QUARANTINE BLOG # 63

June 1, 2020

What a joy it was Saturday to watch the launch of American astronauts in an American spacecraft from American soil after a 9-year-long delay!  And then yesterday to watch Bob Behnken and Doug Hurley leave the Dragon Crew spacecraft and enter the International Space Station!  Congratulations to SpaceX and to NASA!  Now on to the moon and to Mars!

👉  The couple you were challenged to identify in Saturday’s blog, pictured with Allen Ludden on Password were Betty White (Mrs. Allen Ludden) and football great turned broadcaster Frank Gifford.  The single winner scored a free subscription to Quarantine Blog.

👉  Wheel of Fortune is a TV game show that needs very little introduction (I was once asked to introduce a man to the same gathering that he had been introduced to before, so I said, “Here is a man who needs no introduction.”  And walked off the stage.).  Wheel was created by Merv Griffin in 1975.  In its first appearance it featured the well-known carnival wheel, and was hosted by Chuck Woolery and Stafford.  Differing from today’s version, there were prizes which could be purchased with winnings from a puzzle, or the money could be banked for the try at a later puzzle.  Woolery warned that hitting a bankrupt would wipe out your cash winnings, “but once you buy a prize, it’s yours to keep.”

Woolery left Wheel of Fortune after six years because of a salary dispute.  At the time he was earning $65,000 a year and other game show hosts were making $500,000.  Griffin agreed to give him $400,000 and NBC would add $100,000 to Woolery’s paycheck.  Then Griffin decided to move the show to CBS and NBC withdrew it’s offer.  Woolery’s contract was not renewed and his last spin of the wheel was December 25, 1981.  Pat Sajak replaced him, and the rest, they say, is history.

The first spinning wheel was mostly made of paint and cardboard, but the current version is framed on a steel tube surrounded by Plexiglas panels and contains more than 200 lighting instruments, and weighs approximately 2,400 pounds.

On April 1, 1997, Sajak and Alex Trebek traded jobs for the day. Sajak hosted that day’s edition of Jeopardy! in place of Trebek, and Trebek presided over a special two-contestant Wheel celebrity match between Sajak and White, who were playing for the Boy Scouts of America and the American Cancer Society, respectively.  Lesly Sajak, Pat’s wife, was the guest hostess for the day.  If you haven’t see it, here’s that episode.  If you have seen it, here’s that episode.  Spoiler alert, Trebek gives a very wimpy final spin of the wheel. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MCz--WQiE9c

The series’ 37th season premiered on September 9, 2019, and Pat Sajak became the longest-running host of any game show, surpassing Bob Barker, who hosted The Price Is Right from 1972 to 2007.

Watch as Pat Sajak gives the wheel it’s final spin for the show broadcast February 17, 2014. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=khszUESLewI&feature=youtu.be

👉  Many Quarantine Blogs ago I did a feature called “Random Family Selfie Time.”  Someone in the clan starts it, taking a selfie of adults and siblings, texts it to the group with the tag “RFST” included and the rest of us are challenged to produce a self-photograph and send it to the group.

Almost a month ago, Michael took a selfie of himself (naturally) and their cat Fitzy, and sent it.  That started a unique RFST.  Here are those pictures – and this whole event was totally unscripted.

Random Kittie Selfie Time

Random Duckie Selfie Time

Random Blaster Selfie Time

Random Russian Nesting Dolls Selfie Time

Random Baby Doll Selfie Time

👉  From our “Good News Department,” Moderna, Inc. said on Friday it had started dosing patients in a mid-stage study with its experimental coronavirus vaccine and eventually plans to enroll 600 patients for the trial.  There are currently about 10 coronavirus vaccines being tested in humans.  In early May, Moderna had released early-stage data that showed the vaccine, mRNA-1273, was safe and produced protective antibodies in a small group of healthy volunteers.  Moderna plans to begin late-stage trials in July.

👉 From our “We Were Expecting This Department,” Canada has extended the cruise ship ban through October 31.  The ban applies to cruise ships with more than 100 people, including passengers and crew.  The ban of cruise ships in Canadian waters makes operating cruises to Alaska or New England effectively impossible because U.S. cabotage laws require foreign-flagged vessels leaving from a U.S. port of call to first call on a “distant foreign port” before returning to the United States.

👉  My copy of Tyndale Publisher’s The One-Year Bible arrived in mid-January, and I doubled up on days to become current – I accomplished my goal before February.  Today’s Old Testament reading came from 2 Samuel – a book filled with tragedy, death, and heartbreak.  Here is the last verse from today’s selection: “Why speak ye not a word of bringing back the king?” (2 Samuel 19:10).

Early in the story, King David’s son, Absalom, staged a palace revolt and David fled for his life.  Now the fighting is over.  Absalom is dead, but David has not been restored to the throne.  There is a question people are discussing in the market places and on the street corners, and it is addressed to the tribe of Judah, David’s own family.

“‘Why aren’t we talking about bringing the king back?’ was the great topic everywhere.  ‘For he saved us from our enemies, the Philistines; and Absalom, whom we made our king instead, chased him out of the country, but now Absalom is dead. Let’s ask David to return and be our king again’” (from the Living Bible).

Fifty years ago I heard a sermon preached from that text.  The sermon began with the tribe of Judah, David’s people not clamoring for David’s return to the throne of Israel.  After that introduction, the preacher’s focus was on Christians, the people of Jesus, not clamoring for His return to claim His throne on Planet Earth.

I’ve read the stories this weekend.  I’ve seen the videos.  Demonstrations and protests are proper expressions caused by hurt and anger.  Rioting and burning and looting are nothing more than opportunism hiding behind those proper expressions.

In the next-to-last verse of the Bible Jesus said, “Surely I am coming quickly!”  And John, who recorded Jesus’ words of Revelation, prayed, “Even so, come Lord Jesus!” (Revelation 22:20).

It has been too long since we’ve talked about bringing back the King of Kings.  It is time, and past time, for Christians to raise their voices to the Throne of Grace, and pray, “Even so, come Lord Jesus!  Come and set up your kingdom of righteousness and peace and rule over our troubled hearts!”

-30-