Yee-Haw from Branson, Missouri

A colleague of mine had to abandon his own airplane and drive the rest of the way home due to the terrible weather/tornado action in the Midwest. He found himself in Branson, Missouri, a place he'd never been. I'd heard about Branson, have never been there and we talked about whether 5 or 10 years down the road will we be the senior citizens getting off the charter buses to go to the Andy Williams Theater? And how old is Andy these days anyway? 103?

He phoned to describe the place, and then sent these photos. First is the 100-foot chicken. Am not quite sure what this is or why:

Next, how timely: it's the TITANIC! -- Branson style, complete with iceberg.

Speaking of which, today is the 100th anniversary of the sinking, and I have to say that the Titanic has been a lifelong interest of mine. In 7th or 8th grade, I read Walter Lord's Book "A Night to Remember" and was fascinated. I think as children we believe everything has a happy ending and everythingn will be OK, but this wasn't. The book took you minute by minute through the sinking. Walter Lord wrote a similar book called The Day Lincoln Was Shot -- again, a minute by minute narration.

I'll stop and watch most of the Titanic documentaries. PBS had a new one this week which I enjoyed. I am not a huge fan of the new Titanic movie although there are parts of it I'll stop and watch. I wish the entire wreck had been left alone as a sacred burial place and not dredged up for profit. There are so many hundreds of fascinating stories and anecdotes -- for example, I learned on the PBS documentary this week that the crewmembers who went down with the ship were fired "at sea" by the White Star line. It reminded me of 9/11 and the controversy about how long a company pays someone who died in the building.

So now I"m ramblling -- anyone for a bus tour to Branson? We'll need some nice stretchy polyester pants, helmet hairstyles and money for Bingo.