QUARANTINE BLOG # 72

June 10, 2020

Red Dalber completed this earthly journey last night and is at rest with our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.  Please keep Beverly and the other family members in your prayers.

** And, I would appreciate your prayers tomorrow.  I am having my first cataract surgery, this one on my left eye.  The right eye will be done on July 2.  I am writing Thursday’s and Friday’s blogs early and they will be posted daily.  Thank you!

**  I very much enjoy professional baseball, but in the scheme of things – the coronavirus pandemic and the nationwide reaction over the death of George Floyd – it is hardly important at all.  I am very much a baseball fan – I’d rather watch the Pirates, but I just like watching baseball.  I watch football only when the team from Pittsburgh is playing.  I watch basketball only during March Madness, and never the pros.  And I never watch hockey.  But it looks as though two groups of millionaires, the baseball owners and the baseball players, are set to blow the whole thing up.  They’ve done it before, but maybe not as disastrously as this time.

In 1981 there was a 50 day strike which set up a split season – whoever was in first place when the strike started made the playoffs, and after the strike was over there was a fresh start with a second set of winners.  In 1994 there was a strike which wiped out the World Series, and resulted in replacement players being brought in at the beginning of the 1995 season.  It took major league baseball years to recover and bring the fans back in numbers equal to before that strike.

Now with more than 40 million people out of work, baseball players and baseball owners are arguing about the size of their paychecks.  It is absolutely disgusting.

The players offered a 114 game season (and I’m not smart enough to figure out all of the payroll percentages that have been offered by both sides).  The owners said, “Nope,” and offered a 76 game seasons with a bloated play off system that would make MLB look like the NHL.  Yesterday the players offered an 89 game proposal.  If the two sides can’t – or won’t – come to an agreement, Commissioner Rob Manfred, the absolutely worst baseball commissioner in my memory, can arbitrarily institute a 50 game season.  The whole thing makes me sick.

On the other hand, and with tongue firmly in cheek, a 50 game seasons might not be bad for my Bucs – they were 25-25 last year through 50.  Probably make the playoffs.

But reality sets in and with no baseball in sight, and none expected to be the way things are going, allow me to offer a glimpse into the ballpark.

First of all, Pearls Before Swine, by Stephen Pastis:

And secondly, the routine that inspired the comic strip: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RatKhtboq2E





**  New Zealand announced on Monday it was coronavirus free (and they are keeping their borders closed), and things are improving in Europe, but globally new cases of COVID-19 infection are increasing.  The World Health Organization reported more than 100,000 cases have been reported on nine of the past 10 days, with over 75% of new cases coming from just 10 countries.  The new cases are from the US (14 states and the US territory of Puerto Rico have recorded their worst week yet for new coronavirus infections), Brazil, India and Pakistan.

“More than six months into this pandemic, this is not the time for any country to take its foot off the pedal,” Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, director-general of the WHO, said.  “This is the time for countries to continue to work hard on the basis of science, solutions and solidarity.”

Here at home, the numbers of new cases are going back up.  COVID-19 cases in South Carolina and Georgia are up over the last two weeks, and both states have relaxed stay-at-home orders.

**  Let’s go back to the jukebox, this time with two songs by Johnny Horton.  Yesterday I played Jimmy Dean’s Big Bad John, and noted that it was part of the “historical ballad” records that were popular in the late 1950s and early 1960s.  Well, Johnny Horton started the craze with The Battle of New Orleans and followed it with several others, notably Sink the Bismark, and North to Alaska.

The Battle of New Orleans https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mjXM6x_0KZk was awarded the 1960 Grammy Award for Best Country & Western Reco rding.

The actual battle of New Orleans was the last battle in the War of 1812, and actually took place 18 days after the treaty was signed that ended the war.  Despite a large British advantage in numbers, training, and experience, the American forces were victorious.  The British lost 285 killed, 1,265 wounded, and 484 taken prisoner – all in 25 minutes – a total loss of 2,084 men.   American losses were only 13 killed, 30 wounded, and 19 missing or captured.  484 British soldiers who had pretended to be dead, rose up and surrendered to the Americans when the shooting stopped.  Horton’s description of the battle in his song is surprisingly accurate.

North to Alaska was the theme song for a John Wayne movie of the same name.  It reached number four on the Billboard Hot 100 chart, and was released just a few weeks before Horton died in a car wreck.

The songs lyrics are heard during the opening titles of the film and provide the back story for the movie.   Sam McCord (John Wayne) left Seattle in 1892 “crossed the Yukon river” and “found the bonanza gold below that old white mountain just a little southeast of Nome.”  This clip https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RO6IU9RpjS8 plays both the song and serves as a trailer for the movie.  Oh, John Wayne gets the girl.

**  Do you have an extra 7 minutes and 7 seconds?  Watch this clip https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aww4HT5g7ig of Buddy Hackett telling jokes on Johnny Carson.  The chicken joke is funny, the cow joke is mildly amusing, and the duck joke is hilarious.

**  It is one of the most familiar Bible stories, David and Goliath.  Day after day Israel, was challenged by the Philistines to a winner-take-all match (comparing the height of the two combatants it could have been a ladder match).  In fact, twice a day, Goliath mocked Israel until the day David arrived bringing lunch to his brothers.  Armed only with a sling and 5 stones, David went out to fight for Israel against a 10 foot tall giant who wore 125 pounds of armor.

David stood in the arena and with invincible confidence in his God, declared, “You come at me with sword and spear and battle-ax.  I come at you in the name of God-of-the-Angel-Armies, the God of Israel’s troops, whom you curse and mock.  This very day God is handing you over to me.  I’m about to kill you, cut off your head, and serve up your body and the bodies of your Philistine buddies to the crows and coyotes.  The whole earth will know that there’s an extraordinary God in Israel.  And everyone gathered here will learn that God doesn’t save by means of sword or spear.  The battle belongs to God – He’s handing you to us on a platter!” (1 Samuel 17:45-47 The Message). 

All of Israel had been intimidated by Goliath, except David.  He stood before this massive creature unintimidated!  Intimidation is our major opponent when we face giants.  When they intimidate us, we forget how to pray.  We focus on the odds against us.  We forget whom we represent, and we stand there with our knees knocking.  We have forgotten what David said – “the battle belongs to God!”

Oh, about those five stones David carried into the battle.  It wasn’t a lack of faith, or that he was doubting his aim.  Goliath had four brothers!  The battle belongs to God!  We are the sling slingers!

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