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A Fine Saturday at Tufts University!

For me there is something special about being on a college campus. During our trip this weekend to Boston Elizabeth interview for Graduate School at two universities. First at Northeastern in Boston City and then yesterday at Tufts University in Medford, a little north of Boston. While Northeastern appeared to be nice the urban nature of the University left the buildings square and sterile!

Northeartern2

View toward Main Northeastern Campus

This is one of the first view we had of the campus at Northeastern, when we drove by the parking garage!

But yesterday was different,  as soon a we set foot on the campus of Tufts we knew we  found a campus that was special! read more

Today in History – Fuchs Convicted of Spying and Elizabeth and Edward Visit Boston!

Klaus_Fuchs_-_police_photographSo who knows who Klaus Fuchs was? I didn’t what I learned today was, that on March 1,1950 Fuchs was convicted of giving US and Allied information about the Manhattan Project to the Soviet Union. From Wikipdedia:

Klaus Emil Julius Fuchs (29 December 1911 – 28 January 1988) was a Germantheoretical physicist and atomic spy who in 1950 was convicted of supplying information from the American, British and Canadian ttp://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atomic_bomb”>atomic bomb research (theManhattan Project) to the USSR during and shortly after World War II. While at the Los Alamos National Laboratory, Fuchs was responsible for many significant theoretical calculations relating to the first fissionweapons and later, the early models of the hydrogen bomb, the first fusionweapon.[1][2] read more

A Final Farewell to Will Marris

So if Thursday night and Friday were hard on my family take that and multiply it about a zillion times and you may come close to how tough it must have been for the Marris and Warrington families. My daughter-in-law Meaghan summed it up when she posted on Facebook:

“The world certainly doesn’t make sense…

No mother and father should have to bury their son, no sister–her brother, or wife–her husband and for sure no little boy should go through life without his best friend, because of cancer.
Marris.” read more

Life’s Stories – Will Marris loses his battle against lung cancer.

Tonight while I was out running errands, my cell phone rang, my heart stopped because the call  was from my son Peter and the call could not be a good one. He asked if his mother was there, I said I wasn’t home and then he told me that his brother-in-law Will Marris had lost his fight against lung cancer and passed away tonight from complications from pneumonia. My heart sank Will has fought lung cancer for three years and we saw him beat everything it had thrown at him and you just thought he was going to beat this last illness too! But the fight was too hard and he lost it! My heart goes out to his wife Nicole and his son Aiden, his sister and my son Missy and Peter and his mother and father Bill and Dianne who now have to face a task that no parent should have to face burying their child and it comes less than a week after Bill buried his father. read more

Life’s Stories – A Tough Week for the Marris Family

You know there are many times in life that I think that my life sucks, sometimes I am correct and other times I just have to look around and I can see that maybe I don’t have it so bad! Certainly over the last few weeks, being tired of being sick and then having my work not go as well as I’d like, mostly a result of my own doing, I have not been enthralled with my life. But over those same weeks I’ve been reading Jonathan Kozol’s Fire in the Ashes:Twenty-Five Years Among the Poorest Children in America and like I said I realize that I don’t have it anywhere near as bad as others have it. At least I don’t have to worry that those rats that are making a racket in the walls will stay in the walls, or that my ten-year old son will soon be dealing drugs, all coupled with a school system that is broken! This morning was another one of those times when I realize that having a cold and cough coupled with a job I may not be happy with is nothing! My daughter-in-law Missy and her parents are dealing with the sudden death last Sunday of Missy’s paternal grandfather James Marris. I’ve only met Mr. Marris a few times but he was a really nice man and based upon the turnout at his viewing this morning I’m not the only one who holds that opinion! Looking at all the pictures and memorabilia at the funeral, you see that he had a happy life that was cut unexpected short. Now it’s enough to have to be dealing with the death of a parent at any age, but the loss of a parent and grandparent are not the only thing that the the Marris family is dealing with today. They are also dealing with a son Will who is battling for his life today! Will has been fighting stage four lung cancer for the last three years currently he is in Virtua Hospital in Voorhees battling PCP pneumonia, Found in patients immunocompromised like himself. He is waiting to be transferred to the University of Pennsylvania Hospital, where his doctors are, but it seems that they can’t get a bed for him! Yesterday, many Facebook friends and family were asked to call ABC-News and anyone else they could to get Will’s story out there and help to get him moved. This morning Will’s wife Nicole asked folks to stop because it wasn’t helping, but to continue to pray that Will will soon be transferred! Anyway, the point is that Will is only 31 years old with a young son a beautiful wife and should have a long life ahead of him instead of fighting for his life. In addition, Will’s parents Bill and Dianne should not have to face the possibility of losing their child especially when it’s added to the pain of losing a parent! So as I sit here and feel bad because I’m coughing and have to work tonight and tomorrow I realize I have nothing to complain about I’ve got a wonderful wife, four great kids and two wonderful daughter in laws! So my prayers go out to Will, wife Nicole, son Aiden, Missy and Peter, and especially Bill and Dianne as well as to people all over the world who are facing tragedies much worse than my puny problems! Whenever, I feel like this, this is the song that comes to mind is Phil Ochs “There But for Fortune” read more

