June 12th

Today is my birthday and my birthday has always been very special. Not special because it was the day I was born on, but special because of other things that have happened on June 12th. Below are a few "Special June 12ths"

• 1922 Hubs Pruett of the St Louis Browns struck out Babe Ruth three (3) consecutive times.
• 1935 Louisiana Senator Huey P Long made the longest speech on Senate Record - 15 1/2 hours with 150,000 words.
• 1942 Anne Frank received a diary for her 13th birthday. Millions of school children read her diary - The Diary of Anne Frank yearly.
• 1944 Nick Picinich married Clytie Frazier in the rural southern town of Dry Prong, Louisiana.
• 1960 Cynthia Omanda Picinich was born and went home to live with wonderful parents.
• 1997 The United States Department of the Treasure introduced a new counterfeit resistant $50.00 bill.
• 2006 David Emory Laird got fitted for angel wings.

Today at 6:10pm, in his own bed in his own home with his wife and children surrounding him, David Laird lost his battle with cancer. His body may be gone, but the memories and love he left behind will never die.

I like to think that there were several people waiting in line to welcome Mr. Laird to Heaven. I know my daddy was one of the ones in line. He was the one probably talking to everybody around him and not hearing a word they were saying to him. Mr. Laird will know how to communicate with him. Pa (Mr. Laird) will tell Daddy a joke and Daddy will laugh even though he hasn't heard a thing he said.

Here's a joke for Pa: Boudreaux's buddy came over one night and saw that Boudreaux was working on a jig saw puzzle. Over the next few years when the friend came over to visit he would see that Boudreaux was still working on that same puzzle. After the fourth year, Boudreaux was all excited and wanted to show his friend the finished puzzle. Boudreaux told his friend, "I think the box was mis-labeled, it says Jig Saw Puzzle for four to eight years. It only took me four years to put it together."