QUARANTINE BLOG # 16

April 15, 2020

Did you ever wonder why anyone says, “Beware the Ides of March”?  Did you ever wonder why no one says, “Beware the Ides of April”?  Did you know that Andy Rooney never said, “Did you ever wonder”?

Well, since I was at sea, somewhere between Cabo San Lucas and Port San Pedro on March 15 – the Ides of March – and since the Quarantine Blog had not yet been started, I had no opportunity to share this with you.  But the time has came that something must be did.

The Romans did not number each day of the month from the first to the last.  Instead they counted from three fixed points which represented the phases of the moon.  The Ides was the 15th for March, May, July, and October, and the 13th for every other month.  But that’s not why we are warned of its occurrence in March.

You knew that it was Julius Caesar who was warned by a seer to “Beware the Ides of March,” suggesting a possible assassination.  But did you know that as Caesar walked to the Theater of Pompey on March 15, 44 BC – where he would be assassinated – he passed the seer and joked, “The Ides of March are come,” meaning he was still alive.  And the seer responded, “Aye, Caesar, but not gone.”  Inside the theater, Brutus, Cassius, and 60 conspirators stabbed the emperor to death.  Shakespeare made the remark popular in his play, Act 1, Scene 2.

And now you know the rest of the story (borrowing once again from the late, great Paul Harvey).

From left to right: The Brothers Booth – John Wilkes, Edwin, and Junius Brutus Booth, Jr. in Shakespeare’s “Julius Caesar,” 1864.  John Wilkes Booth said of all Shakespearean characters, playing Brutus, the slayer of tyrants, was his favorite role.

👉 Google today: “To all packaging, shipping, and delivery workers, thank you.”

👉 In QB 8 (April 7) I wrote about Wrestlemania 36, and the fact that this popular sports entertainment was being televised in front of an audience that consisted of camera men, sound men, and producers, from an otherwise empty studio.  I remarked that it was strange not having the crowd reaction.  One rasslin fan said, “But at least it brings some sort of normalcy.  If you count the WWE as normal.”

Well, it is official.  The WWE is normal.  In fact, it is essential.  Orange County Mayor Jerry Demmings and Florida Governor Rick Desantis have declared it so.

Reporting on a conversation with the Governor, Mayor Demmings said, “I think initially there was – a review that was done and they were not initially deemed an essential business. With some conversation with the governor’s office regarding the governor’s order, they were deemed an essential business. And so therefore, they were allowed to remain open.”

And the WWE will continue to air their essential television shows live every week from the Performance Center.

Bruno Sammartino, professional wrestling’s heavy weight champion for an  unequaled 4,040 days – 11 years – across two reigns.

👉 Speaking of normal, one sign that we may be approaching it, She Who Must Be Obeyed drove to Joanne’s yesterday morning and did a curbside pickup.

👉 One of the guiding principles of this quarantine blog is to report on things that we are doing to get us through this time (tune in tomorrow for a recap of the Spring Break Olympics), and to make an occasional suggestion of an activity that you might perform while remaining a proper distance from others and effectively locked down.

Try this.  After a daily trip to the mailbox when the postal carrier has completed his of her appointed rounds at your mail receptacle, don’t automatically throw the “junk mail” away.  I sort through it looking for pieces that have return address postage paid envelopes and return them to the sender.

I get solicitations from insurance companies, magazines, real estate companies, pencil manufacturers, and more.  I write across the top of the part that has my name on it, “No thank you,” put it in the envelope, seal it, and put it out for the next day’s pick up.  They were kind enough to write to me, so I return the favor by replying.

Yesterday I received one from “Cold War Patriots” telling me that since I had labored for the freedom of our nation at the Savannah River Site, I was entitled to certain benefits.  I was surprised to learn of my service, especially since I have never worked at SRS.  I did drive past it once.  And I knew 6 people who worked there: two were engineers, two were with the security agency, Wackenhut, one worked at “H Area” (whatever that is) and said he glowed in the dark, and the sixth.  Hmmm.  I guess I only knew five.

So at the top of their letter to me I told them I had never worked there and to kindly take my name off of their mailing list.  Let the trees live.  Don’t cut them down for that junk.

👉 It goes without saying that we are facing the dual calamities of a deadly pandemic and a cratering economy, both of which make it difficult to decide when it will be safe to return to business as normal.  And we do need to get back to business.  Gita Gopinath, chief economist of the International Monetary Fund, said yesterday, ““It is very likely that this year the global economy will experience its worst recession since the Great Depression.”

With millions out of work here in our own country, and most of us waiting for our stimulus checks, we are naturally thinking a great deal about our possessions.  Banks are helping with postponed mortgage payments.  Car companies are extending no-payment periods.

Bonnie and I am blessed that both our house and my car are paid for (and hers in 2 months), but whether we are making payments or own the title deeds, we need to remember that our things, our stuff, is not ours.  Ask any coroner.  No one takes anything with him.  I’ve buried a lot of folks and not once was there a U-Haul at the graveyard.  When John D. Rockefeller died, his accountant was asked, “How much did he leave behind?”  The accountant replied, “All of it.”

The writer of Ecclesiastes said, “People come into this world with nothing, and when they die they leave with nothing. In spite of all their hard work, they leave just as they came” (Ecclesiastes 5:15 – New Century Version).

There is a story of an old Puritan who sat down to a meal of bread and water.  He bowed his head and declared, “All this and Jesus, too?”

Today, more than ever, we need to live where the psalmist walked. “The Lord is my shepherd I shall not want.”  The Lord is my shepherd which means I am his sheep.

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