, RFK took a look at his brother’s face.  When he saw Jack in the coffin, RFK immediately agreed with Jackie’s feelings, “She’s right.  Close it.”  While the team from Gawler’s had done an admirable job of repairing the massive trauma to the President’s head, JFK was virtually unrecognizable as the man he once was.  To those who saw his body as the casket was briefly open in the East Room early that morning, it was apparent that the American people wouldn’t want to remember their fallen President in that way – as if he were a wax museum knock-off of the real John F. Kennedy.  The funeral ceremonies over the next few days would all be closed casket and the nation would remember JFK as the young, lively, inspirational President that he had been for so many Americans.

••• Since the assassination of John F. Kennedy in 1963, there have been so many unanswered questions and theories and allegations.  Many are the result of sloppy work on behalf of the government in the hours following the shooting, during the autopsy, after the autopsy, and in the failure to protect the suspected assassin, Lee Harvey Oswald, as he was being transferred to a new facility to face charges of murdering President Kennedy and Dallas Police Office J.D. Tippit.  Evidence has been lost or misplaced, and some records remain sealed until 2017 – 54 years after the assassination and 100 years after JFK’s birth.

There is one aspect of this story that received some closure, however, and that is what happened to JFK’s original casket – the expensive Handley Brittania coffin that Clint Hill ordered from Vernon O’Neal’s Funeral Home in Dallas in the hectic minutes after President Kennedy was pronounced dead.

After JFK’s autopsy at Bethesda Naval Hospital and the hard work by the mortuary team from Gawler’s Funeral Home to make him presentable, President Kennedy couldn’t be placed back in the beautiful but bloodstained bronze coffin that had carried him home from Texas.  Gawler’s had brought with them to Bethesda another elegant casket fit for a President – a $3,160 Marsellus 710 coffin that was crafted from “hand-rubbed, five-hundred-year-old African mahogany”.  It was that flag-draped casket from Gawler’s that John F. Kennedy, Jr. saluted and Americans saw being laid to rest in Arlington National Cemetery.

The history of Vernon O’Neal’s casket did not end that night at Bethesda when President Kennedy was transferred to a different coffin.  Gawler’s Funeral Home took possession of JFK’s original casket after they placed him in the undamaged casket that their mortuary team had brought to Bethesda Naval Hospital following Kennedy’s autopsy.  Whether it was as a morbid souvenir or simply due to confusion about what to do with it, Gawler’s stored JFK’s original coffin in a warehouse in Washington, D.C.  In January 1964, less than two months after JFK’s burial, Vernon O’Neal submitted a bill to the federal government for $3,995 for the casket that Secret Service Agent Clint Hill ordered in Dallas and JFK was transported to Washington in.                 

The government felt that O’Neal’s bill was “excessive”, particularly since he had merely delivered the casket to Parkland Hospital in Dallas and had not performed any other funeral services such as embalming, chapel services or transportation of mourners.  O’Neal lowered the price by $500, but the government still had an issue with the $3,495 price tag.  What Vernon O’Neal actually wanted was the casket itself.  O’Neal had received offers of $100,000 by parties interested in collecting and displaying the casket as a unique relic of the slain President.  For the Kennedy Family – still reeling from the assassination and its aftermath – the last thing they wanted was a spectacle surrounding a bloodstained coffin that JFK had spent just a few hours in.  At the family’s urging, the federal government paid O’Neal (he received $3,160 for his services on November 22, 1963) and the General Services Administration took possession of the object in 1965.

In September 1965, the House of Representatives passed a bill which required the government to preserve any objects related to the Kennedy Assassination which might contain evidentiary value.  Several days later, Representative Earle Cabell from Texas sent a letter to Attorney General Nicholas Katzenbach (who had replaced Bobby Kennedy at the Justice Department a year earlier).  In his letter, Congressman Cabell suggested that the casket had no value for anyone other than “the morbidly curious”.  Since the Kennedy Family “did not see fit to use this particular casket in the ultimate interment of the body”, Cabell felt that it was “surplus” material owned and controlled by the federal government.  To shut down those who might be “morbidly curious”, Cabell recommended that the casket “be declared the proper property of the USA and, as such and in keeping with the best interest of the country, be destroyed.”

The Kennedy Family agreed with Congressman Cabell’s sentiments and Attorney General Katzenbach ensured everyone that the casket had no evidentiary value, no good reason for display or storage, and that it was the property that the government had the right to dispose of in whichever way it sought fit.  On February 18, 1966, several members of the Air Force picked the casket up from a secure building at the National Archives just a few blocks from the White House.  The casket was placed in an Air Force truck and transported to Andrews Air Force Base – the very place that the casket had originally landed in Washington with President Kennedy inside of it less than three years earlier.  At Andrews, the Air Force team from the 93rd Air Terminal Squadron loaded the coffin on to a C130 transport plane.

To dispose of the casket, the Air Force had decided to take it to a place that JFK had once considered being buried:  the Atlantic Ocean.  Kennedy loved the sea and was said to have considered being buried at sea when he died.  Of course, we know that Kennedy was buried at Arlington National Cemetery instead, but for many reasons, the Atlantic Ocean was the perfect place for the disposal of the casket that had brought him back to Washington following his assassination.

The Air Force wanted to ensure the integrity of the casket and not allow it to become a souvenir by someone who happened to come across it floating in the ocean or washing up on the shore.  The C130 flew about 100 miles east of Washington, D.C. and descended to about 500 feet above the water.  Before taking off, the Air Force had drilled over 40 holes into the casket and filled it with three 80-pound sandbags.  It was also secured inside of a wooden crate and sealed shut in a manner so that it wouldn’t break apart upon hitting the water.  

At approximately 10:00 AM, the C130’s tail hatch was opened and the casket was pushed out of the aircraft.  Parachutes softened its fall and the coffin began to sink instantly.  The airplane circled the drop zone for about 20 minutes to make sure that the coffin didn’t resurface, but they had no reason to worry.  The Air Force had chosen an area of the Atlantic that saw very little air or sea traffic, and the casket settled in about 9,000 feet of water.  The Kennedy Family was relieved that they no longer had to worry about a bloody casket going on display somewhere for the “morbidly curious”.

[laughroditee]

Your Ghost | a COD fanfic - Part 1 - Knight of Swords

CW: this story takes place after Soap's death and contains supernatural elements, tarot, mentions of death and blood

I didn't want to make the chapters too long (I'm unsure what the proper netiquette is for word count), so it will continue in subsequent posts.

Summary: An American tarot reader finds herself inextricably linked to John MacTavish, whose ghost needs a favor from her before he can rest.

Mood Music:

The first time I knew something was wrong was a few months ago when, out of nowhere, an excruciating pain shot through my head, causing me to scream and promptly pass out.  The dreams that followed in my unconsciousness were heavy and sad: bagpipes at a funeral playing their mournful melody for a person I didn’t know.  I had been at work that day, like any other day, but when I woke up, I was in the hospital.  Doctors ran so many tests on me, thinking perhaps I’d had a brain aneurysm, but scans of my brain were clear, and subsequent tests showed that I was right as rain.  Totally healthy.  I returned to my everyday life, with the only complication being the inexplicable migraines that continued to plague me.

Then came the wanderlust.  The nasal sound of bagpipes continued to wheedle their way into my dreams, and pretty soon, I became possessed with the need to go to the UK.  It became a matter of life and death.  I didn’t even have a passport, but knew I had to go.  Where exactly, I wasn’t even sure.  Scotland would make sense, considering the bagpipes, but my gut said no.  No, that’s not right.

So I did what any good woo-woo witchy person would do: I pulled out a map of the UK and my pendulum and asked for assistance narrowing down my intended destination.  Stilling my mind, I took a deep breath, focusing on the amethyst pendulum dangling from my hand.  The crystal twitched and spun before swinging slightly right, south on the map.  I followed the pendulum south over Scotland, past Northern England, toward London, but the crystal had other ideas, sending me back north.  It spun in circles around a location: Manchester.

That’s how, months later (had to wait for my passport), I found myself at the Brittania Hotel in Manchester, in one of their “standard twin rooms without a window.”  I never really knew how much I liked windows until I didn’t have one, but that’s beside the point.  At least I got a private bathroom, a coffee maker, and a TV, so I can’t complain too much for $44 per night.  Besides, this entire trip was an exercise in insanity, so why not add in some sensory deprivation while we’re at it?

As soon as I stood on UK soil, I knew this was the right place; that intuitive nudge felt like a soothing affirmation.  And that’s a great thing because simply being up in the air triggered another migraine, and I was afraid I’d puke on the guy next to me.  After unpacking my bag in the hotel room, I flipped a card from my tarot deck: The Knight of Swords.

