From The Tennessean

  
Our Beloved Aunt Roberta Died

Roberta Dawn Rochelle Torrence, age 93, died of complications of a stroke on September 8, 2012 at Alive Hospice in Nashville, Tennessee in peace and encircled by her loving family.

The youngest of five children, she was born to Lula Hester and William Leonidas Rochelle at dawn on October 13, 1918 in Plant, Humphreys County, Tennessee. She was the last surviving sibling of Marguerite Shannon, Rayburn Rochelle, Eudora Mason and Lois Armstrong. She was born into a family of teachers whom she loved dearly and who taught her to love knowledge, music, literature, and theater, and she passed this love on to her friends and extended family.

Despite her encounters with illness and physical limitations throughout her life, starting with malaria at the age of three, and the hardship of growing up during the Depression, she never complained or focused on herself. Even until her final days, she was concerned with the welfare of others, their comfort and safety.

She enjoyed a good story and had a healthy laugh. She was not one to be left behind by the times. There are not many 93 year-olds who have an iPad and an Impala Super Sport! She had a dry wit, an active and curious intellect, a caring heart, and always a sparkle in her eye. She looked for the best in people and was generous with her time. A 1938 graduate of Peabody College for Teachers, she performed as an acclaimed actress with the Peabody Players, excelled as a student and completed post-graduate studies in library science.

In her first teaching job at Cumberland High School, she met and fell in love with a fellow teacher and Peabody graduate, Joe E. Torrence, whom she married on April 8, 1939. They were married for 63 years until his death in 2002 after his long, distinguished career in public service. They were lifelong residents of Davidson County except for the period of the war years when they lived in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, where he worked with the Manhattan Project.

Although Roberta was a teacher by training, after she married she chose a career as a devoted wife and partner to her husband, and she applied her vast abilities and patience as a teacher to being a consummate mother, grandmother and great grandmother. She was a devoted aunt and great aunt, a loyal friend to many and an inspiration to all who met her. Her beauty and spirit radiated from inside out.

She is survived by her five children, Jeanie Camille Torrence Fohl, Joseph Howard Torrence and his wife Ellen, Linda Rochelle Torrence Muir and her husband Bob, William Giddens Torrence and his wife Cindy, David Cooley Torrence and his wife Bonnie.

She was "Grandma" to eleven grandchildren, Jeanie Dale (Bob), Emily Paisley (Chris), Katherine Hartle (Dan), Robbie King (Kristin), Adam King (Anne), Rebecca Muir, Jennifer Mulvaney (Michael), Stephanie Torrence, Will Torrence, Josh Torrence (Beth) and Joe Torrence. She was "GiGi" to her twenty three great grandchildren, Zachary, Devon and Maxwell Dale, Eliza, Canon and Thatcher Paisley, Houston, Lilly and Addison Hartle, Skylar, Georgia, Lucy and Robert King, Ava and Ethan King, Winfield and Robert Dean, Michael and Ian Mulvaney, Kyle and Erin Torrence, Haley Torrence and Knox Torrence.

Viewing and visitation will be held at Brentwood-Roesch-Patton Funeral Home, 9010 Church Street, East Brentwood, TN 37027 on Tuesday, September 11, 2012 from 6:30 to 8:30 p.m. Funeral services will be held at First Presbyterian Church, 4815 Franklin Road, Nashville, TN 37220 at 11 a.m. on Wednesday, September 12, 2012, followed immediately by a brief graveside service and interment at Woodlawn Memorial Park, 660 Thompson Lane, Nashville, TN 37204.

Pallbearers will be Joseph H. Torrence, William G. Torrence, David C. Torrence, Robert S. King, William G. Torrence, Jr., Joshua D. Torrence and Joseph S. Torrence. Flowers are welcome, and memorial donations in lieu of flowers may be made to the Rochelle Center, 1020 Southside Court, Nashville, TN 37203.

The family expresses the deepest appreciation to Marie Manning, Roberta's loyal friend and caregiver for many years of faithful service, to her doctors for her health through the years and to the caring staff at Centennial Medical Center and Alive Hospice for her care and comfort in her final days. Often reciting the favorite poems of her childhood, Roberta believed as Wordsworth did that our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting, that we come trailing clouds of glory from God, who is our home. She has gone home. She was Love and Laughter and leaves us with her smile.

From Spiritual Now

 
Instructions for Life by The Dalai Lama

The Dalai Lama

1. Take into account that great love and great achievements involve great risk.
2. When you lose, don’t lose the lesson.
3. Follow the three R’s:
   -  Respect for self,
   -  Respect for others and
   -  Responsibility for all your actions.
4. Remember that not getting what you want is sometimes a wonderful stroke of luck.
5. Learn the rules so you know how to break them properly.
6. Don’t let a little dispute injure a great relationship.
7. When you realize you’ve made a mistake, take immediate steps to correct it.
8. Spend some time alone every day.
9. Open your arms to change, but don’t let go of your values.
10. Remember that silence is sometimes the best answer.
11. Live a good, honorable life. Then when you get older and
    think back, you’ll be able to enjoy it a second time.
12. A loving atmosphere in your home is the foundation for your life.
13. In disagreements with loved ones, deal only with the current situation. Don’t bring up the past.
14. Share your knowledge. It is a way to achieve immortality.
15. Be gentle with the earth.
16. Once a year, go someplace you’ve never been before.
17. Remember that the best relationship is one in which your love for each other exceeds your need for each other.
18. Judge your success by what you had to give up in order to get it.
19. If you want others to be happy, practice compassion.
20. If you want to be happy, practice compassion.

