QUARANTINE BLOG # 137

August 14, 2020

An update from yesterday’s tour of Biltmore Estates.  I told you that from the time he was 12 until he died at age 51, Cornelius Vanderbilt kept a record of the books he read.  The total was 3,159.  Our daughter, Jennifer, told me that she has been keeping a record on the website http://goodreads.com for the last 7 years.  Her total: 3,536 books.  And that’s just the count for the 7 years.

👉  Yesterday I learned that the Columbia County School District announced that 24 students and 13 staff members have tested positive for COVID-19.  Cases have appeared in all 5 district high schools – Lakeside, Harlem, Grovetown, Evans, and Greenbrier – and Grovetown Middle School.  Officials also say 131 students have been exposed to the virus, although they clarify that only 17 of those students were exposed at school.

👉  Yesterday I learned that Fred Ridley, Chairman of Augusta National Golf Club, announced that the 2020 Masters Tournament will take place November 9-15 without patrons or guests on the grounds.  Even as sporting events around the country continue to start back up, putting the health and safety of Masters patrons at risk was too big of a hill to climb, according to Ridley.  Ticket holders who won spots for the 2020 Masters will be guaranteed the same tickets for the 2021 Masters.  If patrons cannot attend in 2021, refunds will be available, but the tickets may be kept as a souvenir.  Ticket holders will also have “exclusive access” to purchase Masters merchandise online.

👉  Yesterday I learned that the Pac-12 has decided to not play its football season this fall over concerns that the sport carries too much risk for athletes, joining the Big Ten as the second member of the Power Five to elect not to play over the health issues raised by the coronavirus pandemic.  “The health, safety and well-being of our student-athletes and all those connected to Pac-12 sports has been our number one priority,” said Pac-12 Commissioner Larry Scott.

👉  Yesterday I learned that with the global health crisis not getting any better and a second wave impacting several countries, Viking Cruises has cancelled all sailings until 2021.  The extension impacts all cruises including river and ocean departures.  Viking believes the world will be in a much better position by next year and international travel will be less complicated.  And your favorite bloggers certainly hope so, too.

👉  “Yesterday” is a song by the Beatles, written by Paul McCartney https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-eRqn-9xFMc.  It was first released on the album “Help!” in August 1965, except in the United States, where it was issued as a single in September.  The song reached number one on the US charts.  It remains popular today and, with more than 2,200 cover versions, is one of the most covered songs in the history of recorded music.  “Yesterday” was voted the best song of the 20th century in a 1999 BBC Radio 2 poll of music experts and listeners, and was also voted the No. 1 pop song of all time by MTV and Rolling Stone magazine the following year.

👉  Today is National Creamsicle Day.  In 1905, eleven-year-old Frank Epperson encased vanilla ice cream inside of frozen fruit juice and called it an Epsicle.  His creation is similar to what we now call a Creamsicle, the cool treat celebrated today.  The Creamsicle has a flat bar shape with rounded ends, vanilla cream at its center, and a fruity ice covering.  The classic flavor is orange, but it comes in a variety of flavors, including raspberry, lime, cherry, grape, and blueberry.

👉  Today is also National Kool-Aid Day.  National Kool-Aid Day is always celebrated on the second weekend of August in Hastings, Nebraska, the city where Kool-Aid was created. Hastings’ Kool-Aid Days began in 1998, the same year that Kool-Aid was named Nebraska’s official state drink.

Edward Perkins lived in Hastings and spent his time experimenting with making products in his mother’s kitchen and selling them by mail-order.  In 1920 he created Fruit Smack, a liquid concentrate used to make a flavored drink by mixing it with sugar and water.  The four-ounce bottles were expensive to ship and sometimes broke in transit.  To reduce costs, Perkins made a powdered form in 1927, being inspired by Jello-O.  Kool-Aid packets originally sold for ten cents apiece, but the price was dropped to five cents during the Great Depression when the drink was marketed as “the Budget Beverage.”

👉  This one is from our “Laugh Out Loud Department.”  A mother was always upset that the local grocery store did not sell eggs in a carton of 6, only by the dozen.  She was delighted one day to find cartons of 6.  Relating her discovery to her family that night, she said, “I was so excited, I bought two!”

👉  And three from our “People Have More Fun Than Anybody Department.”

👉  Tom Brokaw wrote The Greatest Generation in 1998 about the members of the World War II generation.  I started to buy it then, but for reasons I no longer remember, I did not (Probably someone said, Another book?!).  Two weeks ago I picked it up on our first outing in this new normal – a visit to an antique mall.  So many books.  So little time.

Here are two paragraphs.  More later.

“One after another they [members of the World War II generation] volunteered how in their families and in their communities they were expected to be responsible for their behavior, how honesty was assumed to be the rule, not the exception.  They also talked matter-of-factly about a sense of duty to their country, a sentiment not much in fashion anymore.

“Morever, in their communities there were always monitors outside their own families to remind them of the ethos of their family and community.  I’ve often said I was raised by the strict standards of my mother and father, and also of the parents of my friends, my teachers, my coaches, my ministers, and by the local businessmen who didn’t hesitate to remind me ‘that’s not how you were raised.’”

👉  Today’s close is from Streams in the Desert.

“Although the fig tree shall not blossom, neither shall fruit be in the vines; the labor of the olive shall fail, and the fields shall yield no meat; the flock shall be cut off from the fold, and there shall be no herd in the stalls: yet I will rejoice in the Lord, I will joy in the God of my salvation” (Habakkuk 3:17-18).

The prophet was describing at once and the same time a great calamity and a heroic faith.  It is really as if he said, “Though I should be reduced to so great extremity as not to know where to find my necessary food, though I should look around about me on an empty house and a desolate field, and see the marks of scourge where I had once seen the fruits of God’s bounty, yet I will rejoice in the Lord.”

Last night I heard a robin singing in the rain,
And the raindrop’s patter made a sweet refrain,
Making all the sweeter the music of the strain.
So, I thought, when trouble comes, as trouble will,
Why should I stop singing? Just beyond the hill
It may be that sunshine floods the green world still.
He who faces the trouble with a heart of cheer
Makes the burden lighter. If there falls a tear,
Sweeter is the cadence in the song we hear.
I have learned your lesson, bird with dappled wing,
Listening to your music with its lilt of spring
When the storm-cloud darkens, then’s the TIME to sing.
– Eben E. Rexford

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