The Knight of Swords talks about action, as all Knight cards do.  There’s a sense of motion, movement, and moving forward inherent there, with The Knight of Swords having the connotation of almost overwhelmingly swift movement; in fact, you can interpret it as needing to take heed that you’re not leaping before you’re looking.  (What irony.)  But that’s only one part of the story as the suit of the card will tell you what’s moving.  Swords in the tarot represent the element of air, so all things related to logic, ideas, communication, words, writing, and thoughts.  Holistically, you can interpret The Knight of Swords as needing to make sure you check your words before you say things so that you become aware of any potential obstacles on this path that you’re charging down. But, ultimately, you have the clarity of mind to overcome any challenges.  Where there’s a will, there’s a way.

However, the court cards in tarot can also signify people: kings as men or masculine energy, queens as women or feminine energy, and pages as children or youthful energy.  Knights, though, are tricky.  They can symbolize people of any gender, anywhere from age twenty-five up to forty, people who move in and out of our lives, physical travel, change, or pure energy and where you’re focusing it.  It can be hard to know what the “correct” interpretation is in any given reading, with so many meanings to consider, but I usually just go with my gut or pull some more cards for context.  In this case, why not both?

Pulling two more cards from the deck, I laid them out on the bed next to the first one: Death and the Three of Swords.  Contrary to popular belief, the Death card doesn’t usually mean death or foretell of someone dying.  It means change and transformation, the end of a cycle and the beginning of a new one.  The Three of Swords features an illustration with three swords stabbing through a bleeding heart: heartbreak, but sometimes literal heart health problems.

"Wow, bad day," I said as I looked over the cards.

I suddenly felt a presence in the room that wasn’t there a minute ago, the hairs on the back of my neck and my arms standing on end.

"Ye finally made it, lass."

My head whirled around so fast that the ends of my bobbed hair stabbed me in the eye.  I shot to my feet, spilling the rest of my cards to the floor.  “Fuck!” I whined, cradling my stinging, watering eye as I stumbled backward. 

Deep, apparently very amused laughter rang out in the room, and I was astonished to see a man there, wearing some kind of military getup, a mohawk cut into his dark brown hair. Oh, and he was semi-transparent.

I backed away slowly, my hand clapped over my eye.  There is no way in Hell.  “What the fuck, are you a ghost?” 

His expression sobered as he nodded his spectral head.  “Unfortunately.”  

“What do you want?” I asked, my voice a couple of octaves higher than it would typically be.  The urge to scream was overwhelming, and he put his hands out placatingly. 

”Easy, love,” he cooed, keeping his voice as soothing as possible so as not to spook me further.  “We have a blood tie.”

“What?”  The man — ghost? ghost man? — could tell me he was king of Scotland, and I don’t think that would change my hesitation or the level of existential panic I felt at that moment.

“We’re kin,” he said with a little more force, trying to reach me through my brain-melting anxiety.  “Family.  Somewhere along the line, we share blood.  Is it so hard to imagine?  Big world like this?”

“I’m literally talking to a dead man,” I say as my inner thoughts bleed out of my mouth.  Either my imagination is amazing, or I’m having a breakdown.  Maybe there really was something wrong with my brain, and they just couldn’t find it.  Maybe the migraines were making me hallucinate.

“Evangeline!” 

That caught my attention, my blue eyes snapping to his in shocked confusion.  “How do you know my name?”

He had the audacity to sound frustrated.  “Like I said, we share a blood tie.”

"Oh, of course.  That obviously explains everything.  I’m so relieved."

He smirked.  “Yer a wisearse ye are.”

Well, he did get one thing right anyway.  “How come I don’t know your name then?”

”Because I’m dead, and ye’re not.  It’s John, by the way.  John MacTavish.”

Examining him warily, I ask, “So we’re, like, cousins or some shit, John MacTavish?”

He shrugged, pushing his long sleeves up his forearms, which is such a mind-boggling thing to think about a ghost doing — like, what’s the purpose of that? Is he too warm?  “I dunnae know exactly, lass; I just know that I was pulled to ye.  And ye answered.”  It was then that I noticed the ghostly blood on the side of his head, his presumably fatal bullet wound in the exact place where I felt my migraines.

My stomach dropped into what felt like a vat of ice.  “Oh… Oh no. I’m not a medium!  I don’t see dead people!” I desperately pleaded with him, trying to convince him he'd gotten the wrong girl. “I just sling cards; I don’t do any of that other stuff!”

”And yet, here I am.  Here ye are.”  He put his hand on his hip.

“Yes, but… Why?  Why are you here?  What do you want from me?”  Then I saw his tattoo.  With a sudden motion, I moved quickly forward — I think I actually startled him — and I bent my head down to look at his forearm.  Nested inside of laurels was a sword with wings, topped by a knight’s helm and crown.

”Knight of Swords,” I breathed, astonished.  Rushing back, I grab my card from the bed, brandishing it as I return to where he stands.  “This is you?  You did this?”

The ghost of John MacTavish looked down at me with a serious expression.  “I did.  I need yer help, Evangeline.  Yer the only one who can do it.”

Part 2

[littlequeenies]

New page!

Hi everybody, We've created a new page for Marsha Hunt's acting career, enjoy it!! :D

[howardhawkshollywoodannex]

Robert Lindsay as Bert Rigby and Robbie Coltrane as Sid Trample in Bert Rigby You’re a Fool (1989).  Robbie was born in Rutherglen, Scotland, and has 113 acting credits, from a 1979 episode on the telly, to a 2020 episode on the telly as Orson Welles.  His other notable credits include Flash Gordon as man at airfield, Brittania Hospital, an episode of Are You Being Served, Krull, National Lampoon’s European Vacation, Absolute Beginners, Mona Lisa, Henry V, Goldeneye, The World is Not Enough, all six episodes of the Harry Potter franchise as Rubeus Hagrid, Van Helsing, Oceans Twelve, and voices in Arthur Christmas and Brave, 

[wbgphotography]

Some more shots of the Sunset Beach shoot for Charity. Organized by Johnathon Bradford and Mike Giovinazzo in support for The Ottawa Hospital Foundation. #charity #brittaniabeach #models #swimsuits #beach #ygkphotographer #OttawaPhotographyMeetup #ottawa (at Brittania Beach) https://www.instagram.com/p/B1OEaWJl33u/?igshid=1f802m87f56bl

[bonkybornes]

The Road So Far: Phantom Traveler Pt.2

"Thank you for taking our survey." Sam said, "And if you do plan to fly, please remember your friends at United Brittania Airlines. Thanks." He hung up the phone with a sigh. "That takes care of Blaine Sanderson and Dennis Holloway, they're not flying any time soon." Working Man played in the background as the two spoke, Dean keeping his eyes on the road.

"So our only wild card is Amanda Walker, the flight attendant." Dean stated, praying to whatever God may exist that they wouldn't have to get on a plane.

"Right, her sister said that Amanda's plane leaves at eight tonight, it's her first night back on the job." Dean internally groaned, he was completely screwed.

"Just our luck. Call Amanda again, see if we can catch her." He told his brother, gripping the wheel nervously.

"I've tried like four times, I left voicemails but she's not responding. Dean, this is a five hour drive, even with you behind the wheel." He pointed out.

"We'll make it." Dean insisted, pressing down on the gas pedal.

~

Sam frantically looks around as they enter the airport, hoping to find some information on the flight, "There! It's boarding in thirty minutes." The fear grew quickly in Dean's chest.

"Alright, we still have some cards to play. Where's a phone?" He muttered, spotting one a few feet away. He picked up the receiver and talked to the secretary, "Hi, gate thirteen? I'm trying to contact Amanda Walker on flight 424, she's a flight attendant." Sam desperately hoped this would work, he never liked lying to get things, even when it was necessary. "Hi this is Doctor James Hetfield from St. Francis Memorial Hospital, we have a Karen Walker here?" Dean covered his face with his hand, a headache forming.

"Karen?" Amanda wondered.

"Yes, she got in a minor car accident. No serious injuries but-"

"Wait, that's- that's impossible!" She exclaimed, "I just got off the phone with her." Shit. Dean thought.

"W-What?"

"Five minutes ago, she was at home cramming for a final. Who is this?" She said suspiciously.

"Uh, well there must be some mistake." He tried his best to keep his composure, failing miserably.

"And how would you even know I'm here?" The gears turned in her head. Sam snuck around to the other side of Dean to listen, "Is this one of Vince's friends?" Dean licked his lipe, getting into character.

"Guilty as charged." He lied easily.

"Unbelievable."

"He's really sorry." At this point Dean was just pulling things out of his ass and hoping he wouldn't have to go any higher than the ground.

"Well tell him to mind his own business and stay out of my life." She gritted her teeth.

"Wait! Come on, you gotta see the guy! Really, he's a mess. It's- It's pathetic." He bullshitted.

"Really?"

"Yeah, totally." His face was screwed up in concentration. Amanda sighed on the other side of the phone.

"Just, tell him to call me when I land. I have to go." She softened. Panic took over his voice, but she was already hanging up the phone.

"Dammit! So close." Dean exclaimed. Sam sighed shortly.

"Alright, time for plan B." He declared, "We're getting on that plane." Dean widened his eyes, the panic showing clearly now.

