5 Things: Bedford Gift Card Fundraiser

1. Save now and benefit Bedford schools. Friday is the last day to pick up your gift card to almost all major retail stores and/or restaurants including The Olive Garden, Macy's, Kohl's and other venues through the Bedford PTG Gift Card fundraiser. For every gift card you buy, a percentage of the value of the card is donated by the sponsoring retailer to our schools while 100% of the value of the card that you purchased is available for you to spend. A complete list of available gift cards can be found on the PTG Gift Card Order Form, and you can click here for more information on the 2012 Holiday Gift Card Fundraiser.

2. Don't forget the winter parking ban. Effective as of Nov. 1 and running through April 1, Bedford has a parking ban on all public highways between midnight and 8 a.m., and at any other time that a motor vehicle may impede snow removal operations. Any person violating the parking ban is subject to a penalty not to exceed $50 for each offense, and any vehicle parked in violation may be authorized to be towed by the Bedford Director of Public Works or by assigned agents and/or independent contractors engaged by the Director of Public Works or Chief of Police. Any vehicles towed will be stored and released to the owner only upon payment of the cost of towing as established by the Town Council. For more information on this and other Bedford winter ordinances, click here.

3. The weatherman says ... Despite a mostly-cloudy forecast, Weather.com projects another warm winter day with a predicted high temperature of 52 degrees and a 10-percent chance of rain.

4. On the agenda. The Bedford Historic District Commission is scheduled to meet at 7 p.m. at the BCTV Bedford Town Meeting Room.

5. On this day ... in 1967, surgeons at Groote Schuur Hospital in Cape Town, South Africa successfully conducted the first human heart transplant.

According to History.com, 53-year-old Lewis Washkansky was the first to receive the groundbreaking procedure:

Washkansky, a South African grocer dying from chronic heart disease, received the transplant from Denise Darvall, a 25-year-old woman who was fatally injured in a car accident. Surgeon Christiaan Barnard, who trained at the University of Cape Town and in the United States, performed the revolutionary medical operation. The technique Barnard employed had been initially developed by a group of American researchers in the 1950s. American surgeon Norman Shumway achieved the first successful heart transplant, in a dog, at Stanford University in California in 1958.

After Washkansky's surgery, he was given drugs to suppress his immune system and keep his body from rejecting the heart. These drugs also left him susceptible to sickness, however, and 18 days later he died from double pneumonia. Despite the setback, Washkansky's new heart had functioned normally until his death.