I have been watching this great series on HBO. It is called "From the earth to the moon." It is done by Tom Hanks and Ron Howard. It is as well done as the movie Apollo 13. For a television movie it is really well done and very powerful. I found myself close to tears a few times. I guess you would say that it's a guy's version of a chick movie. The romance in the movie is between the astronauts and the adventure of space travel.
It's funny because the astronauts usually call themselves test pilots. That's where most of them started. It was very enlightening to see and find out about some of the trials and tribulations of the early space program. Now, any time that a rocket is sent into place, no one even thinks about it for more than about three seconds. The only thing that gets people's attention now is when something is going wrong, like with the Mir space station. This got me thinking about some things that have happened in the past.
Some time ago I wrote about one of our employees in our Merrillville store. His name is James P. McCann Sr. Jimmy is Irish as you can tell by his name. He also reminds you of a leprechaun, especially since he's pushing 5'2". I'm giving him the benefit of the doubt. It's kind of funny when he waits on a big and tall customer. The other day he was helping a guy who was at least 6'8" tall and it was quite a sight. Jimmy is a great guy and he has a heart at least twice his size.
If you guys remember, I had written about all the strange things that seem to happen when Jimmy gets around a computer. He tries really hard, but things just seem to happen. He's the guy that every time he started to punch something into the computer, the solar shields on the Russian space station would close up. Jimmy would be entering a dry cleaning order into the computer and then a customer would come and say that there was a mysterious traffic jam on I-65. Traffic would be backed up for miles.
Once all the strange coincidences started happening when Jimmy was operating the computer, I started wondering if he was doing it through some type of electronic communication or was he really a leprechaun. We would take our lunch break together and I asked Jim if he had started watching the HBO series. He said that he did not receive HBO at home and had not watched it. I wondered if in his younger days if he had been interested in the space program. He said he always had. I wondered if he had some sort of telepathic powers.
He told me about living on the far south side of Chicago. The local firehouse was around the corner and Jim spent a lot of time there. He said that sometimes he could even anticipate the alarm going off before it actually did. So I started to question him about what he was doing during a lot of natural disasters that have happened in the world. Now, don't get me wrong, I don't think that every thing that happens bad in the world is Jim's fault. It's just coincidence.
It made me think that maybe we could put Jim's strange powers to use. When the Russian space station was having trouble, Jim was sending messages from the computer. He could be heard saying in a strange soothing voice, "don't worry comrades, we're coming."
I told Jim that we should start directing his mind in the right way. I thought about trying to go to the race track or have him pick lottery tickets. I was wondering if he knew anything about stocks. My mind raced to the riverboats. But even that thought didn't appeal to me. Ill gotten gains are the worst.
Jim makes people feel good just being around him. He's always laughing and smiling. He truly likes to help people. He tells me that he sings in the choir at church, but I think he's probably just a backup, if you know what I mean. His real contribution to the world is his great personality. If you meet him he's kind of a cross between Jimmy Cagney and Jimmy Durante. Funny that they're all named Jimmy. I wish there were more Jimmy's in the world.
Just a short topic to touch on. The other day a fellow called me up that I used to be in the National Guard with. He was talking about how the government is always using acronyms for everything. You know they take the first letter of every word and combine all those letters to make a new word to call something by. Well he was telling me about the newest one that is being used by all the spin doctors at the White House. The word stands "Barack’s In Trouble Call Hillary." Until later...………....ciao. Fred Cicco