Celebrate Life

Celebrate Life

a perspective on occasion of Doris Day's 97th birthday, April 3 2019

A small piece of Titanium fell off the left main gear door of Southwest tail number N236WN a 737 700 upon take off  bound for Dallas .  It fell ind bounced on Atlanta Heartsfield Airport Runway 25 L in such a way a flange protruded up in  an angle that the following take off in line, Delta flight# 70, tail  N859NW , a Airbus A330-200 bound for Amsterdam caught it on the right side tire, slashing it and causing such a blowout that the aircraft, already at 90 mph nearing rotation speed, swerved so fast the pilots cound not correct.  Thatplane dipped to the right and the right wind caught the tarmac and the plane flipped over in a roll.  With a full level of fuel, the tank burst and sparks igniting  the plane into a fireball. 
253 onboard 189 survived.  Net loss 64.

April 4, 2017, Syrian Air Force Sukhoi Su-22 fixed-wing aircraft flew above the town of  Khan Sheikhoun in north-western Syria.  At 6:45 a bomb dropped from it exploded on top of a central building emitting a yellow cloud .  Residents waking up breathed the expanding cloud and immediately had respiratory distress.  It was a chemical attack using Sarin , a nerve gas originally developed in Germany in 1938 as a pesticide . A report concluded that the Syrian government had manufactured the Sarin because the process of synthesizing the nerve agent developed by the Syrian Scientific Studies and Research Centre (SSRC) and employed by the Syrian armed forces and security services involved unique use of hexamine as a stabilizer. DIMP was also known as a by-product generated by this process, it added.  This tag was positive identifier that President Bashar al-Assad had ordered this attack on his own people.  630 townspeople were injured .  541 survived .  Net death 89

June 12, 2016 was Latin Night at a Orlando nightclub.  At 2am the club had last call.  Omar Mateen entered and using  SIG Sauer MCX[8] semi-automatic rifle and a 9mm Glock 17 semi-automatic pistol, sprayed  the club with bullets hitting many of the about 320 inside.  102 were wounded with 53 surviving .  Loss that night at the Pulse gay nightclub was 49 lives including Mateen.

On December 26, 2004 a fault between the Burma Plate and the Indian Plate off the cost of sumatra generated a 9.1 magnitide earthquake causing a tsunami in the Indian Ocean.  Residents of Banda Aceh, Indonesia, a city with a population of about 300,000 inhabitants before the tsunami were asleep and had no warning when waves hit the town. The majority of the casualties were in the city. More than 31,000 people wereconfirmed killed in the capital.  In the Indian Ocean basin, the tsuname overall claimed lives of people in 14 countries.  Net loss 227,898 

What is the take away from knowing this mortality tally?   Seemingly, All is chaos, defying order. 

Perhaps if there is an answer it might be in this song ,echoing in my head -

When I was just a little girl
I asked my mother, what will I be
Will I be pretty ?
Will I be rich?
Here's what she said to me
Que será, será
Whatever will be, will be
The future's not ours to see
Que será, será
What will be, will be

When I grew up and fell in love
I asked my sweetheart, what lies ahead
Will we have rainbows
Day after day?
Here's what my sweetheart said
Que será, será
Whatever will be, will be
The future's not ours to see
Que será, será
What will be, will be

Now I have children of my own
They ask their mother, what will I be
Will I be handsome?
Will I be rich?
I tell them tenderly
Que será, será
Whatever will be, will be
The future's not ours to see

Que será, será

What will be, will be
Que será, será.

Happy Birthday Doris

-1956 Columbia Records by Jay Livingston and Ray Evans
Happy Birthday Doris Day April 3 1939, still very much alive

Doris Day popularized the song Que será, será, singing it in the Alfred Hitchcock film “The Man Who Know Too Much” in 1956
-Jerry Wendt  April 3 2019


Note: The aircraft incident is fictional based on a collection from real incidents.
All other incidents are historically and factually true