"Woah, wait! Just hang on a second. There's gotta be another way!" A nervous laugh left his lips.

"Dean, if we're right, that plane is gonna crash. It's got over a hundred passengers on it!" Sam argued.

"You're right."

"Okay, I'll go get tickets, you get stuff out of the trunk, whatever will make it through airport security." Dean looked to the side nervously, "You okay?"

"Not really." He admitted.

"What is it?" Sam rushed, they didn't have time for this.

"I kind of have this problem with-" Dean trailed off.

"With flying?"

"Yeah." Sam gave him a bitch face.

"You're not serious?"

"Well it's never been an issue until now! Why do you think I drive everywhere?" Dean asked him, nerves taking over.

"Fine," Sam sighed at his brother's fear, "I'll do this one on my own."

"No!" He exclaimed.

"Well we don't have another option, Dean!" Their speech was getting faster, either from nerves or lack of time.

"Come on!" Dean shouted. He was going to have to get on this plane.

~

"Are you humming Metallica?" Sam asked. They had taken their seats on the plane and Dean was near a panic attack, his breathing heavy.

"Calms me down." He rushed, trying to picture himself anywhere but there. When that doesn't work he picks up the pamphlet on how to stay safe if the plane crashes, if anything happened he needed to be prepared.

"Just try to relax." Sam advised, pissing his brother off.

"Just try to shut up!" He shot back childishly. Sam took a deep breath, preparing himself for what would surely be a stupid conversation.

"Look, I know you're nervous, but you've got to stay focused." He told his brother calmly.

"Okay."

"We've got thirty two minutes and counting to stop this thing or the plane goes down." Sam reminded him.

"Yeah, on a crowded plane. That'll be easy." Sarcasm shot out of Dean's mouth like spit, covering the sentence with a snarky tone.

"Let's just take it one step at a time. Who's it possessing?" Sam tried his best to guide him trough the panic and into the case. Dean swallowed thickly.

"It's usually gonna be someone with a chink in the armor, something the demon can worm through, someone with an addiction or some type of emotional distress." Dean rambled, sounding like a page out of their dad's notebook.

"Well, this is Amanda's first flight after the crash, if I was her I'd be pretty messed up." He suggested, an idea popping into his head, "Why don't you go check on her, see what you can find out?"

"What if she's already possessed?"

"There's ways to test that." Sam offered, "If she's possessed, she'll flinch at the name of God."

"Oh, nice." Dean nodded, standing gingerly to head towards the flight attendant.

"Dean!" Sam whisper yelled, "Say it in Latin!"

"I know that!"

The younger Winchester sat in his seat as Dean headed off. He wondered why Jay had to go, why it had to be him. It's almost like he was cursed or something. Everyone around him keeps dying. He continued on this train of thought until Dean reappeared beside him.

"Okay, she's gotta be the most well adjusted person on the planet."

"You said Christo?" Sam asked.

"Yeah. There's no demon in her, there's no demon getting in her." The plane hit a patch of turbulence, shaking Dean to his soul, "Come on, that can't be normal!" His anxiety was through the roof.

"Hey, it's just a little bit of turbulence." Although Sam was scared by it too, he was able to keep his fear under control, mostly.

"Sam this plane is going to crash okay? Stop treating me like i'm friggin four!" Dean's knuckles were white from clutching the armrests, his body was pressed to it like he was trying to glue himself to the seat.

"You need to calm down."

"Well, I'm sorry, I can't."

"Yes, you can."

"Dude, stop with the touchy-feely, self-help, yoga crap. It's not helping." Sam resisted the urge to roll his eyes.

"Listen, if you're panicked you're wide open to demonic possession. So you need to calm yourself down. Right now." The older Winchester blew air out of his mouth slowly, trying with everything in him to relax his body. "Good, now I found an exorcism in here that might work." He angled the book so Dean could see it. "The Rituale Romanum."

"What do we have to do?"

~

Lights are flaring from all over the plane, Dean pressed himself against the wall as the nose of the plane dipped down towards the ground. If it was possible, his eyes were wider than before, almost popping out of his head. Sam took charge of the situation, searching under every seat for John's notebook. The demon had kicked it away in it's struggle to escape. Aha, He picked up the book and started reading again. Still sprawled out on the floor, he manages to finish the exorcism and send the demon back to Hell. Dean slumps to the ground as the floor levels.

"You okay?" Amanda asks him. Dean nods, his breathing getting closer to even.

~ "Nice work back there Sammy." Sam and Dean were in the Impala, driving away from the airport. They had given some crap statement to the police, they'd never figure it out anyways. Sam scoffed and put his head down a bit.

"Yeah, just another day at work." This sent a chuckle flying out of their mouths.

"I'm serious! You did a hell of a job back there. when did you learn Latin?" Sam fished a beer out of the cooler by his feet and opened it, shrugging.

"I didn't? I totally bullshitted all of that pronunciation." He said through laughter. They sat in silence for a minute, maybe more. The rumble of Baby's engine, and the soft rock coming from the radio was their only company.

"So theres this thing in L.A., June I think." Dean started, "It's called a- A pride parade." A smile broke out on Sam's face. "What's that all about?" Dean cleared his throat after he spoke.

Sam turned to his brother with an amused smile on his face. "Dean, you dont have to do this."

"What!" Dean lifted one of his hands off of the wheel, "I- I really want to know more!" Sam laughed at his brother's awkward state.

"Alright, if you really want me to I'll tell you. It's a celebration, kind of. Everyone in the LGBTQ+ community gets together and marches. They march for freedom, rights, to be proud of who they are." He trailed off with a fond smile.

"The LGBTQ+ community, that's-"

"Lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans, queer, and every other sexuality and identity there is." Dean nodded, not fully understanding but trying to, for the sake of his brother.

"Sounds fun. We should go." Sam damn near spilled his beer all over himself.

"What?"

"Yeah! Why not?" Sam scoffed a bit.

"I don't know, I guess I just thought you wouldn't be that into it." Their faces fell a bit as they remembered the day Sam left.

"Sam, I'm- I'm sorry." Sam's head perked up at his brother's voice, "I should've stuck up for you, should've said something. Dad was a dick, to say the least."

"No, there's not a ton you could've done, he did what he did. Nothing can change his mind, you know that." Sam kept his eyes trained on his lap.

"Yeah, but I could've at least said something."

"Dude, it's fine. I'm not gonna hold a grudge." They both stared at the long road ahead of them.

"Alright, bitch." The two grew smiles on their faces.

"Jerk."

[literatureandtrees]

I was tagged by @relevy and @literaryanxiety and @brittania-rex (ages ago because I’m awful)(Hiya!)

1ST RULE: tag 9 people you want to get to know better:  @andthenyoudoitforher @rawr-booklover @vitasvirginia @psychic-writer-girl and anyone else who wants to.

2ND RULE: BOLD the statements that are true.

APPEARANCE - I am 5'7 or taller - I wear glasses - I have at least one tattoo - I have at least one piercing - I have blonde hair - I have brown eyes - I have short hair - My abs are at least somewhat defined - I have or had braces

PERSONALITY - I love meeting new people - People tell me I am funny - Helping others with their problems is a big priority of mine - I enjoy physical challenges - I enjoy mental challenges - I am playfully rude to people I know- I started saying something ironically and now I can’t stop saying it - There is something I would change about my personality

ABILITY - I can sing well - I can play an instrument - I can do over 30 pushups without stopping - I am a fast runner - I can draw well - I have a good memory- I am good at doing math in my head - I can hold my breath underwater for over a minute - I have beaten at least 2 people arm wrestling- I can make at least 3 recipes from scratch - I know how to throw a proper punch

HOBBIES - I enjoy sports - I’m on a sports team at my school or somewhere else - I’m in an orchestra or choir at my school or somewhere else - I have learned a new song in the past week - I exercise at least once a week - I have gone for runs at least once a week in warmer months - I have drawn something in the past month - I enjoy writing - Fandoms are my #1 priority- I do some form of martial arts

EXPERIENCES - I have had my first kiss - I have had alcohol - I have scored a winning point in a sport - I have watched an entire TV series in one sitting -I have been at an overnight event - I have been in a taxi - I have been in the hospital or ER in the past year - I have beaten a video game in one day - I have visited another country - I have been to one of my favorite band’s/artist’s concerts

MY LIFE - I have one person that I consider to be my best friend - I live close to my school/work - My parents are still together - I have at least one sibling - I live in the United States - There is snow where I live right now - I have hung out with a friend in the past month - I have a smart phone - I own at least 15 CDs - I share my room with someone

RELATIONSHIPS - I am in a Relationship - I have a crush on a celebrity - I have a crush on someone I know - I’ve been in at least 3 relationships - I have never been in a relationship - I have admitted my feelings to my crush- I get crushes easily - I have had a crush for over a year - I have been in a relationship for over a year - I have had feelings for a friend

RANDOM - I have break-danced - I know a person named Jamie - I have had a teacher that has a name that is hard to pronounce - I have dyed my hair - I’m listening to a song on repeat right now - I have punched someone in the past week - I know someone who has gone to jail - I have broken a bone - I have eaten a waffle today - I speak at least two languages - I have made a new friend in the past year

[kane-and-griffin]

“I Put a Spell On You,” Part 2

A Kabby Halloween fic in three parts for the AU The Woman That Fell From the Sky, in honor of @brittanias‘ birthday!   

Part 1 here

PART 2: “Fox-Trot Time” (Halloween 2009)

“The problem with putting two and two together is that sometimes you get four, and sometimes you get twenty-two.” -- Dashiell Hammett, from The Thin Man

When Abby left New York nine years ago, she left it for good.

She and Jake had built a life there, one they’d believed would last.  She’d moved there young and made it her home and loved it with the same fervent intensity as all the city’s Midwestern expatriates.  But all of that meant nothing without Jake.

There was nowhere she could run to escape the crushing sorrow of loss.  Every bodega, every hole-in-the-wall wine bar, every bench in Central Park, every subway station, Jake was there.  The bank where he’d been shot was on her way to work.  The hospital cafeteria on the third floor looked out over the police station where she’d sat, cold and numb and dry-eyed, filling out form after form while Marcus attempted to comfort the confused and tearful Clarke on the bench in the hallway outside.

She could not stay in this place.

The job in Massachusetts had been offered to her a month before Jake’s death, and she had declined it.  They were New Yorkers, she’d explained to the hospital recruiter.  Their daughter would be a New Yorker too.  The city was their home, and they couldn’t imagine leaving it.

The job was still open six weeks later, something that seemed to Abby to be a kind of miracle; they couldn’t find any other surgeons of her caliber willing to move out to the middle of nowhere – leaving behind every modern amenity, from Korean barbecue to decent theatre – to take a job in a small sleepy town with only a few thousand residents.

But Jake had never set foot in that town.  She had never even told him its name.  It felt, in that moment, like the one place in the world she could go to escape.

So she packed up her car, strapped Clarke into the backseat, and off they went.

And she never went back.

Nine years ago, watching the New York skyline disappear in her rearview mirror as steel buildings turned into green forests, she hadn’t been able to imagine ever returning.  She hadn’t thought the pain would ever fade.

But Clarke is a freshman in high school now, and they’ve made a life for themselves, and it doesn’t hurt to remember Jake the way that it used to.  She’s changed.  Marcus has changed her.  She’s older and sadder than she was when she and Jake were reckless urban twentysomethings together, but she’s also steadier on her feet.

It’s because Marcus knows this – because Marcus can sense this – that he even dares to ask her the question.

It starts with a senior citizens’ cruise to the Bahamas.

Abby’s parents come to Massachusetts for Christmas every year, to flagrantly spoil their granddaughter.  But this year, they have, improbably, entered some grocery store sweepstakes and actually won, which means they will be spending the latter half of December aboard what Marcus describes as “an unfathomably enormous maritime shrine to capitalism, with liquor”, thus depriving them of their best opportunity to buy fourteen-year-old Clarke hundreds of dollars’ worth of things she doesn’t need.  Abby suggests Thanksgiving as a compromise, privately hoping they’ll decline it; her parents have very particular views on proper Thanksgiving food, and with her mother there to appraise it she will never be able to relax about the turkey, even though Marcus has never messed it up once. 

But they have an entirely different solution in mind.  They want to take Clarke to Disneyland for Halloween.

Clarke, of course, is over the moon, and says yes immediately, only afterwards pausing to realize that Marcus – now the fall festival’s most devoted attendee – will be crushed.  It’s quietly become a tradition over the past few years, and if his fans have noticed that he never takes Halloween concert gigs, no matter how good the money, they’ve certainly never put two and two together.  He would never dream of missing a Halloween with Clarke and Abby, and Clarke is afraid she’ll hurt his feelings if she tells him that this year, she’ll be the one who isn’t coming home.

Like a chicken, she makes Abby break the bad news to him.  Ordinarily her mother would protest this uncharacteristic abdication of responsibility, but the tradeoff is a promise to clean her room without being reminded every day from now until the trip, an offer Abby can’t refuse.  She approaches the topic gingerly, and Marcus is predictably disappointed, but brightens almost immediately, that endearing lift in his voice she knows means he’s just had a great idea.

“Come to New York with me,” he says, startling her into silence.

“What?”

“For Halloween.  Come to New York this year.”

Abby has always thought she would never go back.  But she loves the fall festival because Clarke and Marcus love it and she can’t imagine enjoying herself there without them; so, surprising both of them, she says yes.

“You used to love throwing Halloween parties with Jake,” he says, his voice gentle, cautious.  “Do you think maybe . . . we could have one?”

She pauses for a long moment before responding, the magnitude of the thing hovering between them apparent to both.  It sounds like such a small thing, but it isn’t.  It’s massive.  It’s a real question.  It’s a decisive relationship step.  Can she not only return to the city she left behind, the city where she was Jake’s friend and then lover and then wife, but return there for the purpose of being a couple in public with somebody else?

The last time she did this, it was in the tiny Brooklyn apartment she’d shared with Jake since they were college students.  He’d stood on the kitchen table to drape orange and black crepe paper along the ceiling and replace the bulbs in the light fixture with ones that glowed green, and they’d handed out gummy snakes and spiders to all the trick-or-treating kids in the building.  Clarke had been three and told her parents she wanted to dress up for Halloween as a cup, a bizarre notion from which they could not dissuade her (“Clarke, why do you want to dress up as a cup?” “I like cups.” “We could go to the store and look at other costumes –“ “NO A CUP A CUP A CUP”), so Jake had sighed and gone down to the basement and dug through the piles of recycling in the trash room to find a cardboard box, which he cut into a cylinder and covered with a red plastic tablecloth, pleated at the top and edged in white, like a red Solo cup.  He had written “DO NOT DRINK” on it in black Sharpie, which Clarke found hilarious.

The last time she’d experienced Halloween in the city, she’d been a wife and the mom of a toddler and a big-shot surgeon on the rise, shooting up through the ranks at Sloan-Kettering, destined for greatness.

The last time she and Marcus were alone together in New York, they were drinking coffee and flirting and very nearly holding hands while Jake was being raced in an ambulance to the hospital where she worked.

It’s not just about the party.

She thinks for a long time, and he waits patiently, quiet at the other end of the line, letting her have her space.  She turns it over and over in her mind before finally speaking.

“Can we compromise?” she finally asks.  “Yes to New York, and yes to a party, as long as it’s very small and you can promise I won’t get my face in a magazine or something.  I don’t . . .”  She pauses, unsure how to say what she wants to say without hurting him.

“You don’t want to go out in public with me in the city,” he finishes for her, and the sadness in his voice isn’t directed at her, but she feels it anyway.

“I can’t,” she says heavily.  “I’m sorry.”

“You don’t have to apologize, Abby.”

“I’m just not quite ready to end up on a Worst-Dressed List,” she jokes weakly, but neither of them laugh.  It’s just a little too close to being true.  

Marcus is very careful about deflecting attention away from Abby and her town.  He’s friends with a lot of beautiful women and he usually takes one of them to the red carpet events Abby finds too terrifying to even consider.  He has a nice comfortable arrangement with a young actress friend of his named Lexa, a rising young romantic comedy star whose agents have been very blunt with her about not coming out as a lesbian until she’s “more reliably bankable,” so she and Marcus are often each other’s red carpet safety net.  Abby likes Lexa.  They had lunch once when Abby was in L.A. for work.  Every time an awards thing comes up, Marcus always asks Abby if she’d like to go, and she always suggests he take Lexa instead.  All it would take, she reminds him, is one sharp-eyed music journalist, and the whole house of cards would come tumbling down.  Which is everybody’s nightmare.

So Marcus goes on appearing in public with scores of different lovely women and journalists keep breathlessly speculating about who “The Woman” might be and Abby continues living the calm, quiet life she built for herself, which Marcus gets to share when he comes to visit.

But it doesn’t go both ways.

Abby’s town will always protect her.  New York City never will.

“I’ll come,” she tells him, “if we can be normal people for the weekend.  If you can be Marcus, and not Marcus Kane.”

“I’ll do the best I can,” he tells her, but then she hears that little lift in his voice again.

“What?” she demands.  “What are you plotting?”

“A small private party,” he insists, and she can hear him grinning through the phone.  “Just like you asked.  I promise.”

Jake never liked black-and-white movies.

This was a fight they had many times.  “Casablanca is a classic!” Abby would insist, causing Jake to roll his eyes.

“No, Rocky is a classic,” was his inevitable rebuttal.  “Casablanca is just old.”

“It’s considered one of the greatest films of all time.”

Jake would dismiss this with a handwave.  “It doesn’t even have any explosions in it.”

“It’s a war movie, of course it has explosions,” Abby would retort, though she had not seen it in so many years she could not always reliably remember whether or not this was true.  And so on and so forth, ad infinitum, until Jake would smack her on the ass and make her laugh and they’d forget what they were arguing about because kissing was a much better use of the couch than watching a movie anyway.

