Tonight's picture was taken on July 4 of 2008. This was literally weeks BEFORE Mattie was diagnosed with cancer. We took Mattie to the DC Aquatic Gardens. Another one of my favorite gardens to visit. July is the time to visit these gardens because this is when the water lilies and the lotus flowers are in bloom! They are spectacular! Needless to say it was a hot day, yet Mattie put up with my summer walk requests and of course ALWAYS in tow was a toy car. As you can see, Mattie had one in his left hand!
Quote of the day: When you have a wife who has been a tower of strength and shown more courage than you dreamed existed - that's the finest I know. ~ Lou Gehrig
No one could ever describe me as a baseball fan! I have some appreciation of the game only because Peter loves the Red Sox. Today Peter sent me a link to the MLB 75th anniversary tribute to Lou Gehrig's famous farewell speech, delivered on July 4, 1939. I am not sure what intrigued me more, the fact that this was a tribute speech, or that my friend Margaret just died from the disease named after Lou Gehrig. Needless to say, it made me pause and once again reflect upon my friend and her less than two year battle with this nightmare.
If you are interested in learning more about Lou Gehrig and his life, I included a link below. It gives you some interesting information about his farewell speech! Lou Gehrig was considered the greatest first baseman for the NY Yankees (at the time), and to be diagnosed with such a deadly disease had to be beyond heart wrenching. Yet his farewell speech was thankful, appreciative, NOT bitter, and almost reflective of someone who lived a happy and FULL life! His farewell speech drew a crowd of 61,000 people and it was said that people were in tears, including Lou Gehrig!
An Awful Lot to Live For:
Naturally Hollywood was moved to tears by Lou Gehrig's thoughtful words and wanted to tell Gehrig's life story. Gary Cooper starred in the movie, "Pride of the Yankees." However, in the movie Gehrig's farewell speech was significantly altered, which went against Lou Gehrig's wife's wishes. You can see the differences in speeches at the link below. Do note however, that the MLB tribute video uses the actual Lou Gehrig speech, not the Hollywood version!
Differences in speeches between Lou Gehrig's actual speech and the one used in the Hollywood movie, "Pride of the Yankees:"
http://espn.go.com/mlb/story/_/id/11158994/mlb-lou-gehrig-farewell-speech-gary-cooper-hollywood-version
I leave you with two videos. The first video clip is that of the MLB (Major League Baseball) 75th anniversary tribute to Lou Gehrig's Farewell Speech. The second clip is only a snippet of Lou Gehrig's actual speech. It seems impossible to actually find the total footage of that 277 word speech anywhere on the Internet. I know there is some controversy around the MLB video, because the video has voice overs. Meaning you will not only hear Lou Gehrig, but you will hear other well known first basemen from teams all around the Country today delivering parts of the speech on camera. Some fans take issue with this because they feel these first basemen are either spoiled, do not take the words they are delivering seriously, and the list goes on regarding the commentary which of course may have SOME merit. However, I guess all I would say is.... try to move passed that and capture the message.
MLB Tribute - 75th anniversary
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