QUARANTINE BLOG # 70

June 8, 2020

On this day in 1966, the National Football League and American Football League announced plans to merge.

In the early 1960s, with the NFL’s growing popularity, and unable to purchase franchises, 8 wealthy businessmen created a new league to play in 8 cities.  The American Football League chose Oakland, Los Angeles, Dallas, New York, Buffalo, Boston, Denver and Houston as the original eight AFL cities.

In 1965, the AFL scored a television contract with NBC.  That same year, the New York Jets lured quarterback Joe Namath out of the University of Alabama to the AFL with the biggest contract in pro football history, and the two leagues began to compete over fans, players and coaches.  Soon both league owners realized that they could not afford a bidding war, and began to talk of a merger.

Vince Lombardi’s Green Bay Packers won the first two Super Bowls over the Kansas City Chiefs and the Oakland Raiders, but in Super Bowl III, Joe Namath predicted,  and delivered, an upset win for his New York Jets over the favored Baltimore Colts.  The Super Bowl is now the most watched televised sporting event in the world with more than 140 million viewers.

When his beloved Pittsburgh Steelers aren’t playing in the season’s final game, this blogger watches only for the commercials, or finding an appropriate website, only watches the commercials.

**  If you read the funny papers yesterday (the comic section, not The New York Times) you may have noticed a theme running through several of them.  Cartoonists incorporated six symbols into their Sunday strips to honor crisis workers during the coronavirus pandemic.  Here is one from, Dustin, by Steve Kelley and Jeff Parker.

And another from Foxtrot, by Bill Amend.

**  As promised in QB 68, here is the story of my mother and the naming of cars.  For reasons I never knew, Mary Elizabeth Sisler (a.k.a. “Skinny Granny”) named all of the cars she and Dad owned.  And the names were always old-timey names.  Among them were Ezmerelda, Herminie, and Mahettabelle.  Mahettabelle was the last car they bought, and when they weren’t driving it anymore, it became mine (until I sold it to one of the kids at Macedonia UMC for $1.00 – and the local deer used it for target practice).

Following Mom’s example, Bonnie and I have named our cars (and these are the names I remember).  “The Grey Ghost,” “The Blue Goose,” “Moby Dick,” “The Red Hot Chili Pepper,” “The Angry Bird” – Bonnie’s car – and my current ride “Frank” which  is a Hyundai Sonata, hence Frank Sonata.  Actually “Frank” has been rechristened “The Silver Bullet” by my grandson, Mac, who put a post-it note on it (my kids and grandkids have begun to claim things for when we won’t be needing them anymore, and they put post-it notes on the coveted items).

**  One of your fellow blog readers, who has a sense of humor akin to my own, sent the following cartoon.  Posting it, I remember a scene from Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan.  Captain Spock has given Admiral Kirk a book for his birthday, an antique copy of Charles Dickens’ A Tale of Two Cities.  Kirk reads the opening lines – “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times” – and asks, “Message, Spock?”  His former science officer replies that the only message was “Happy Birthday.”  Posting this cartoon, my only message is, there is absolutely no message.  Just enjoy.

**  Soon after Bonnie and I met on January 20, 1968, we began to hang out at the White Coffee Pot restaurant in LaValle, Maryland.  She would have a hot chocolate, I’d have coffee, and we’d put a quarter in the Jukebox and play three songs, To Sir With Love, sung by Lulu, Love Is Blue, by Paul Mauriat and his orchestra, and the theme from Mission: Impossible. 

On January 21, 1968, we had our first date, going to the Princess Theater in Frostburg to see the movie To Sir, With Love (it cost us one dollar each and included the theater ticket, a Pepsi, popcorn, and ten cents change).  Sidney Poitier, playing Mark Thackeray, has decided he will not continue his teaching position (it was only a fill-in until he landed an engineering job).  Attending a party for his students at the end of the year, well, watch the clip: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nXaEf4ktpPA Here’s the whole song: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9hMXgVylg9g

Love Is Blue was released first as an instrumental. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rjsNNcsUNzE I was a member of Sigma Tau Gamma fraternity and our colors were blue and grey, hence this song.  When a version with lyrics eventually appeared they were in French because Paul Mauriat was a French orchestra leader. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BY_anyzQZNM Someone later wrote English words to it which qualifies it as “broken heart” song, not a “love song.”  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=as8DedB34eI

As for the reason we picked Mission: Impossible as one of “our songs,” I have no idea, but here it is: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wwpXUn2dF5c That is a second season introduction because it features Peter Graves as Jim Phelps instead of Steven Hill as Dan Briggs.  Hill, an orthodox Jew, left the series after one year because the producers insisted he work on the Sabbath.

More from the Jukebox tomorrow, and for a few days, and probably just one song at a time.

**  “Though the fig tree does not blossom, and there be fruit no on the vines; though the produce of the olive fails, and the fields yield no food; though the flocks be cut off from the fold, and there be no herd in the stalls, yet will I rejoice in the Lord; I will joy in the God of my salvation. God, the Lord, is my strength” (Habakkuk 3:17-19 my version).

Have you experienced times in your life where you couldn’t feel God’s presence?  When the worst happens in our lives, while we do our best to cling to our faith, it’s easy to question God.  When it seems as if the world is on the brink of disaster, we are left searching for God through all of it.

This verse from Habakkuk is one of my favorite passages in the Bible.  The prophet  wrote at a time when he and God’s people were asking questions.  The Babylonians were preparing to invade Judah as a direct judgment from the Lord, because of Judah’s rapid moral and spiritually decline.

Habakkuk complains, not understanding how God could use wicked Babylon to judge Judah.  The Lord answers Habakkuk and reminds him that the righteous have to live by faith and trust Him.  Somewhere in all of his wrangling with God, Habakkuk comes to an understanding that no matter what comes, he will trust God. Though the world seems ready to crumble, yet he will rejoice in the Lord.

Reading Habakkuk’s words of trust in the Lord, I remember the classic hymn “It Is Well With My Soul.”  Horatio Spafford wrote the lyrics after a series of traumatic events.  His two sons died in the Chicago fire of 1871, and the rest of his family perished two years later when their ship crossing the Atlantic sank.  Yet, even after all of those things, he was able to write: “When peace like a river, attendeth my way, When sorrows like sea billows roll; Whatever my lot, Thou hast taught me to say, It is well, it is well, with my soul.”

What are you going through today?  Does is seem like your world is falling apart?   Know this: you don’t get to choose what you go through, but you can choose how you go through it.  No matter what you face, you can choose to say, “Yet, will I rejoice in the Lord.  God the Lord is my strength.”

Here is a beautiful and powerful rendition of “It Is Well With My Soul.” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZYrL9ea1XUg Michael Eldridge sings all four parts acapella!

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