I remember it very well. It happened around Easter that year. I was 12. I believe it was the first big story covered by live television. I followed it via our daily newspaper as we got our first tv in 1951. People went down all hours of the day & night to stores selling tv's to follow the story in their store windows. Radio covered it quite heavily also. I think the odd part of the story, if I recall correctly, was that Kathy's father worked for a Southern CA utility company & he had testified in Sacramento earlier about the danger of uncapped wells such as his daughter not much later died in. Nobody remembers for sure exactly the site of the well & her death---I think it's believed it's where a high school football field currently is. So much of So. CA has changed since 1949.

This is the story/song I remember most vividly: Mississippi Squirrel Revival By Ray Stevens When I was a kid I'd take a trip, every summer down to Mississip' To visit my Grannie in her antebellum world. I'd run barefoot all day long, climbing trees as free as a song And then, one day I happened to catch myself a squirrel. Well, I stuffed him down in an ol' shoe box, and punched a couple of holes in the top And when Sunday came along, I snuck him into church. I was sitting way back in the very last pew, showing him to my good buddy Hugh When that squirrel got loose and went totally berserk! What happened next is hard to tell, some thought it was heaven others thought it was hell But the fact that something was among us was plain to see As the choir sang "I Surrender All", the squirrel ran up Harv Newman's coveralls Harv leaped to his feet and said "Somethings got a hold on me!" The day the squirrel went berserk, in the First Self Righteous Church, In that sleepy little town of Pascagoula. It was a fight for survival, that broke out in revival They were jumping pews and shouting "Hallelujah" Well, Harv hit the aisles a-dancing and a-screaming Some thought he had religion, others thought he had a demon, And Harv thought he had a "Weed-Eater" loose in his "Fruit-of-the Looms" He fell to his knees to plead and beg, and the squirrel ran out of his britches leg Unobserved to the other side of the room. All the way down to the "Amen" pew where sat Sister Bertha better than you Who'd been watching all the commotion with sadistic glee. Oh, you should have seen the look in her eyes, When that squirrel jumped her garters and crossed her thighs She jumped to her feet and said "LORD HAVE MERCY ON ME!" As the squirrel made laps inside her dress She began to cry and then to confess To sins that would make a sailor blush with shame. She told of gossip and church dessension But the thing that got the most attention Was when she talked about her love life AND STARTED NAMING NAMES ! The day the squirrel went berserk, in the First Self Righteous Church, In that sleepy little town of Pascagoula. It was a fight for survival, that broke out in revival They were jumping pews and shouting "Hallelujah" Well, seven deacons and the pastor got saved And twenty-five thousand dollars got raised And Fifty volunteered for missions in the Congo on the spot! And even without an invitation, there were at least five hundred rededications And we all got rebaptized whether we needed it or not Now, you've heard the Bible story I guess, How He parted the waters so Moses could pass. Oh, The miracles God has wrought in this old world But the one I'll remember till my dying day Is how He put that church back on the narrow way With a half crazed Mississippi Squirrel. The day the squirrel went berserk, in the First Self Righteous Church, In that sleepy little town of Pascagoula. It was a fight for survival, that broke out in revival They were jumping pews and shouting "Hallelujah" The day the squirrel went berserk, in the First Self Righteous Church, In that sleepy little town of Pascagoula. It was a fight for survival, that broke out in revival They were jumping pews and shouting "Hallelujah"

I drive a school bus with k-2nd graders and even at that age there is always one or two on the bus that wants to tell everyone that Santa isn't real and I tell the offender what I told my own two. My youngest is 10 and he knows that Santa doesn't actually come to our house. He told us a couple of weeks back when he lost a tooth that he knew we were the tooth fairy and Santa. My oldest was about 13 and I finally told her. But everyone on here is wrong when they say their is no such thing as Santa. Santa Claus is very real and no he doesn't come to our house on Christmas Eve, but he is a flesh and blood person.. Go to the mall and stand and watch regular everyday folks pick a name off the Angel tree..THAT person is Santa Claus to someone. Around here we have a Chimes for Charity auction every Nov. The local Jaycees buy toys, clothes, and food for over 900 of our county's underprivileged children. Every time a name is called out...That person is Santa to someone..I have been Santa, and my children were surprised to realize that they too had been Santa, when they donated their money to the Jaycees during that week. The majority of my bus kids get to go to the Jaycees Christmas party, so they understand what I am trying to tell them. There is a Santa..He is inside all of us!! littlebit

My M-i-L watches the TV evangelists-one that she watches enjoyed the movie, becuase "it is all fiction-not one true word in the book or movie-it's a good story, that's all." Another one was highly offended by both the book and the movie. What I find interesting is that in the first book written about the main character, Angels and Demons, the Catholic Church is the innocent victim-in the DaVinci Code she is the perpretator of all nefarious deeds...Brown clearly just wanted to write thrillers, not necessarily attack the church. But we hear little mention of the first book. Mind you, it was as much a strain to the logic as the DVC...how he escapes so many death-assuring situations without super powers boggles the mind.