But Marcus loves old movies as much as she does.  Just one of the many small constant reminders that this relationship is profoundly different from her last one.  Not better or worse, not more or less, but endlessly, constantly, impossibly different, in ways she is still discovering.

They’d watched The Thin Man together on the couch one night, three or four days after he’d first arrived on her doorstep, the whole world still reeling.  He’d been clicking through the cable channels, trying to find something that wasn’t another replay of the same sickening footage of the plane smashing into the towers, and had landed on a marathon of Myrna Loy films on one of the classic movie networks, The Thin Man just starting.  “I love this movie,” he’d said absently, almost to himself more than to her, and Abby turned from where she sat beside him to rest her forehead against the soft blue cotton of his sweater, and began to cry.  He cupped her cheek in his hand and tilted her face up to regard her with confusion and a degree of worry that teetered on the edge of panic.  But through the tears she was smiling.

“You sounded like you,” she said softly.  “Just now.  When you said that.  It was the first time since you’ve gotten here that you sounded like yourself again.”

He didn’t say anything.  He knew exactly what she meant.

So she rested her head on his shoulder, curled up into the cradle of his arm, and they watched Nick and Nora Charles quip and banter and toss back oceans of champagne and solve murders in glamorous 1920’s New York, along with their faithful dog Asta, and for an hour and a half they forgot about everything that wasn’t the movie and each other, and Abby fell asleep in bed that night with her head pillowed on his bare chest, listening to his heartbeat and thinking to herself that maybe such a thing as happiness was really possible.

They’ve watched it dozens of times in the intervening years, and it has lost none of its charm, which makes it perhaps inevitable as Marcus’ suggestion for their Halloween costume.

“Why are we dressing up? I thought we were just having a small, casual party,” she asks suspiciously, when he calls to make the suggestion, and she hears him hesitate on the other end of the line for just a moment before carefully answering, “ . . . You never said ‘casual.’”

“I definitely did.”

“Small. I agreed to small.”

“Marcus – “

“Clarke will never forgive me if I don’t make you wear a costume this year.”

“Marcus –”

“Is that Marcus?” asks Clarke, strolling in from the other room as if on cue (which she might be; it’s entirely possible that he texted her).  “He showed me your costumes and they’re so cool.”

So that, of course, is the end of that. Nick and Nora it is.  (He’s even managed to locate a stuffed wire fox terrier.)

Marcus has opted for the costumes from the Christmas party scene, with Nora in a floaty tiered confection of black-and-white striped chiffon, hair curled into sleek Marcelle waves, and Nick in a dapper pinstriped suit and white pocket square, hair slicked back, beard shaved off once again into a perfect tiny handlebar mustache. (“You could just recycle your Gomez costume,” she’d pointed out when he sent the photos, which he rebutted with indignation.  “Abby, this is a completely different suit.”)

He’s also decided the party should be held in one of the private banquet rooms at the old Sutton Club Hotel, where Dashiell Hammett wrote The Thin Man, a decision he plays off to Abby as merely aggressive commitment to the theme, but she knows better.  It’s to protect her, and their guests, from being seen coming in or out of his apartment, which is never free from the watchful eyes of paparazzi. 

If they’d had the party at Marcus’ apartment, Abby would never be able to let down her guard, too worried about being spotted.

But anyone can enter a hotel and get into an elevator and go up to the sixth floor and give their name to the pair of unsmiling security guards (incognito in hotel uniforms) outside Event Room C, and close the door behind them, without People Magazine being any the wiser.

They spend the nights before and after the party in the hotel.  It feels like a sinful indulgence to share a king-sized bed with Marcus after so many nights curled up together in the center of the full-sized mattress she’d bought for a house she thought she would always live in alone,  and which she has always felt superstitious about trading in for a roomier one now that an extremely tall man who sometimes hogs the covers is sharing her bed on a semi-regular basis.  It feels too much like tempting fate.  So they’ve simply gotten used to it, sleeping tangled up together in the center of the only-just-big-enough mattress.  The gleaming white linens and pillow-top  at the Sutton Place are an unimaginable luxury.  Though they still sleep tangled up together in the center anyway.  Old habits.

Marcus will not let Abby help with, or even see, the decorations until it’s time for the party.  He has not even shown her the guest list.  It’s impossible to shake the worry that he has perhaps adhered too strictly to the letter of the law (“small”) while entirely discarding the spirit of it (will they be drinking thousand-dollar champagne? Is she going to have to make small talk with Sting again?).  She dresses alone in their room (he put his suit on hours ago and is downstairs with the caterers), and realizes she feels oddly vulnerable without Clarke.  It’s only Halloween, it’s not Thanksgiving or Christmas, she knows that, but it’s the first holiday they’ve ever spent apart.  She would feel safer walking into a room full of strangers in a 1920’s movie costume if her daughter was there to zip up her dress and pin up the back of her hair and hold her hand.

But Clarke’s not here, she’s at Mickey’s Halloween Ball with her grandparents, wearing a pair of orange neon light-up ears and beaming with joy and texting her mother picture after picture of the parade and the rides and the alarming number of shopping bags slowly accruing in her Cinderella-themed hotel room, which means Abby has to make an entrance on her own into a room full of famous strangers, which is basically her nightmare.

Her heart pounds in her chest as she puts the finishing touches on her bright red lipstick, closes the hotel room door behind her, takes the elevator down two floors, says hello to Marcus’ security guards, who wave her past, and then opens the white and gold door.

“Surprise!” says Marcus, and Abby’s heart stops when she realizes she knows everyone in the room.

Marcus didn’t throw a fancy Halloween party for all his famous friends to meet his girlfriend and shove her uncomfortably into a spotlight she doesn’t want. 

He threw a fancy Halloween party as a gift for her, and filled it with all the friends she left behind when she moved out of the city.

He kept his promise; by Marcus standards, 30 people counts as “small”, so she’s willing to allow it.  Because every single one of them is a person that she loves and misses and thought she’d never see again.  The elderly Italian couple who lived next door to her and Jake for six years, who babysat Clarke when the daycare was closed and brought pans of meatballs in Sunday gravy over every week so the broke young parents could eat at least one home-cooked meal.  The two nurses who worked under her the whole time she was at Sloan-Kettering, who’d become her right and left hand, and who had been devastated when she left.  The priest who’d married them and said Jake’s funeral.  The parents of Clarke’s best friends from day care.  And more than a dozen others, friends of hers, friends of Jake’s, people she has missed since the day she left but couldn’t quite bear to face again for fear of reopening old wounds.  People she’d thought, so often, about calling, or visiting, or emailing, but hadn’t, because what if it turned out she wasn’t ready to spend time with anyone who had their own memories of Jake?

But they’re here, they’re all here, and they’re mingling with friends of Marcus’ who she actually likes, the ones who don’t terrify her.  No Cynthia Nixon, no Thelonious J.  But she recognizes his drummer and bass player and road crew, she recognizes his old roommates from the shitty Queens apartment he was living in when she first met him, she recognizes the bartender from the East Village dive where he used to play every Thursday and who always snuck him a free beer when Marcus was too broke to pay for it himself.

These are their real people.  These are their real friends.  This is Marcus Kane’s real New York.

She’s so overwhelmed by the sea of smiling faces in front of her that she doesn’t notice until a few minutes have passed and she’s been hugged by everyone in the room how perfect everything else is.  The decorations, simple and elegant in black and white and gold.  The food, indulgent but not so expensive that it makes Abby uncomfortable, and no pretentious hotel waiters; just trays heaped with crab cakes and spinach tartlets and chocolate truffles all over the room, for everyone to graze to their heart’s content. 

No bartender, either; Marcus has taken on this job himself.

“’The important thing is the rhythm,’” she hears him quoting Nick Charles cheerfully to her old neighbors as she approaches the bar.  “’Always have rhythm in your shaking. Now a Manhattan you shake to fox-trot time, a Bronx to two-step time, a dry martini you always shake to waltz time.’”

The neighbors are unimpressed enough with Marcus Kane’s fame and fortune to roll their eyes at this ever so faintly as they take their dry martini, and Abby feels the tension in her spine unknit for the first time since Marcus said the words “Come to New York with me” a month ago.

Her friends are talking to Marcus Kane as though he is a normal person.  As though he is simply the man Abby loves.  A man wearing the costume of a film noir detective, a man who cut decorations out of gold paper himself and taught himself how to shake a Manhattan to fox-trot time and who has spent so many years listening so carefully to everything Abby has ever said to him that he knew every single person she would want to see in that room.  Marcus is already a star by now, Marcus has opened for U2 all over Europe and “The Girl Inside the Mountain” is already piling up an awful lot of zeroes in that bank account that will pay Clarke’s way to college in a few short years.  But nobody mentions this.  They let him leave all of that on the other side of the door for tonight.

And none of them have forgotten Jake.

