TheBig Blog

Obituary for Bob Groves

DURHAM - Mr. Robert Franklin Groves, 55, of Durham, died on Friday, March 9, 2007.

Mr. Groves was born on January 27, 1952, in Cumberland, Md. After graduating from the Allegany High School in Cumberland he served in the U. S. Army. He owned and operated the Starlite Drive In Theatre with a passion all his own. He was known to the community as 'Bob' and greeted everyone with a smile. Bob thoroughly enjoyed the atmosphere surrounding him that he created. Bob loved the Drive In and his 'crew'. He was a member of Durham Lodge 352, Durham York Rite Bodies, Scottish Rite Valley of Raleigh and a member of the Ceremonial Cast, Amran Shrine Temple in Raleigh.

Someone needs to ring Bell

�Durham Mayor Bill Bell said the information, released Monday, was the first he had heard about the accuser switching her story since the allegations surfaced.� http://www.wral.com/news/9184432/detail.html

Maybe it has something to do with the fact that I�m a Duke employee, but I do believe that I�ve heard a time or two that the accuser�s story changed. Maybe he needs to listen to the radio from time to time. Perhaps tuning in to a local station rather than expecting a fair and balanced report from the national news media is in order.

Duke was criticized for being slow to handle the situation. What did Duke need to do? I�m a firm believer in keeping out the riffraff, but when you�re on the outside looking in, you have no business telling me how to run my business. If you don�t like the way I do business, don�t do business with me!

I tend to agree with a caller to WPTF a few weeks ago. Wake Forest University was once located in Wake Forest. They are no longer located there. They picked up and moved. Wouldn�t that be a strange site to see a big for sale sign on all of Duke�s Durham property?

Don't mention it!

�There�s too much politics in my government!� �Stephen C. White (1981- __ )

I just got done reading an article (http://www.wral.com/news/9182851/detail.html) about Governor Easley releasing our new North Carolina budget. He wants to make education our top priority. Well, you know what, I have about had it with these politicians, who also happen to be government officials, use our children to bolster their political campaigns. It�s for the children, so it must be good, right? No, it�s a cover up.

The �education� lottery is called an �education� lottery, because it�s for the children. We�re helping the children by finding more money for the children. The children children children children children. What about the taxpaying adults? They get to play the lottery for the children! It�s a great system! It�s great, that is, unless you�ve got half a brain and you realize that, �Hey, what about the other money I�ve worked so hard to give you?�

Never fear, citizen! The politicians, who also happen to serve as our government officials, will make sure to waste that money on your behalf! That�s right! Most importantly, let�s make sure that all the government workers get a raise. The politicians just so happen to be government workers! It also happens that their four percent raise is a heck of a lot larger than Drain-cleaner Dan�s four percent raise.

But wait! There�s more! We�re going to pay back $195 million dollars that was raided from the highway trust fund, cap the gasoline tax, and drop the state sales tax by a quarter of one percent!

How is this possible, you ask? Why, it just so happens that we are going to be bringing in around $425 million in revenue from the �education� lottery. No, that�s not enough to cover all of those new programs and projects. Well, it so happened that we gave the North Carolina government an extra two billion dollars in taxes last year. For those of you who only work in numbers, that�s $2,000,000,000. A two followed by nine zeroes.

I gave you all that extra money? You�re welcome, Governor Easley. Think nothing of it. Don�t mention it. Oh yeah...you didn't, did you?

Dateline Wentworth, North Carolina

For some odd reason, I look to WRAL.com for my morning news. It�s almost like a localized version of CNN�s Headline News. If you read a few articles from their website, you�ll notice that the bulk of their stories are less than three lines long, and that the headline is basically the story without the pronouns and articles.

Anyhow, I found a touching story (http://www.wral.com/goodnews/8806214/detail.html) where an English class had read some Shakespeare and were about to watch The Tragedy of Macbeth on a 1989 model TV. Now, I have experienced some older televisions in my school days, but none of those TVs had been in school longer than I had, with the exception, of course, of the black and white Zeniths we had in almost every classroom at my elementary school. So these students, saddened by the sad state of audiovisual affairs, penned a letter to the movie�s executive producer, Hugh Hefner. Yes, �the Hef.� THE Playboy.

To their surprise, they received a response in two weeks letting them know that a brand new 32 inch RCA TV was on its way to their location. In return, they all sent thank you letters. The Hef�s people requested 10 copies of the school newspaper for his scrapbook.

To my surprise, no one in this little town has caused a stir because of the gift coming from Mr. Hefner. It�s good that some people can count their blessings no matter where they come from. This reminds me of a joke:

There was a little old lady who would come out every morning on the steps of her front porch, raise her arms to the sky and shout, "Praise the Lord!"

Well, one day an atheist moved into the house next door. Over time, he became irritated at the little old lady. So every morning he would step out onto his front porch and yell after her, "There is no God!"

Time passes with the two of them carrying on this way every day. Then one morning in the middle of winter, the little old lady stepped onto her front porch and shouted, "Praise the Lord! Lord, I have no food and I am hungry. Please provide for me, oh Lord!"

The next morning she stepped onto her porch and there were two huge bags of groceries sitting there. "Praise the Lord!" she cried out. "He has provided groceries for me!" The atheist jumped out of the hedges and shouted, "There is no Lord. I bought those groceries!" The little old lady threw her arms into the air and shouted, "Praise the Lord! He has provided me with groceries and He made the devil pay for them!"

A fair fire?

So, I clicked on WRAL's website and saw this: http://www.wral.com/news/5576533/detail.html

WRAL being the top news organization that it is, took most of it's story from The Herald Sun. (This particular article will probably not be available in a couple weeks...)

That's just how Duke operates. If it seems right, if things are going the way they should, they're probably going the wrong way. I can't believe that the custodian in question had left the place spotless. I bet she probably took out the trash too! That's apparently a big no-no around here, as the trash isn't removed from our office except maybe twice a week.

All in all, something sounds fishy here. Something's missing. Why was she fired? Why didn't she respond for comment? More to come, perhaps...