Soldiers Coming Home - Compilation Video

It was a video like this that led me to start this blog a year and a half ago. Some truly emotional wonderful moments caught on film:



I don't talk about it much, but I was in the Army for three years after high school, stationed in Germany for my entire time. I didn't see my family for a year and a half, with seven months of that time in Bosnia. I'll never forget the the day we came back from Bosnia, fresh off our trucks standing in a gymnasium getting welcomed back by some Colonel. In the bleachers in front of us were all the soldier's wives & children, practically bouncing with joy and excitement. Even though I was single and childless at the time, I'll never forget those faces just glowing with absolute love.

I'll also never forget what it's like to embrace your family after not seeing them for 18 months!

Oh and that dog in the second clip going crazy for its owner is pretty awesome too.

"Major Leagues" by Pavement

I've been thinking and listening to Pavement a lot recently - one of my favorite bands of the nineties. They broke up in 1999...but are actually and amazingly reuniting this year to play some select shows (one in Chicago even!).

Anyway, they have a wealth of songs that would fit in the Sunday Sublime songs category, but it feels right to have a song off their last album included here on the blog.

Close your eyes and listen:



Have You Downloaded the Sublime Goodness Mixtape yet?

Facebook Group Miraculously Reunites Camera with Owner

This is wonderful. Here is the scoop:

A Facebook group called “Needle in a Haystack” has found its needle. Australian Danny Cameron organized the Facebook group in an effort to locate the owner of a camera he found on the Greek island of Mykonos. Cameron posted a photo he’d pulled from the camera’s memory card and then spread the word on Facebook. More than 230,000 people joined the online search effort and eventually somebody recognized the people in the photo, who were friends of the camera’s owner, a Frenchwoman. With the camera now returned, Cameron has issued a final post: “Congratulations, everyone. I am amazed and in awe of you all.” (from the Week)

Sure compared to other stories here, this isn't as profound, but it's pretty darn cool, eh?

Read more here.

Co-workers Discover They Are Brothers

What a great story this is:

Two employees of the same company in Waldoboro, Maine, have turned out to be brothers separated 35 years ago. In July, when Randy Joubert of Dow Furniture was assigned a new delivery partner, Gary Nisbet, customers began remarking on their uncanny resemblance. That spurred Joubert, who had been put up for adoption as a baby, to dig up his birth records. He shared the information with Nisbet, who confirmed they had the same parents. “This only happens once in a lifetime. And it happens in Waldoboro,” said Nisbet. “Nothing good ever happens in Waldoboro.” (from the Week)

I've posted many stories of reunited family members before, but what I love about this one in particular is that they working together. How funny is that? Customers kept saying, "Wow, you guys look like brothers..." and they actually turn out to be.

Also, read the surprising coda here - they recently reunited with a half-sister too.

Related Sublime Goodness Posts:

• Childhood Sweethearts Wed... Almost 90 Years Later!
• Mother & Son Reunite via MySpace...After 32 Years!
• Reunited Siblings Were Living Only 300 Yards Apart...
• Firefighter Meets Woman He Saved 40 Years Ago

Childhood Sweethearts Wed... Almost 90 Years Later!

I love stories like this. Sweet, sublime and serendipitous.

They lived long lives...and came back to where they started. Here is their story:

Two childhood sweethearts have gotten married, 88 years after they first met. As third-graders at English Ridge Public School in Wisconsin in 1921, Roland McKitrick and Lorraine Beatty talked of how they would tie the knot one day. But they drifted apart and raised families of their own. Three years ago, after both had been widowed, they got back in touch through siblings. Last week, Roland, 93, told Lorraine, 92, that he needed to speak with her. “I thought, What have I done wrong?” she said. “He just said, ‘I want to ask you to marry me,’ and I said, ‘Go ahead.’” They were married three days later. (from the Week)

> Read more about them here at the Daily Herald

This is my favorite part from the Daily Herald:

For McKitrick, marrying Beatty marks the culmination of a lifelong love story.

He recalls a day, many years ago, when the two of them stood in the Wisconsin sunshine and talked about how one day, they would marry each other.

"I still picture her as my third-grade sweetheart. I've carried that in the back of my mind since that time," said McKitrick, who counts among his prized possessions a photograph taken of the two of them about that time.

"That snapshot stayed in my memory," he said, "and her face stayed in my memory."

Related Sublime Goodness Posts:

• Happy Couple Celebrates 70th Wedding Anniversary
• Mother & Son Reunite via MySpace...After 32 Years!
• World's Oldest Person
• Reunited Siblings Were Living Only 300 Yards Apart...
• Firefighter Meets Woman He Saved 40 Years Ago

Firefighter Meets Woman He Saved 40 Years Ago

This would be an amazing story by itself - a white firefighter saving a black child forty years ago in a burning building. But now, years and years later, the young child is all grown up and wants to make sure that firefighter knows she is grateful.

A Boston firefighter and the woman he rescued from a devastating blaze as a baby 40 years ago have been reunited. William Carroll, now 71, crawled through the flames on his stomach to rescue Evangeline Harper, then an infant. A photograph of the white firefighter emerging from the burning building, giving mouth-to-mouth resuscitation to a black child, became a symbol of hope during an era of racial upheaval. Only when Harper tracked Carroll down, though, did they finally reconnect, in an emotional meeting last week. “Thank you so much,” she said. “Thank you for remembering me,” he responded. (from The Week)

> Read the full story in The Boston Globe

Watch a video of the reunion:

Mother & Son Reunite via MySpace...After 32 Years!

Thanks to the internet and a faulty keyboard, a mother and son reunite after 32 years.

Terri Fuller said her then-2-year-old son was adopted 32 years ago by a childless California couple acquainted with her aunt after she made the decision to give him up, KSL-TV, Salt Lake City, reported Tuesday.

Fuller said she began trying to reconnect with her son years later, but was unable to locate him. She said she eventually created a MySpace profile explaining her desire to find her long-lost child, but she mistakenly misspelled his new last name, Hawver, as "Haver."

However, Rustin Hawver said he chanced upon his biological mother's MySpace page while he was searching for his blog and accidentally left out the "w" in his last name.

"She had my name misspelled. If it wasn't for Google or that keyboard being messed up, I would have never have found that," Hawver said.

Mother and son said they are delighted at having reconnected and are currently planning to meet in March for the first time in decades. (UPI)

It's a heartwarming tale for sure - I can't even begin to imagine the warmth and stories when they finally meet!

Watch a video recap of the story here from CNN: