QUARANTINE BLOG # 53

May 22, 2020

On May 22, 1976 at eleven minutes after midnight, we welcomed our son, Michael David, to the family.  It was also at that time that the doctor said, “Oh!  There’s another baby in there!”  That’s right – we had no idea.  Forty-four years ago ultrasound was not an ordinary tool in prenatal care.  And at 12:15 a.m. we greeted Michael’s womb mate, Matthew James.  Happy birthday sons!  What a joy you are!

👉  Since we are celebrating the Sisler brothers today, let’s look at a Western series which also featured brothers.  Not twins, they were Bret and Bart Maverick. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mCF8j6hh4ck

Maverick initially starred James Garner as cardsharp Bret Maverick.  Eight episodes into the first season, he was joined by Jack Kelly as his brother Bart Maverick. Garner and Kelly  alternated leads from week to week, sometimes teaming up for the occasional two-brother episode.

Roger Moore was added to the cast as cousin Beau Maverick in the fourth season.  Partway through that season, Robert Colbert replaced Moore and played a third Maverick brother, Brent.  The series ran from 1957-1962.

The Maverick brothers were poker players from Texas who traveled the Old West, constantly getting into and out of life-threatening trouble of one sort or another, usually involving money, women, or both.  They would typically find themselves weighing a financial windfall against a moral dilemma.  One recurring gig was Bret and Bart quoting words of advice passed down to them from their “Pappy.”

Diane Brewster created the recurring role of Samantha Crawford, a charming and flirtatious con woman who managed to dupe Bret and Bart out of large sums in different episodes – but not without having a little romance with each brother first.  Brewster also portrayed Miss Canfield, Theodore Cleaver’s teacher on “Leave It To Beaver.”

In 1981, James Garner recreated his Bret Maverick character as an older, but not necessarily wiser man, now living, gambling, and executing con jobs in a small Arizona town.  The show lasted one season. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ji09vnkGU1s

👉  On this day in 1932, five years to the day that American aviator Charles Lindbergh became the first pilot to accomplish a solo, nonstop flight across the Atlantic Ocean, Amelia Earhart became the first female pilot to repeat the feat, landing her plane in Ireland after flying across the North Atlantic.  Earhart traveled over 2,000 miles from Newfoundland in just under 15 hours.  In 1935, in the first flight of its kind, she flew solo from Hawaii to California, winning a $10,000 award posted by Hawaiian businessmen.  Two years later, she attempted, along with copilot Fred Noonan, to fly around the world, but her plane disappeared near Howland Island in the South Pacific on July 2, 1937.  The U.S. Coast Guard cutter Itasca picked up radio messages that she was lost and low in fuel – the last the world ever heard from Amelia Earhart.

👉  On this day in 1881 the American Red Cross founded in Washington, D.C., by  Clara Barton and Adolphus Solomons.  Barton, born in Massachusetts in 1821, worked with the sick and wounded during the American Civil War and became known as the “Angel of the Battlefield” for her tireless dedication.  In 1865, President Abraham Lincoln commissioned her to search for lost prisoners of war.  She was in Europe in 1870 when the Franco-Prussian War broke out, and she went behind the German lines to work for the International Red Cross.

👉 On Tuesday, the Augusta Commissioners passed a ruling that anyone who refuses to wear a mask or face covering in city government facilities faces jail time or an up to $1,000 fine.  Through June 13, anyone over age 2 and able to medically tolerate a mask must wear one to enter city buildings.

As of this writing, Richmond County has a total of 522 cases of COVID-19 and 17 people have died, while Columbia County has 224 cases and six people have died.  Georgia’s reported cases now stands 40,663 total and 1,775 people have died.

👉 “She turned around and saw Jesus standing there” (John 20:14 NKJV).

C. Austin Miles was a pharmacist whose hobby was photography, and he found his darkroom perfect for developing, not just his photographs, but his devotional life.  There Miles could read his Bible in total privacy.

One day in March 1912, while waiting for some film to develop, he opened the Bible to his favorite chapter, John 20, the story of the first Easter.  Miles said, “As I read it that day, I seemed to be part of the scene.  I seemed to be standing at the entrance of a garden, looking down a gently winding path, shaded by olive branches.  A woman  with head bowed, hand clasping her throat as if to choke back her sobs, walked slowly into the shadows.  It was Mary.  She came to the tomb, bent over to look in,  and hurried away. Then Peter and John entered the tomb.

“As they departed, Mary reappeared, leaning her head upon her arm at the tomb.   Turning, she saw Jesus standing; so did I.  I knew it was He.  She knelt before Him, with arms outstretched and looking into his face, cried, ‘Rabboni!’

“I awakened in full light, gripping my Bible, with muscles tense and nerves vibrating. Under the inspiration of this vision I wrote as quickly as the words formed the poem exactly as it has since appeared. That same evening I wrote the music.”

I come to the garden alone,
While the dew is still on the roses
And the voice I hear,
Falling on my ear,
The Son of God discloses.

And He walks with me,
And He talks with me,
And He tells me I am His own;
And the joy we share as we tarry there,
None other has ever known.

He speaks and the sound of His voice
Is so sweet the birds hush their singing,
And the melody that he gave to me,
Within my heart is ringing.

And He walks with me,
And He talks with me,
And He tells me I am His own;
And the joy we share as we tarry there,
None other has ever known.

I’d stay in the garden with Him,
Though the night around me be falling,
But He bids me go through the voice of woe,
His voice to me is calling.

And He walks with me,
And He talks with me,
And He tells me I am His own;
And the joy we share as we tarry there,
None other has ever known.

In the Garden was my Dad’s favorite hymn.

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