ll that glitters: I wondered while watching one of the great athletes bend down to receive their gold medal just how much of the “major award” was actual gold. A quick Google search later and I had my answer.
According to deadspin.com (surely an accurate source), the gold medal is mostly silver, 92.5 percent to be exact, with a bit of copper mixed in for strength. And they’re gilded in about 6 grams of 24k gold. The street value: about $644.
The silver medal’s composition is the same as the gold, except without the gilding. With no gold, the silver medal is worth about $330. Last comes the bronze medal, which isn’t bronze at all. It’s mostly copper, with a bit of zinc and tin, or basically a giant penny. It’s worth a little less than $5.
At current prices, if you were to make an Olympic gold medal out of solid gold, it would run about $25,000, give or take, which would make the total tab for all the first-place prizes for this year’s games in the neighborhood of $40 million. If you ever are at a garage sale, though, and run across a 1912 gold medal from Stockholm, get your calculator out because that was the last time they were pure gold.
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The wild, wild swamp. The Sunshine State might consider changing their slogan to “Bullets over the Bayou,” or perhaps “Glocks on the Gulf,” after Floridians reached a milestone by becoming the first state in the nation to have issued 1 million concealed weapons permits. According to The Week, 80 percent of those permits belong to middle-aged men, and there are around 15,000 new permits being approved in Florida every month.
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Forever Snoop. Known best for reggae music, fast runners and one of the planet’s most famous rap stars, Jamaica will likely be remembered more as the land where he at last discovered his true identity. Calvin Cordozar Broadus, Jr., formerly Snoop Doggy Dog, formerly Snoop Dogg, announced recently that he had a spiritual awakening while visiting the island and realized he is really a Rastafarian artist who will now be known as Snoop Lion. “My third eye is now open,” Lion said after his self-revelation.
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My morning routine is usually a walk, followed by some coffee while I read the Arkansas Democrat Gazette. During the fall, I always begin with the sports section, but summer, it’s straight to the obits. Here is one of my favorites I saved from a few years ago.
COLORADO SPRINGS - Dorothy Viola Southern, formerly of North Little Rock, passed away in Colorado Springs on July 9, 2009. She was preceded in death by her daughter, Angela Hill, and son, Ronald Whitley, and survived by her children, Steven Grant of Colorado Springs, Linda Novak of Nashville and Pam Boyd of Dallas, who are glad that she died peacefully and not in a shoot-out. Undoubtedly, she was quite a character, feisty, passionate, out-spoken and known for many shenanigans in her 83 years. In spite of her nine marriages and mostly turbulent life, mom was a dedicated and conscientious mother to her five children.
Born in Levy to Sylvia and Chester Thorn on February 11, 1926, she married at the age of 13, had two children by the age of 16, was a jack of all trades, and lived in 12 states before she died. She was most proud of her career modeling shoes with her tiny little size-4 foot.
Her children have never ceased to marvel at her tenacity, work ethic, ingenuity and sense of humor that she kept through it all. (Unfortunately, she never learned the art of contentment or anger management, which she desperately needed. But, understandably, she got off to a rocky start and really never had a fair chance.)
She sincerely delighted in (well, except sometimes when she was living near them) her 11 grandchildren, Ronnie Whitley, Heather Whitley, Christopher Grant, Tonia Bruce, Kim Vance, Chanin Koehn, Michael Novak, Susannah Hill, Justin Hill and Hudson, Sydney and Pammy Boyd. She also had four great-grandchildren, who are only familiar with the urban legend of their crazy grandmother. Many nieces and nephews live in the Little Rock area, and who sometimes remember her fondly as their unusual and unpredictable Aunt Dorothy.
Almost to the end, she was still making people laugh, cussing people out and looking for the perfect husband.