QUARANTINE BLOG # 28

April 27, 2020

Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp has called for a Day of Prayer today from 10 until 11 a.m. in the rotunda of the Georgia capital building.  The Governor said in these trying times it is needed that everyone comes together to pray.  To ensure adherence to social distancing guidelines, the Day of Prayer service will not be open to the general public.  Participants are invited to join in on Gov. Kemp’s Facebook page https://www.facebook.com/GovKemp.

👉 Two of my readers have asked me the meaning of the symbol with which I close each blog: -30-

It comes from a time when reporters would use a teletype machine to file their reports.  It was an efficient way for the receiver at the other end to know that the message had been concluded.  Kind of like saying on a Citizens Band Radio “Over and out.”

👉 In other news, if you like reading on your electronic device, Amazon has a special right now for you.  Sign up for Kindle Unlimited and get 30 days of unlimited reading, or listening, for free.  After that, if you decide to continue, it will cost you $9.95 a month.  I have downloaded several books to my Xoom, my Kindle Fire, and my phone, but I still prefer it the old fashioned way – holding the book and turning the page.

👉 The comic strip “Pearls Before Swine,” by Stephan Pastis has an interesting observation on our current world situation.

If I got squares.  I got no cares!

👉 There is an old expression for Garrett County, Maryland: “If you want to sin, go to Loch Lynn.”  The town where I was born, and where I grew up, Loch Lynn, Maryland (or Loch Lynn Heights – depending on the mood of the town council on a particular day) once had a hotel and recreational hall. 

Across the railroad tracks (we always maintained that we were on the right side of the tracks) is the town of Mountain Lake Park.  MLP was started in 1881 by four West Virginia business men who bought the 800 acres that would become the town.  MLP was established as a Methodist resort founded on Christian principles.  Unlike nearby Loch Lynn Heights, the sins of vice, including dancing, drinking, and gambling, were forbidden.  The full quote with which this paragraph begins is “If you want to sin, go to Loch Lynn, but for Jesus’ sake, go to Mountain Lake.” 

The Loch Lynn Heights Hotel and its Casino were among the earlier, and more important structures in the town. The original hotel was destroyed by fire in 1918 (the year my Dad was born) and the Casino building was demolished in 1987.

The Simmons family owned the Casino building for as long as I can remember.  Blair Simmons converted the front into living quarters (which went back to the 2 windows on the right side).  He covered over the indoor swimming pool and bowling alleys and made the back a chicken farm.  His daughter demolished the old building – long empty – in 1987 and built a modern house.

This two penny postcard is postmarked June 21, 1918, and was mailed to Miss Ethel Hodges of Washington, D.C.  Sometime after that, the hotel – the left of the two buildings – burned down (or did it burn up).

👉 How would you like to live in a town where WiFi is illegal, and there is no Bluetooth, or cellular phone service?

That town is Green Bank, West Virginia, home to a super powerful telescope that needs electromagnetic silence to do its important research.  In 1958 Green Bank Observatory opened as the nation’s first national radio astronomy observatory.  Any  close-by, man-made radio frequency can completely overwhelm outer space signals.

In Green Bank you may have internet, as long as it is ethernet – from a cable attached to the wall.

The West Virginia legislature passed a law in 1956 to protect GBO, and it provides for a $50 fine for a violation and $50 for each day the interfering device is operated after a written notice is received.  Almost 80 years later no notices have been written and no fines levied, but if you walk into a local convenience store 1.5 miles from the observatory you can get a WiFi signal on your smart phone.  When a reporter for Popular Mechanics magazine told the clerk it could interfere with important search like looking for gravitational waves, detecting massive neutron stars, and even extraterrestrial intelligence, the clerk just shrugged.

The Green Bank Telescope has been searching for extraterrestrial intelligence (SETI) since 1960.  If anyone has phoned from home, the public has not been informed.

👉 Speaking of Popular Mechanics, it was one of two magazines that Dad subscribed to when I was a boy.  The other was Popular Science.  Dad always pronounced both names with the “U” silent.  Poplar.  This is the same man who told his wife for the first year of their marriage that he could not say p-e-o-p-l-e.  He pronounced it “peepees.”  Mom caught him talking to a friend when he didn’t know she was in hearing range, and the joke was over.

👉 One of the magnificent statements of Psalm 23 is in verse 4: “Thou art with me.”  The God who created heaven and earth, the God who notices when a sparrow falls to the earth, David discovered was with him regardless of where he was – pasture, wilderness, or palace. 

The Lord is with us!  That is an important discovery every day, and how much more do take comfort in this day of the coronavirus.  To know that the Lord is near makes everything different.

Whatever you are facing, the Lord, the Great Shepherd is with you.  If you are facing unemployment, you aren’t doing it alone because the Lord is with you.  If you are having struggles in your family, you aren’t struggling alone because the Lord is with you.  If you are facing debt, you aren’t facing it alone because the Lord is with you.

The writer to the Hebrews told his audience, “I will never leave you nor forsake you.”  Those who expertly study New Testament Greek tell us that the original sentence has five nevers in it.  “I will never never never never never leave you!”  Can you trust a God like that?

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