A Hero Passes – R.I.P. – Stan Musial

Last Saturday at the age of 92, one of the greatest baseball players in Major League history passed away. It has almost been 50 years, (Good Lord), since 1965 when my mother stood in line at one of Department Stores in Philadelphia to have a copy of Stan “The Man” Musial’s autobiography autographed. As a fourteen year old in love with baseball I devoured the book because even though he retired in 1963, he was still my favorite player, and reading his story made him even more of a favorite! What a great player and person he was…. read more

Christmas Books to Add to My to Be Read Pile! Oh Boy!

So as we start 2013 let’s take a look at the boat load of wonderful books that I received for Christmas! First there’s the book I received from my daughter Elizabeth, that I am currently reading The Boy in the Suit Case by Lene Kaaberboll and Agnete Frillis. This is the first book in a planned three book series featuring Red Cross worker Nina Borg. Elizabeth picked the book because, I told her after I picked up book two of the series a month or so ago for her at the library, that it said on the cover “Fans of Nordic crime fiction rejoice”,and that I was a fan of Nordic crime fiction, so the book sounded good to me! So far I was right! read more

Happy New Year and Happy Birthday to My Uncle Johnny – We still miss you!

John, wife Jean and Jimmy Ashton

So January 1st for me was usually family get together time with my Father’s family, typically, at my Uncle Ott’s or Kenny’s place. I remember many a good New Year’s Day celebration! It was also Uncle Johnny’s birthday. Johnny was my mother’s oldest brother, born in 1923. Johnny would have been the fourth John Sherrington Ashton a name which dates back to 1814 when the John S Ashton the first was born in Holbeach, England. John’s middle name however, was Howard. I believe that my Great mother Charlotte Trout Regars had a lot to do with naming her grandchildren. John’s middle name was Howard, which is one of Charlotte’s brothers name and my mom’s brother James middle name was Elmer, which was Charlotte’s grandfather’s name. The name middle name of Elmer cased Jimmy to say that he was James “No name” Ashton. But back to Uncle Johnny. read more

An Evening with Halestorm and Andrew – 12/28/12!

Yes a Halestorm hit Philly yesterday, well at least The Electric Factory, as Lzzy and Arejay Hale along with Joe Hottinger and Josh Smith thrilled a sold out house! My son Andrew called yesterday afternoon and told me they were playing and asked if I wanted to go (all you boomers who would go to a concert with their Dad raise your hand, hum, mine’s down) but things have change and I’m thankful for it and, of course, said yes! If you’ve read this blog before you’ll know that I am in the process of re-discovering rock and ProgRock and first gave Halestorm a listen a couple of months ago and really enjoyed their music! Andrew has seen them a couple of times before at smaller venues so this is the first time they headlined at The Electric Factory and the night was billed as An Evening with Halestorm” so there was no opening act! (Andrew said it would be an early night, wrong!) Halestorm became their own opening act. I knew things were going to be a little different when Lzzy appeared on stage in a white evening gown and her band mates were likewise dressed in white! Lzzy went over to the piano and started the night with a ballad “Rose in December” after which the band played an hour or so acoustic sent full of ballads and some rocking songs like a cover of AC/DC’s “You Shook Me All Night Long”. Most  of the songs were from either of the two Halestorm albums but there were also covers of songs by Heart and Fleetwood Mac. What the set really did was showcase Lzzy great voice and poignant songwriting ability, that was hidden until on drunken night when she recorded “Hate It When You See Me Cry” into her phone and sent it to her record company and their response back was Wow! we want more like that! She performed it last night the way she recorded it that fateful night! read more

Happy Holidays to the World – from the Karn Family!!

So to give you readers a peek into my life, I’d like to share our family newsletter with all who didn’t get it, which is basically, the world minus forty people!! So to all you out there whoever you may be Happy Holidays!!

Dear Friends & Family,

We hope all of you have a wonderful Christmas and a Happy New Year! What a busy year 2012 has been for our family!

Nick is still living in Marlton and loves it. He comes by often to visit with us and the cats. He is still working at PNC bank in Moorestown . He is very involved with music-performing and writing songs. read more