Getting old isn’t for sissies, according to my grandma. Your body doesn’t work quite as well as it used to, kids these days seem to be speaking a completely new language – it’s a lot to handle after a lifetime of effort. For 95-year-old Johnnie Dimas, a WWII veteran, getting older also came with significant loss. He lost his wife of 67 years, and if that wasn’t enough, he lost his full-time caregiver. With his caregiver, Dimas could continue living at home and maintaining a certain level of independence. Without a caregiver, Dimas’s future was unclear.

Losing your independence is one of the most underrated challenges of aging. Dimas and his wife swore they’d never enter a nursing home, but with his wife and caregiver gone, the elderly veteran’s options were limited. Dimas’s grandson, Roger Gilbert, knew his grandpa wouldn’t thrive in an elderly care facility. Gilbert took things into his own hands, moving his grandpa from Illinois to Arizona two years ago to live with him and his wife Jo.

For most, aging means having fewer opportunities to explore and experience all that life has to offer. But for Dimas, thanks to his grandson, his age and circumstances meant that there was no better time than the present. Dimas, or Grandpa Johnnie, had a bucket list of places he hoped to see one day. Last October, Gilbert, Jo, and Grandpa Johnnie, embarked on the RV trip of a lifetime to turn the bucket list into a reality.

 

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The trio documented their journey on Instagram, sharing photos of memories that would last a lifetime.

“We know this won’t be easy, but nothing worthwhile is easy. And we know this adventure is worthwhile!” the crew shared in an Instagram post. And with that, they were off.

 

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They visited national parks, Mardi Gras festivities, Las Vegas, and several WWII museums along the way. At The National WWII Museum in New Orleans, Grandpa Johnnie even met a fellow WWII veteran. Dimas struggled with severe PTSD after enlisting in the U.S, Marines at age 17, and was treated with shock therapy at a V.A. hospital after returning to the United States. Though he went on to live a full life, the trauma of his experience never fully left him.

 

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“I think it was deeply cathartic for Grandpa to be able to process everything that had happened at such a young age,” Jo told Good News Network. “It was such an honor to see how people respected his service in WWII, and how fascinated they were by him and his stories. As we walked down the street people would stop Grandpa, shake his hand and thank him for his service. They didn’t often stop long enough to see how Johnnie would always well up with emotion and gratitude for their kind words, it touched him so deeply every time.”

 

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On the Sweet Mary Bus named for Grandpa Johnnie’s late wife, the trio explored. They laughed, learned, grew, and filled their days with love. On August 16th of this year, at age 96, Grandpa Johnnie passed away. Rather than spend his final days in a nursing home, Grandpa Johnnie spent them living his life to the fullest. And it was all thanks to Roger, Jo, and his Sweet Mary.

We’ve hit a point in 2020 where nothing is all that surprising anymore. Carole Baskin of Tiger King fame cursed us with a very questionable 50 Cent cover, you can now crack open a cold one with your dog. Oh, and we’re in the middle of a pandemic that somehow seems to leave us with more questions every single day. In any other year, what happened to these pilots as they were approaching LAX last Sunday would have left us flabbergasted. This year, all we can really say is, “yeah, that sounds about right.”

3,000 feet in the air, one baffled American Airlines pilot contacted the control tower with an unusual issue. According to LiveATC.net, the first pilot to make the call was traveling from Philadelphia to L.A.. “Tower, American 1997,” he said, “we just passed a guy in a jetpack.”

The perplexed air traffic controllers tried to collect more details, learning that the airborne airhead was just about 300 yards away from the plane. Before long, a SkyWest pilot called the control tower confirming, “tower, we just saw the guy pass by us.”

While there are jetpacks that can reach altitudes of 3,000 or more, the hefty price tag combined with the technical skills a person would need to operate them leads to the assumption that they’d also learn some of the regulations. Or, at the very least, they’d realize that flying them near one of the world’s busiest airports is at best a bad idea.

The Los Angeles Police Department was contacted, as commercial airline airspace is highly regulated near airports. For safety reasons, it would have been illegal for anyone but the assigned pilots to fly there. After sending out helicopters to try to track down the hovering hooligan, the LAPD returned empty-handed. The identity of the man in the jetpack remains a mystery.

Although this jetpack sighting was a first for these pilots, according to the FAA, unmanned aircraft sighting reports have drastically increased over the past two years, and the agency now receives about 100 such reports per month. More people than ever are operating drones, but many don’t take the time to learn the rules and regulations for doing so. “The agency wants to send out a clear message that operating drones around airplanes, helicopters and airports is dangerous and illegal” the FAA website states.

The investigation into the flying felon is ongoing, but hopefully, in the future, he remembers to stay grounded.

There may be the occasional pop-up shop but there’s only one true Blockbuster remaining on the planet, and it’s about to (temporarily) become the closest thing to a time machine we currently have. The last store standing for the iconic movie rental franchise is in Oregon, and for three nights in September, it’s turning into the coolest Airbnb ever.

The store announced this week that it will be listing the store on Airbnb for three one-night stays in September. The press release described it as a perfect “end-of-summer sleepover.” If you’ve ever wanted to sleep in the 90s, this could be your best shot.

Each stay includes an unlimited movie marathon, as the store’s owner has gone out of her way to recreate the perfect 90s at-home viewing experience (including a giant, clunky TV with a VCR). And the price is a pretty reasonable $4, which is only a penny more than the price of a rental at the store.

The store is turning into a rental as part of a promotion to say thank you to the community that has kept them in business, even as Netflix has eradicated the franchise from the rest of the globe.

