CLOSE UP by Brian Rudnick

Haitian laments Haiti

During a break substitute teaching at Parkway Northwest High School in Mount Airy, Renaud Dardignac speaks with your correspondent about current conditions in his homeland, Haiti.

He laments the poor road conditions and lack of electricity that persist in Haiti, where extreme poverty existed before recent natural disasters – the devastating 2010 earthquake and the battering in the fall of 2012 by Hurricane Sandy.

 

Making frequent return visits, Dardignac is witness to many people continuing to live in very unhealthy conditions and suffering from rampant unemployment. Like him, many of his country people live abroad, in the “Diaspora,” and send money back home to relatives who depend on this outside support.

Dardignac believes the Haitian government has been looted of $200 million in assistance by certain unethical parties who have taken the money abroad and that it is in these parties’ interest to keep Haiti poor so as to continue benefiting from the corruption.

In the past, Haiti has had an agricultural economy and Dardignac attributes people’s reluctance to return to farming both on lack of education and fear that their products would be stolen. He wishes that the international community, which had rallied to support Haiti in the aftermath of the 2010 earthquake, would invest in factories around Haiti. “[Haitians] are not lazy.  They like to work but they do not find work.”

Watch video interview here.

Donated kidney to animal rescuer needing rescue

“WHERE IS YOUR KIDNEY?”

“Well, one of my kidneys is in North Carolina right now.”

Hillary Rettig had been reading and thinking about donating a kidney for a few years. Why not, she thought, if she had two working ones and one to spare and could save someone’s life? When she reached a tipping point, she went ahead with the laparoscopic surgery. As a vegetarian and animal lover, she was thrilled to find a match in a man who had founded a no-kill animal shelter. On a matchmaking website, among the many heart-braking posts of people pleading for a donated kidney, the man had written, “ I have spent the last twenty years giving animals a second chance at life; won’t you consider giving me a second chance?” Afterwards, the donee’s wife told Retting that Rettig had saved not just her husband, but their family as well.  Rettig recommends donating a kidney to everyone. “ It’s a wonderful, wonderful feeling… If I had a few extra kidneys, I would donate them all.” Watch video interview here. Read Rettig's account of her donation here.

Grandpa tattoed on her arm

>> MIKAELA JENSON ROSEMAN (MJR): You want me to tell you the story of my tattoos?  Okay. So my left arm is pretty much a dedication to my grandfather. I have this one up here  which is a line drawing of him. He served in World War II so that’s why I have the Purple Heart in there ‘cause he received one of those awards. He passed away in 2001 and then I got this one to memorialize him which is a biblical passage.

>> CLOSE UP: DO YOU KNOW IT BY HEART?

I know the passage but to be honest with you I don’t know any more the verse.

>> CU: “SEE UPON THE PALMS OF MY HAND, I HAVE CARVED YOUR NAME.” WHAT DO YOU RECALL ABOUT THAT PASSAGE?

I actually first heard about it in a class I was taking at Temple. I was a religion minor. And when I heard it I thought that it  was a very good, a really good quote for a memorial tattoo. And I sort have always moderately considered adding more to my arm, like more pictures of my grandfather. He did a lot of stained glass work when he was still alive and I have a lot of that left. So I wanted to have some of those pictures maybe added.   A lot of my tattoos I’d say aside from these ones are not – not that they have no point but they’re not as personally, I think, angled. And so I’ve sort of decided that since this is my arm obviously closer to my heart that I’ll have that dedicated for him.

WHAT WAS YOUR RLEATIONSHIP WITH HIM THAT YOU’D…

He was wonderful. He was born in 1907. His name was Albert  Furman Jensen and he passed away in 2001.  He had a very lucky, nice passing I think. And I just remember being really close with him growing up.  So I remember being a kid, he had white hair, his nickname was “Whitey.” Even when he was a kid he had white hair. I just remember combing his hair at their house in Upper Darby when I was a little girl. He got Alzheimer’s later in life and he would have lucid moments as well. And so he always knew who I was, even when he was …Alzheimer’s. I remember one day I tried to microwave a  thing of peanut butter And it had the wrapper on it still. It burst into flames in the microwave.  And my 89 year old grandfather at the time sprinted through the house to get to the kitchen to put it out.  So you know I have all these varied distinct memories of him, all really positive ones and even though it’s been a while, I was twelve. Yeah, I was eleven or twelve when he passed away. Now I’m twenty-five but I still think about him all the time.   