On the contrary, he’s everywhere, everyone mentions him, everyone tells stories about him, everyone asks if Clarke still has his eyes.  Does Abby remember the year she tried to make Jake hand out raisins instead of candy because it was healthier, so he retaliated by purchasing an industrial-sized bag of king-sized Snickers bars.  Or the time they’d made a green Jello mold full of gummy eyeballs and it had worked flawlessly as a Halloween decoration but looked too weird to eat, sitting untouched in the center of the snack table until everyone went home and Jake threw it away, but left one gummy eyeball in the bottom of Abby’s coffee mug to make her scream the next morning.

It has never occurred to Abby how deeply it would heal her heart to talk about Jake, to hear other people’s stories about him, to know how much he was missed by people who weren’t her lover or her child.

She needed this, and she didn’t even know it.

But Marcus did.

She’s wondered, from time to time, whether her old friends, the people who shared her life when she shared it with Jake, would look on her relationship with Marcus as a betrayal.  Perhaps it’s this, in part, that’s kept her from coming back to the city. 

But she needn’t have worried.

All of them see it.

When they look over at Marcus in the corner, brushing a loose curl out of Abby’s eyes, they smile, every one of them.

“Good for her,” they’ll all say to their spouses in the taxis on the way home.  “I’m glad she’s happy.”

[notesonfilm1]

Day 8 - Sammy and Rosy Get Laid (Stephen Frears, UK, 1987)

Day 8 – Sammy and Rosy Get Laid (Stephen Frears, UK, 1987)

  Day 8: I was nominated by Andrew Grimes Griffin – One movie poster a day for 10 days. The no explanation bit is annoying people so: I loved British cinema in the 80s. The diversity: The Long Good Friday, A Private Function, Mona Lisa, The Merchant-Ivories, Dance with a Stranger, Brittania Hospital, The Greenways and Jarmans, the Bill Forsyths. And these of the top of my head. All were much…

[version103]

Latin Names - Female: B

BATHILDIS: Latinized form of Old High German Bathild, meaning "fight-battle." BATILDIS: Variant spelling of Latin Bathildis, meaning "fight-battle." BAUCIS: Latin form of Greek Baukis, of unknown meaning. In mythology, this is the name of the wife of Philemon. They were the only couple in Tyana who were hospitable to the disguised gods Zeus and Hermes. BELLA: Latin name derived from the word bella, meaning "beautiful." It is the feminine form of masculine bello, meaning "handsome." BELLATRIX: From the Latin name of a star in the constellation Orion, meaning "female warrior." BELLONA: Roman name derived from the Latin word bellum ("to fight"), hence "warlike." In mythology, this is the name of a goddess of war. The English word belligerent ("war-bearing") was derived from the same root. Bellona predates both Mars and Ares and may have been the Romans' first war deity. In art she is usually depicted wearing a helmet and carrying a weapon. She is equated with Greek Enyo. BENEDICTA: Feminine form of Latin Benedictus, meaning "blessed." BERENICE: Latin form of Macedonian Greek Berenike, meaning "bringer of victory." In the bible, this is the name of the eldest daughter of Herod Agrippa. BERENGARI: Short form of Latin Berengaria, meaning "bear-spear." BERENGARIA: Feminine form of Latin Beringarius, meaning "bear-spear." BERNICE: Latin form of Greek Bernike, meaning "bringer of victory." In the bible, this is the name of the eldest daughter of Herod Agrippa. This is the form used in the Authorized Version. BOTILDA: Latin form of Scandinavian Bodil, meaning "battle of revenge." BRIGID: Short form of Latin Brigida, meaning "exalted one." BRIGIDA: Latin form of Irish Gaelic Bríghid, meaning "exalted one." BRIGITTA: Older form of Latin Brigida, meaning "exalted one." BRITANNIA: Latin name for the personification of the British Empire, meaning "Britain." BRITTANIA: Variant spelling of Latin Britannia, meaning "Britain."

[superheroshome]

Superheros home Top 5 Anime to Watch in 2019

HI Everyone, finally June has started and We are in middle of 2018. and this year we got so many amazing anime to watch. Some new seasons also arrived this year. But half year still left. So, we are listing top 5 anime which you can watch before ending this year.

Here are Top 5 Anime to Watch in 2019

5. Baruto Naruto’s next generation

�� Baruto naruto’s next generation started in april, 2017 and a sequel of Naruto. Story goes 10 years after war where Naruto and the other’s are living in peace seeing their next ninja generation to grow and starting their ninja way. 60 episodes already aired and still continue with every week’s thursday a new episode is airing. Series began with a figth between baruto and kawaki (an unkown enemy) who destroyed konaha village and saying that Naruto is no more there. And fight began. if you have’t watch, then you should watch this in 2018.

4. One Punch Man

One punch man is a amazing anime. Saitama (one punch man) the most powerful superhero in world but underrated by all people around him, Who can kill anyone with one blow of his single punch. But he didn’t get any decent fight from anyone equal to his power and soon he struggles with depression and joined hero association. It aired around 2 years ago, In his first season it got only 12 episode but thats enough to make you its fan. It confirms that this anime will got his 2nd season at the end of this year.

3. Tokyo Ghoul

Tokyo ghoul is dark fantasy anime, which became very popular around the world since it aired. Story follows a collage student named ken kaneki, Who met a girl named Rize Kamishiro in a coffee shop and asked for a date. Soon he finds that rize is a ghoul and wants to eat him. But both get caught in a accident and kaneki got taken to the hospital in a very critical situation as for Rize she died. Then doctors have to transplant Rize’s organs to Kaneki for save him. As result he became half ghoul. Here’s start the journey of ken kaneki as a ghoul. Tokyo ghoul got 3 seasons 3rd season currently airing every monday.

2. Nanatsu no Taizai ( 7 Deadly Sins)

If you are finding a Romantic Comedy action adventure anime, then you should watch Nanatsu no Taizai/7 Deadly Sins. Series follows a country Brittania protected by holy knights in which 7 deadly sins ranked for as coups for protecting the kingdom. However one day during an attack highly ranked king’s family member killed, Remours says that 7 deadly sins killed him. And then they banished but they are still alive.

1. Attack on Titan

If you haven’t watch Attack on titan until now, then you are really missing an awesome anime. Attack on titan have great animation, which can amaze you. That’s why its on the top of the list. The story of attack on titan goes around Eren Yeager, Mikasa Ackerman and their friend Armin Arlert. These three once lived in Shinganshina wall. But one day two titans attack these wall in which Eren Yeager’s mother died and here’s the adventures start of those three. In the first season of Attack on Titan anime has only 12 episodes. But these 12 episodes are enough to make popular Attack on titan & it’s characters around the world. Attack on titan season 2 also aired and Attack on titan season 3 will launch in july this year.

So, these are Top 5 Anime to Watch in 2019. I hope you liked the article, let me know what’s your favourite anime in comments.

  The post Top 5 Anime to Watch in 2019 appeared first on Superheros home.

[vegas-glitz]

The Ordeal of Vernon Oneal: The Tale of President Kennedy's Initially Casket

http://topicsofnote.com/?p=9926&utm_source=SocialAutoPoster&utm_medium=Social&utm_campaign=Tumblr

November 22, 1963. Even ahead of President Kennedy's near-lifeless system was eliminated from the presidential limousine at Parkland Clinic, United Press International's preliminary reports that "a few pictures have been fired at President John F. Kennedy's motorcade nowadays" was racing across teletype machines nationwide. Holding a transistor radio to his ear, a single among the the millions of Us citizens who monitored the breaking news was Vernon B. Oneal, a Dallas funeral director whose organization also integrated an ambulance services.

At around 12:46 CST, only sixteen minutes right after JFK was shot, and 47 minutes right before Assistant White Residence Secretary Malcolm Kilduff officially declared the President's demise to the world, Oneal's phone rang. It was Key Services agent Clint Hill calling from Parkland Healthcare facility, advising Oneal to pick his greatest casket and transport it to the medical center "as soon as feasible."

"Is it for the President?" Oneal asked.

"Sure," Hill replied, "it is for the President of the United States."

Grasping the urgency of Hill's directive, Oneal bolted into his showroom and selected his signature model, an 8 hundred pound solid bronze casket named the "Brittania". Manufactured by the Elgin Casket Firm, it was double-walled and could be hermetically sealed. Match for a president or king, Oneal's cost was $3,995.

As his career dictated, Vernon Oneal was prepared to discreetly comfort and ease and support the bereaved Kennedy household in each and every way possible. At Parkland, he whispered phrases of sympathy to Jacqueline Kennedy. He and two of his associates have been then assisted by nurses in cautiously wrapping JFK's continues to be in several sheets and plastic, hoping the blood and brain issue nevertheless seeping from the huge wound in the President's head would not stain the casket's plush satin shirring.