Our President's Address

In less than four years, President Obama turned us from the brink of another Great Depression, signed a breakthrough health-care reform bill into law, rescued the American auto industry, lowered unemployment while creating economic growth, imposed new safeguards on Wall Street, ended the war in Iraq, decimated al Qaeda, killed bin Laden, reformed the student loan system, and ended DADT.

His challenge last night was to convince undecided voters that despite Republican obstructionism he has done enough to warrant their support once again. If they were watching and listening last night, the election is over. He hit the shot to win the game.

Speaking to the entire country (at least to those who were watching) he said, "If you turn away now -- if you buy into the cynicism that the change we fought for isn't possible – well, change will not happen . . . If you give up on the idea that your voice can make a difference, then other voices will fill the void: lobbyists and special interests; the people with the $10 million checks who are trying to buy this election and those who are making it harder for you to vote; Washington politicians who want to decide who you can marry, or control health care choices that women should be making for themselves."

"Only you can make sure that doesn’t happen," he urged. "Only you have the power to move us forward."

From Nashvillian Jena Lee Nardella

Why didn't we hear a benediction like this in Tampa from the so-called Christian-right? 
  
Praying for the Nation 

   
As a young woman of faith and a leader, I am humbled to follow the First Lady, whom we all admire. So, thank you for inviting me here. As we close this day, let us quiet our hearts in prayer.

God, I stand before You and ask that the words of my mouth and the meditations of my heart be pleasing unto You.

I pray for our President, Barack Obama. May he know Your presence, oh God, as he continues to serve as a leader of this nation, as a husband to Michelle, and as father to his daughters. Help him to seek justice, love mercy and walk humbly with you.

I pray as well for Governor Mitt Romney. May he know Your presence, oh God, as he continues to serve as a leader, as a husband to Ann, and as a father to his sons and their families. Help him to seek justice, love mercy and walk humbly with you.

I pray for our country in the next nine weeks leading up to this election – for those of us meeting here and for our fellow citizens who met last week. May we make our children proud of how we conduct ourselves. We know our human tendencies toward finger-pointing and frivolousness. Our better selves want this race to be honest and edifying rather than fabricated and self-serving.

Give us, oh Lord, humility to listen to our sisters and brothers across the political spectrum, because your kingdom is not divided into Red States and Blue States. Equip us with moral imagination to have real discourse. Knit us, oh God, as one country even as we wrestle over the complexity of how we ought to live and govern. Give us gratitude for our right to dissent and disagree. For we know that we are bound up in one another and have been given the tremendous opportunity to extend humanity and grace when others voice their deeply held convictions even when they differ from our own.

And give us wisdom, God, to discover honest solutions for we know it will take all of us to care for the widow and the orphan, the sick and the lonely, the downtrodden and the unemployed, the prisoner and the homeless, the stranger and the enemy, the thirsty and the powerless. In rural Africa, I am witness to thousands of HIV positive mothers, fathers and children who are alive today because Democrats and Republicans put justice and mercy above partisanship. Help us keep that perspective even as we debate one another.

God, I thank you for the saving grace of Jesus and for the saints who have humbly gone before us. I thank you for the words of St. Francis of Assisi whose prayer I carry with me both in my home in East Nashville and in my work across rural Africa.

As we enter this election season, I pray St. Francis’ words for us all.

Lord, make us instruments of your peace. Where there is hatred, let us sow love; where there is injury, pardon; where there is doubt, faith; where there is despair, hope; where there is darkness, light; and where there is sadness, joy.

Grant that we may not so much seek to be consoled as to console; to be understood as to understand; to be loved as to love. For it is in giving that we receive; it is in pardoning that we are pardoned; and it is in dying that we are born to eternal life. Amen.

Chris Rock Has A Crystal Clear Analogy For Undecided Voters

Bill Clinton's Full Speech

You do not have to like or agree with the policies of the Democratic Party to appreciate that what we watched last night was a master at work.

Even Brit Hume of Fox News had to admit that Bill Clinton "is the most talented politician [he's] ever covered and the most charming man [he's] ever met . . . No one in my view can frame an argument more effectively than he can."

The former president found no need to lie, exaggerate or throw partisan bombs. No, he simply told the truth. He talked about the importance of reaching across party lines and defending the nobleness of politics as a profession. As the explainer-in-chief, what we witness last night was the work of an intellect so comfortable in his skin that he was able to ablibbed much of the speech without a teleprompter.

If every undecided voter was watching Bill Clinton's speech last night, this race is over.

If for some reason you were unable to see his performance – here it is in its full majesty:

The Gray Treefrog (Photos)

 

Gray Treefrogs are an inch and quarter to 2 inches long. Visually, the Gray Treefrog cannot be distinguished from the Cope's Gray Treefrog. They are usually gray or green with irregular markings on the back. They have a white spot under the eye, warty skin and a yellowish-orange surface under of their thighs.

The call of the Gray is a short high trill. It is slower and a little more musical than the Cope's Gray Treefrog. However, only through careful examination of their chromosomes can one truly be distinguished from the other.

They are extremely well camouflaged against the bark of trees. They inhabit all elevations of wooded areas most often near water in a wide variety of habitats. Since they forage in the tree canopy they are rarely seen except during breeding season.

Though the Gray Treefrog and Cope's Gray Treefrog are closely related and have ranges that over lap they do not interbreed. A female responds only to the call of the male of her species.

Scientists believe that the Gray Treefrog evolved from the Cope's Gray Treefrog during the last Ice Age when an isolated population began passing on a second set of chromosomes.

Wildflowers at the Narrows (Photos)