Here’s the only picture that I have in my wallet.  And this is the one that I always considered getting a portrait of him

So I have these puzzle pieces that I have on my arm that are meant  to be for me and my best friend who I’ve known since I was four. I have “Love” and “Peace” on my wrist because those are ideals I’d like to live by contrary to how it usually goes. I have a fish on my neck because I was very interested in marine biology. And then on my back which you really won’t be able to see. I have wings on my back and a William Blake quote in between them that says “Those who restrain desire, do so because theirs is weak enough to be restrained," which is a quote from his piece, “The Marriage of Heaven and Hell”

>> CU; DO YOU EVER WORRY THAT YOU’LL FALL OUT OF LOVE WITH SOMETHING YOU’VE TATTOOED ON?

 

No. Never. I haven’t so far. You know some of my tattoos, on the back of my neck up here I have this little heart which has no sentimental meaning whatsoever- it was something I got because I was in New York City and I wanted a tattoo in New York City and I picked it off of the wall and I really don’t regret any of them at all. I still like them.  You know for me it’s either that I remember something that happened when I got it or for the ones that  like actually do mean something more personal to me, you know like in ten years I’m not going to decide all of a sudden that I don’t like my grandfather anymore, you know?

Three days on roof, survived Hurricane Katrina

NOTE: INFORMATION HAS BEEN RECEIVED ON 4/21/13 WHICH CALLS THE VERACITY OF THIS ACCOUNT INTO QUESTION.

Watch video interview here

Jo Quasney is a survivor of Hurricane Katrina. Of French Creole heritage, Quasney is a native of New Orleans who was living alone in her house in the eighth ward when the hurricane struck on August 29, 2005.  Quasney bred birds and had no way of transporting or finding shelter for the birds when New Orleans residents were advised to evacuate so she stuck it out. Her neighborhood began to flood after she heard an explosion that she attributes to a Halliburton company oil barge breaking through a levee. (For a discussion on the cause of the breech, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ING_4727)

Quiet fallen firefighter played "Prince Charming"

Bishop McDevitt High School Admissions Director Christopher Seifert smiles recalling the memory of former  schoolmate Daniel Sweeney. The  young Philadelphia firefighter  died from injuries suffered battling a blaze in a vacant building in the city's Kensington section. Sweeney, a junior when Seifert was a senior, was so quiet around school, that Seifert was surprised when Sweeney assumed the lead role of Prince Charming in the musical Cinderella they were both acting in. Sweeney's mother still teaches at the school and his  youngest sister  just graduated. There will be a memorial service at the school with the family in the next month. Wyncote, PA. Watch video interview here.

Was near death, now teaches balance, Tai Chi and shenanigans

I am the only child or Roscoe and Virginia Pauline Warner… HOW DID YOU GET INTO PHYSICAL THERAPY? Football injury in high school. Then I went to Shepherd University played four years as starting center at Shepherd. So if I messed up, everybody knew it and the play was toast.  ARE YOU STILL ACTIVE ATHLETICALLY OR SPORTS-WISE? Keystone Senior Games. I did ten events. Shot-put, discus, hammer throw, foul shooting, badminton, tennis, swimming…. March first I will be seven decades. But I was getting all ready last summer and I just didn’t feel right. And in February my intestines blew. And so I went from playing tennis to emergency surgery. Eight days of induced coma. During the coma (I’m sure it was sometime there) I went, ‘God, are you sure you got the right guy?’ And he didn’t answer. And then he came back in and He says, ‘George, I will take you home some day but I got some things for you to do.’ ‘God, please tell me it’s a long list.’ During that time I felt no fear, anxiety and it’s true. I think they did shift work between God, Jesus and the Holy Spirit- you know, around the clock. And the surgeons told my wife, ‘There’s no way he’s going to survive this’ because I had pneumonia, peritonitis …and it wasn’t to be my time. So since that time I teach a class once a week- balance, flexibility, isometrics, tai chi and shenanigans.  And I do it for free. CAN YOU SHOW US A SHENANIGAN?  Do you want my wife to really do me in? [To his wife] Young lady, do you know what a shenanigan is? George Warner of Hershey, PA spending New Year’s in Carlisle, PA.

Watch video interview here.