Ahead of departing Parkland Oneal dutifully stood by Mrs. Kennedy and the casket as the late President's White Household aides and Magic formula Company brokers endured an ugly shouting match with a area official named Dr. Earl Rose, who insisted that JFK's human body ought to, by regulation, be held for autopsy in Dallas County. Oneal experienced each and every correct to assume that his services would continue to be expected all the way to President Kennedy's burial web-site, and he preferred Mrs. Kennedy to be certain of his loyalty and respect the comprehensive scope of his establishment's services were being at her solicitation, and the person was identified to go to any avail, irrespective of whether the funeral be held in Washington or Massachusetts, to satisfy her just about every wish.

Then, instantly, Oneal's hopes were being dashed. The Solution Services brokers and JFK's most loyal aides had no faster brushed Dr. Rose aside when the casket that contains the assassinated President was precipitously loaded into the rear of his Cadillac hearse, the identical automobile he and his personnel used to produce the bronze coffin to Parkland Medical center. It had been Oneal's intention to generate Kennedy's physique immediately to his funeral residence for embalming and the scheduling of funeral arrangements, but the Magic formula Services commandeered the hearse and an agent advised him to adhere to in another vehicle, neglecting to convey to...Oneal that their genuine location was Air Pressure One at Appreciate Subject airport.

Together with a law enforcement motorbike escort, a few automobiles began pulling out of Parkland's support highway: Oneal's hearse, a car whole of Mystery Support brokers and JFK's aides, and the last carrying Oneal and two of his staff members. The funeral director sensed one thing serious was amiss when he observed his hearse transform left in the path of the airport alternatively than appropriate to his mortuary. Brokers in the 2nd auto radioed their counterparts at Love Subject, instructing them to permit "the to start with two cars and trucks only" outside of the airport fence near Air Power 1. Under no instances would Oneal and his personnel, or any other car, be permitted to enter the location in the vicinity of the presidential jet.

Guaranteed ample, brokers enable the to start with two vehicles go through a fence within view of the aircraft, but halted Oneal's sedan. The undertaker was furious, and justifiably so. The martyred President was inside of his casket and his coach, equally supposedly sure for his funeral dwelling. The agents overlooked his protests, leaving Dallas law enforcement officers to guarantee the beleaguered businessman that the hearse would be returned to him the second Air Drive A single took flight. Vernon Oneal felt like a spare tire. The United States government had utilised him to the extent their principal requirements ended up happy - afterwards dumping him at the gate.

Possibly the final insult to Vernon Oneal involved payment of the coffin by itself. He frequently sent a $3,900 bill to Jacqueline Kennedy for approximately a year but she hardly ever replied. Finally, fourteen months just after JFK's assassination, in January 1965, the federal government paid out him a sum of $3,160. But by then Oneal was living a general public relations nightmare his attempts to gather payment from Mrs. Kennedy have been widely revealed and his mortuary experienced an agonizing 50 % fall in company.

Apparently, Oneal's casket was not used in the interment of John Fitzgerald Kennedy at Arlington Nationwide Cemetery. Its handles and end were being damaged at Like Area as the Secret Service agents hurriedly struggled to maneuver as a result of Air Pressure One's narrow doorway. In addition, blood from Kennedy's head wound did ooze through the protective sheets and plastic, ruining the casket's satin inside. The flaws were being famous prior to the autopsy at Bethesda Naval Hospital, ensuing in JFK's closest aides finding out a new, more pricey casket at Gawler Funeral House in Washington's Georgetown district, being a extra beautiful illustration manufactured of 5-hundred-year-outdated African mahogany. Gawler also organized the late President's overall body for burial subsequent an autopsy at Bethesda.

For several yrs the whereabouts of the Oneal casket remained a carefully-guarded magic formula. Understandably, the Kennedy family members did not want the artifact to fall into the wrong hands and come to be a grotesque sideshow relic. It was eventually disclosed that, in 1966, the casket was purposely loaded aboard a C-130 Air Drive transport aircraft and unceremoniously deposited into the depths of the Atlantic Ocean, hardly ever to be witnessed yet again.

Resource by John Burke Jovich

[jaeame-blog]

Stoke's fall is not a recent development | Mark Hughes

An era ended at the Britannia last Saturday. Hughes sent spies to watch Traore, 21, star for Ajax in last Thursday's Europa League semi-final. Paul 'The Chief' Harragon's toughness is legendary. Pictured are youngsters who received their Chief Scout awards.

Within days a vehicle appeared outside the then Brittania stadium with a 'Hughes out' banner. It can't ever be said Stoke boss Mark Hughes hasn't been backed in the transfer market, which I'm sure he wouldn't deny himself. It's as a confronting a diagnosis as any person can receive but as he lay in a hospital bed following his initial surgery to remove a high-grade tumour from his brain, Mark Hughes vowed to help others.The NRL, in conjunction with Channel Nine, Fox League, Macquarie Radio Network and the Mark Hughes Foundation, have teamed up to raise awareness for a much-needed cause through 'Beanie for Brain Cancer' round. Stoke manager Mark Hughes has ruled out the club making any major signings in the summer but insists he is still hungry to achieve things with the Potters.

As Muskogee County's population of senior citizens grow, family members often end up the caregiver with many not realizing help is only a phone call away. Stoke City boss Mark Hughes says there'll be more chances for their young players next season.Lee Grant might not be able to get into Mark Hughes' Stoke City team at the moment, but he was the Potters' main man again when the club held their annual player of the season dinner. Stoke boss Mark Hughes isn't planning sweeping changes to his squad over the summer and warned he will have to sell before he buys. A 33-year-old man who shot himself in the foot with a sawn-off shotgun hobbled from the dock on Monday to start a 40-month jail sentence. Meanwhile, Bertrand Traore is on Stoke's wish-list as Mark Hughes weighs up a summer move for the Chelsea striker. A 4-1 defeat against Arsenal in their last game was a result that guaranteed a finish outside of the top 10 for the first time in Mark Hughes' tenure at Stoke. One look at Chief and you see it, the sheer size of the man, the determined glint in his eye, the scars over the eyebrows, the slight limp in his walk.

[brittaniaking]

BIOGRAFÍA

Las gemelas Brittania y Bethany King nacieron un 25 de marzo de 2001 en el hospital central de Seattle, en Washington.

Su madre, Darlene King, era doctora en el mismo hospital; y su padre, Alexander King, era jefe de policía de la ciudad.

Eran una familia feliz y casi tan perfecta que parecían tenerlo todo. Brittania y Bethany tenían una relación muy especial y estuvieron siempre muy unidas. Eran dos niñas alegres, divertidas, extrovertidas y llenas de luz.

Sin embargo, la felicidad se truncó cuando la vida asestó un duro golpe a la familia King.

El 25 de marzo de 2011, día en que las gemelas cumplían 10 años, el coche de la familia King, en el que viajaban Alexander y sus dos hijas, sufrió un grave accidente automovilístico.

Brittania no recuerda nada de aquel accidente más que los gritos de su hermana, luces, fuego, el ruido metálico causado por la carrocería del coche al impactar decenas de veces contra el asfalto dando vueltas de campana, cientos de golpes, el sabor ferroso de la sangre, el ruido de cristales rotos y dolor, mucho dolor.

Despertó dos días después de aquel accidente en la cama de un hospital, y recibió la trágica noticia de que su padre y su hermana habían fallecido.

Desde aquel instante su carácter cambió radicalmente. Se convirtió en una persona fría, seria, distante y de pocas palabras; y es que, como ella misma decía, le faltaba la mitad de su vida.

Dos años más tarde de aquel accidente (en el año 2013), Darlene, la madre de Brittania y Bethany, contrajo matrimonio por segunda vez.

Darlene se casó con Archer Murray, un viajo amigo de la familia a quien Alexander consideraba un verdadero hermano. Archer era el gerente de un hospital psiquiátrico en Seattle y trabajaba como psiquiatra dentro de la misma institución.

El matrimonio de su madre supuso un duro golpe para Brittania, quien aún había sido incapaz de superar el duelo por la muerte de su padre y de su hermana.

Sin embargo, las intenciones de Archer no eran tan nobles como pudieran parecer a simple vista y a Brittania pronto no le empezaron a faltar razones para no confiar en él.

Archer maltrataba física y psicológicamente a Brittania cada vez que estaban a solas; mientras al mismo tiempo, fingía ser el marido perfecto ante los demás.

Poco a poco, Archer fue envenenando la mente de Darlene, haciéndole creer que Brittania le odiaba porque le veía como un sustituto de Alexander y que no soportaba ver a su propia madre saliendo adelante con su nueva familia mientras que ella era incapaz de dejar de vivir en el pasado, un pasado que la acabaría destruyendo.

Los constantes maltratos de Archer hacia Brittania no eran los propios de un psicópata carente de emociones, si no que tenían una razón.

A finales del año 2010, Alexander le reveló a su mejor amigo Archer que había contratado, al nacimiento de sus hijas, una póliza de seguro valorada en diez millones de dólares a favor de las dos pequeñas. Póliza que solo sus hijas podrían hacer efectiva si a él le ocurriera algo. Si las hijas fallecían, sería Darlene quien podría hacer efectiva la póliza del seguro.