“It’s our 20th year as a Blockbuster, we were hoping to celebrate that this year, but with Covid throwing a wrench into everybody’s plans, we were really excited to be able to pull this off,” manager Sandi Harding told CNN.

While the store will become available on the rental site on August 17^th for the September stays, they will be keeping the living room décor up for awhile for customers that want to see what it looked like. And if you aren’t lucky enough to get to book the sleepover in the past, you can avoid the late fees and still grab some nostalgic merch from the store’s website.

A viral TikTok video is truly a tale for the ages, with a much-needed happy ending. Last week, 79-year-old Dennis Milentz decided to make an ambitious journey. After 18 years of being unable to see him in person, this determined dad wanted to visit his son in Fremont, Wisconsin. The only problem? Milentz’s hometown is roughly 1,660 miles away, in Heber-Overgaard, Arizona. Like any dad with a plan though, Milentz was going to see it through.

From the get-go, the trip was harder than anticipated. Milentz didn’t know how to use his GPS, he repeatedly got lost, and ended up adding roughly 200 miles to his already grueling trip. He was stressed, worried, and it was starting to seem like his journey would never end. That is, until Milentz made a fateful stop at a gas station in Woodhull, Illinois on his third day of driving. There he met a friendly couple who wrote him clear directions and left him their phone number in case he needed help.

15 minutes later, Elton Hood and Tracy Eckhardt, the helpful locals, received a call from Milentz.

“Neither one of us could bear the thought of– if we saw a missing persons alert or if something bad happened to him,” Eckhardt told WMTV. “if we had the potential to help turn this around and didn’t do it. That was just not going to work for either of us.”

To ensure the 79-year-old reached his son safety, the couple made the rest of the trip with him. They drove for three hours, with Milentz following closely behind until he reached his final destination. As if that wasn’t enough, the couple stayed in contact with Milentz’s family. They realized that due to unforeseen circumstances, the family wouldn’t be able to help Milentz return to Arizona. So what did this couple, who had no prior connection to the 79-year-old do? Well, they planned on escorting him back to Arizona.

@un_trace_ableI got a good one….his ❤️ amazes me. ##fyp ##foryoupage ##stillgoodintheworld ##elderly ##elderlylove ##armyvet ##dontletthisflop ##bethelight ##marinevet♬ If The World Was Ending – JP Saxe ft. Julia Michaels

Thanks to the power of TikTok, word got out (nearly 4 million views later) – the heartwarming story premiered on NBC15 News, and two viewers connected with Eckhardt and Hood. They offered to pay for Milentz’s flight back to Arizona so the couple wouldn’t have to make the drive. Milentz quickly and gratefully accepted, wrapping up this incredible story in the best way possible – with more good samaritans going out of their way to help a 79-year-old man complete the journey of a lifetime.

You know how people do theme weddings and completely deck out their venue accordingly? Like, if the wedding has a vintage theme, the couple might show up in an old Porsche and all the venue furniture will look like it’s been sitting out in the rain for a while? Now imagine 2020 is your wedding, and of course, you know the theme by now. So what type of place is going to set the mood? That’s right buddy, strap in – we’re going to a haunted clown motel.

India native Hame Anand has loved clowns since he was 14 years old, stating that the permanently-smiling human-ish creatures were the only things that didn’t scare him at a circus he attended (please don’t sign me up for whatever hell-circus that poor kid sat through). Anand started collecting clown figurines, and in 2017, packed up several hundred and moved to Las Vegas to help his family run the two motels they owned. He had such a knack for the hospitality business that his brother decided to buy him his own hotel. Coincidentally, this was the exact time that Bob Perchetti, owner of Tonopah’s infamous Clown Motel, decided to retire.

 

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The motel had been in business for over two decades when Anand added his own clowns to the motel collection and took over as owner and CEO. The motel’s creepy exterior along with its chilling 800 clown-related artifacts made it a tourist destination along an otherwise barren highway (you know, aside from the cemetery directly next door).

 

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#clownhotel #clowngraveyard

A post shared by Dave (@liftingmachine) on Jul 10, 2015 at 6:17pm PDT

Guests at the motel have reported hearing voices, odd noises, footsteps, and once, a ghost who offered to fix a broken toilet.

Maybe it was Etta L. Hager?

 

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On the way to Vegas, passed by a creepy ass graveyard next to the clown motel. Think life is short? Many of the graves didn’t make it past 30. #clownhotel #clowngraveyard #graveyard

A post shared by Dave (@liftingmachine) on Jul 10, 2015 at 6:16pm PDT

The motel is now home to over 2,000 clown artifacts, and the collection is constantly growing. Anand explained to Thrillist, “if you have clowns, you can donate because it’s the right place and right home for them.” I, for one, promise to send any and all clowns I encounter directly to Anand, even if they aren’t mine.

 

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A post shared by David Whitten (@alanandallenvisuals) on Apr 26, 2020 at 8:44am PDT

Although Anand has embraced the chilling aspects of his Clown Motel by creating theme rooms from hit movies like Halloween, The Exorcist, and It (obviously), he doesn’t think his clowns are very scary at all. “In my eyes, I don’t see why people say ‘creepy,’. My grandmother used to say, ‘whenever you’re down, look at the clown.’ I grew up with this line. That’s how I felt collecting the clowns. The clown is the laughing character. It makes you laugh.”

We’ll take your word for it, Anand. I truly cannot think of a better mascot for the garbage fire that is 2020 than a haunted clown, so there’s really no better time to book a room. Enjoy your stay and good luck.