Lo que Alexander no sabía es que Archer estaba inmiscuido en negocios sucios de tráfico de drogas y trata de blancas, y se encontraba en una situación muy delicada. Archer le debía doce millones de dólares a una organización criminal con la que había hecho numerosos negocios pero que, tras varios fracasos, habían acabado en deudas.

Cuando Archer descubrió la existencia de aquella póliza de seguro, contrató a un grupo de sicarios para que acabaran con la vida de Alexander y sus dos hijas. Solo así Darlene sería la única beneficiaria del dinero del seguro; y él, aprovechándose de la de tristeza y debilidad de la mujer, iría entrando en su hogar poco a poco para ayudarle a sobrellevar el dolor.

El problema surgió cuando, de las dos gemelas, Brittania sobrevivió, convirtiéndose así en la única beneficiaria del dinero de la póliza de seguro cuando alcanzara la mayoría de edad.

Por lo tanto, Brittania era un obstáculo para Archer. Un obstáculo que debía de esquivar de algún modo que no fuera tan evidente como un nuevo fallecimiento dentro de la familia.

El siguiente duro golpe para Brittania vino cuando un año más tarde de la boda (en 2014), nació su hermanastra, Alexia Bethney. Nombre que le fue puesto en honor a su padre y hermana fallecidos.

La relación de Brittania con Alexia fue fría y distante desde el primer momento. Brittania no la odiaba, era su hermana y no podía odiarla, pero sentía que no podía quererla sin faltarle el respeto a su hermana Bethany.

Las discusiones en el núcleo familiar aumentaron. Archer seguía maltratando a Brittania tanto física como psicológicamente cuando estaban a solas.

Fueron numerosas las ocasiones en las que Brittania imploró ayuda a su madre Darlene, pero Archer se había asegurado de manipular psicológicamente la situación para hacer ver, ante Darlene y el resto de familiares y amigos, que desde el accidente Brittania padecía numerosos trastornos psicológicos que no sería capaz de superar si no era con ayuda profesional.

La situación en el núcleo familiar se volvió crítica cuando sobre el cuerpo de Alexia comenzaron a aparecer moretones y rasguños. Darlene era incapaz de saber qué estaba pasando con su pequeña y, por supuesto, era incapaz de sospechar de Archer.

Una tarde Archer se acercó a Brittany solo para susurrarle unas palabras: "¿qué se sentirá al perder a una segunda hermana?"

Fue en ese instante en el que Brittania se dio cuenta de que el amor que sentía por Alexia era muy superior al que ella pensaba.

Sin dudarlo un instante y sin pensar que no era más que un engaño más, corrió a la habitación de su hermana y descubrió que no respiraba pero que aún tenía pulso. Sin dudarlo un instante, empezó a realizar sobre la pequeña las técnicas de reanimación cardiopulmonar.

No tardó en llegar su madre y lo único que Brittania recuerda es recibir una fuerte bofetada por parte de su madre, ver su rostro anegado en lágrimas de dolor, furia e ira, y escuchar las palabras: "¡¿Qué demonios estás haciéndole?!"

Darlene jamás creyó que lo único que había hecho Brittania aquella tarde fue salvarle la vida a su propia hermana.

Aprovechándose de la situación que el mismo había provocado y de la desesperación de Darlene, Archer emitió un falso diagnóstico sobre Brittania en el que indicaba que padecía varios trastornos mentales y que era necesario su ingreso urgente en una Institución mental.

Así, en el año 2015, con 14 años de edad, Brittania pasó a formar parte de los hospitalizados en el Hospital Psiquiátrico de Archer.

Estando allí, era Archer quien se encargaba de suministrarle la medicación a Brittania; medicación que no eran más que drogas para provocarle un comportamiento errático y alucinaciones.

El objetivo que perseguía Archer era lograr demostrar la incapacidad mental absoluta de Britannia, para que un juez otorgara a Darlene la capacidad de administrar todos los bienes de Brittania, y así poder reclamar el dinero de la póliza de seguro de vida.

Brittania pronto empezó a dejar de tomar las pastillas que Archer le llevaba y, al ser consciente de su situación y del futuro que tenía por delante, intentó huir de la institución mental.

Cuando estuvo a punto de tocar la libertad con la yema de los dedos, su plan se destruyó y fue atrapada por los vigilantes de la institución psiquiátrica.

Tras aquel intento de huida, Archer se dio cuenta de que Brittania no estaba tomando la medicación, solo le engañaba.

Para evitar más riesgos, aquel mismo día Archer decidió que lo más oportuno era acabar con su vida administrándole una dosis excesiva de calmantes y hacerlo pasar por un suicidio.

Tenía a su favor a Darlene quien en un juicio testificaría que Brittania había sido capaz de intentar acabar con su propia hermana, tenía a su favor sus propios informes psiquiátricos; y ahora, gracias al error de Brittania, tenía a su favor la testificación de los vigilantes de seguridad. Archer era consciente de que nadie dudaría de la veracidad de ese suicidio.

Tras administrarle aquella dosis excesiva de calmantes y para evitar cualquier sospecha, Archer llamó a los servicios de emergencia y Brittania fue trasladada al hospital al borde de la muerte.

Sin embargo, en contra de todo pronóstico, lograron estabilizarla en el hospital y, aunque su estado de salud era débil, había esperanzas de que saliera adelante.

Fue durante su estancia en el hospital donde Brittania conoció a Jax (actual exnovio), un chico de 20 años que se encontraba hospitalizado tras haber sufrido un grave accidente de moto huyendo de la policía.

Poco a poco Brittania comenzó a confiar en Jax, y encontró valor de contarle la verdad de lo que estaba padeciendo, siendo así Jax una de las primeras personas en creer que Brittania no tenía problemas mentales, o quizá simplemente no quería creerlo.

Estando en el hospital, Jax cada vez pasaba más tiempo con Brittania. Incluso dormía en una silla de la habitación de Brittania junto a su cama, de modo que, sin siquiera saberlo la estaba protegiendo de Archer.

Al ver la amistad entre Brittania y Jax, la mentalidad de Darlene poco a poco empezó a cambiar.

Aún creía en Archer con fe ciega y creía que su hija padecía trastornos mentales; pero veía que la institución solo estaba agravando los problemas de su hija.

Así fue como Darlene decidió pedir ayuda a su hermano Thomas, agente del FBI, para que la ayudara a sacar a su hija de la institución ya que Archer se negaba a hacerlo alegando que Brittania era un peligro para la familia y para Alexia, quien solo contaba con 2 años de edad.

A pesar de los enfrentamientos entre Archer y Darlene, el hombre tuvo que mostrarse flexible para que su matrimonio no peligrara; y, con la ayuda de Thomas, Brittania regresó a casa.

La convivencia en casa volvió a ser un auténtico infierno. Archer volvió a maltratar tanto física como psicológicamente a Brittania cada vez que tenía oportunidad, hacía crecer a la gente que la joven se autolesionaba buscando así la excusa perfecta para volver a internarla, le administraba drogas a traición de modos casi indetectables y Alexia volvio a presentar lesiones en su piel.

La única vía de escape que tenía Brittania era Jax, quien desde su estancia en el hospital se convirtió en su mejor amigo y, cuando la joven cumplió 16 años, en su primera pareja.

Jax era la única persona que siempre creyó y confió en ella, y nunca dudó de su palabra; sin embargo, él mismo estaba metido en demasiados problemas con la policía por lo que su opinión no tenía ningún valor. Aún así, Brittania pasaba todo el día con Jax y evitaba estar en su propia casa siempre que fuera posible.

Tras una violenta discusión entre Brittania y Archer, en la que Jax intervino enfrentándose a Archer y en favor de Brittania, la joven decidió huir de casa y ese mismo día, Jax y ella se fueron a vivir a Nueva York.

La madre de Brittania contaba con solo dos opciones, volver a internar a su hija y destruirla del todo, o depositar una ínfima confianza en ella y en Jax, y dejarla volar con solo 16 años.

La mujer optó por la segunda opción aunque le suplicó a su hermano Thomas que siempre tuviera un ojo encima de ella para cuidarla sin que ella lo supiera.

La pareja se fue a vivir a Nueva York pero su relación pronto comenzó a ser altamente tóxica y conflictiva por ambas partes.

Cansada de discusiones y de continuas rupturas que siempre acababan cuando se reencontraban una vez más y mediaba alcohol, sexo y drogas, Brittania hizo lo que siempre hacía cuando sentía que su vida se complicaba: huir. Solo que esta vez huía sola.

[christusleeft]

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Collision sends vehicle into house and five to hospital

David Ritchie,Special to The Hamilton Spectator A vehicle impacted a house on Ivon Avenue following a collision with another car Saturday afternoon.

A two-vehicle collision sent an SUV flying into a house on Ivon Avenue in the east end and five people to hospital Saturday afternoon.

Craig McCleary, superintendent of paramedic services with EMS, said the collision happened at the corner of Ivon and Brittania Avenue at about 4:45 p.m. “It looked like high speed was involved,” he said. Read more