QUARANTINE BLOG # 184

September 30, 2020

Another month comes to a close today, and is our habit, let’s take a look back at things which happened in September.

👉  On September 1, 1972, in the “Match of the Century,” American chess grandmaster Bobby Fischer – who started playing chess professionally at age 8 – defeated Russian Boris Spassky during the World Chess Championship in Reykjavik, Iceland.  In the world’s most publicized title match ever played, Fischer, a 29-year-old Brooklynite, became the first American to win the competition since its inception in 1866.  The victory also marked the first time a non-Russian had won the event in 24 years.

👉  On Sunday, September 2, 1945, more than 250 Allied warships lay at anchor in Tokyo Bay. The  flags of the United States, Britain, the Soviet Union, and China fluttered above the deck of the battleship Missouri.  Japanese Foreign Minister Mamoru Shigemitsu signed the surrender documents on behalf of the Japanese government, and General Yoshijiro Umezu then signed for the Japanese armed forces.  Unconditional surrender.  Supreme Commander MacArthur next signed, declaring, “It is my earnest hope and indeed the hope of all mankind that from this solemn occasion a better world shall emerge out of the blood and carnage of the past.”

👉  In the early morning of September 5, 1972, a group of Palestinian terrorists stormed the Munich Olympic Village apartment of the Israeli athletes, killing two and taking nine others hostage.  The terrorists were part of a group known as Black September.   In an ensuing shootout at the Munich airport, the nine Israeli hostages were killed along with five terrorists and one West German policeman.

👉  As one of the first acts of his presidency, on September 8, 1974, President Gerald Ford pardoned his predecessor Richard M. Nixon for any crimes he may have committed or participated in while in office.  Ford later defended this action before the House Judiciary Committee, explaining that he wanted to end the national divisions created by the Watergate scandal.

👉  Four French teenagers followed their dog down a narrow entrance into a cavern near Montignac, France, on September 12, 1940, and discovered the Lascaux cave paintings.  The paintings, at least 15,000 years old, consist mostly of animal representations.  The walls of the cavern are decorated with some 600 painted and drawn animals and symbols and nearly 1,500 engravings. The Lascaux grotto was opened to the public in 1948 but was closed in 1963 because artificial lights had faded the vivid colors of the paintings and caused algae to grow over some of them.  A replica of the Lascaux cave was opened nearby in 1983.

👉  On September 13, 1990, the drama series “Law & Order” premiered on NBC.  It became one of the longest-running prime time dramas in TV history and spawn several popular spin-offs.  Each episode opens with a narrator stating https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D9F1eYHw41Y: “In the criminal justice system, the people are represented by two separate yet equally important groups: the police, who investigate crime, and the district attorneys, who prosecute the offenders. These are their stories.”

👉  Jimmy Carter filed a report with the National Investigations Committee on Aerial Phenomena on September 18, 1973, claiming he had seen an Unidentified Flying Object (UFO) in October 1969.  He described waiting outside for a Lion’s Club Meeting in Leary, Georgia, to begin, at about 7:30 p.m., when he spotted what he called “the darndest thing I’ve ever seen” in the sky.  Carter described the object as “very bright [with] changing colors and about the size of the moon.”  Carter reported that “the object hovered about 30 degrees above the horizon and moved in toward the earth and away before disappearing into the distance.”  That explains so much!

👉  It was billed as the “Battle of the Sexes.”  On September 20, 1973, top women’s player Billie Jean King, 29, beats Bobby Riggs, 55, a former No. 1 ranked men’s player.  Riggs, a self-proclaimed male chauvinist, had boasted that women were inferior, that they couldn’t handle the pressure of the game and that even at his age he could beat any female player.  Legendary sportscaster Howard Cosell called the match, in which King beat Riggs 6-4, 6-3, 6-3.

👉  On September 24, 1964, President Lyndon B. Johnson received the report of the Warren Commission on the assassination of President John F. Kennedy.  The commission was led by Chief Justice Earl Warren and became known as the Warren Commission.  It concluded that Oswald had acted alone and that the Secret Service had made poor preparations for JFK’s visit to Dallas and had failed to sufficiently protect him.

Side Note: It’s funny sometimes how the human memory works, the things that will spark a thought.  Writing about the Warren Commission I was reminded about Crash Davis’s “I Believe” speech (Kevin Costner in the movie Bull Durham).  If you’ve seen the movie you know that section has some language that is too salty for the Quarantine Blog, so here is an edited version I prepared: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5qPUSIcv56o.

👉  Under escort from the U.S. Army’s 101st Airborne Division, on September 25, 1957, nine Black students entered all-white Central High School in Little Rock, Arkansas.  Three weeks earlier, Arkansas Governor Orval Faubus had surrounded the school with National Guard troops to prevent its federal court-ordered racial integration.  After a tense standoff, President Dwight D. Eisenhower federalized the Arkansas National Guard and sent 1,000 army paratroopers to Little Rock to enforce the court order.

👉  For the first time in U.S. history, on September 26, 1960, a debate between major party presidential candidates was shown on television.  The presidential hopefuls, John F. Kennedy, a Democratic senator from Massachusetts, and Richard M. Nixon, the vice president of the United States, met in a Chicago studio to discuss U.S. domestic matters.

👉  Just after midnight on September 27, 1869, Sheriff Wild Bill Hickok and his deputy respond to a report that a local ruffian named Samuel Strawhun and several drunken buddies were tearing up John Bitter’s Beer Saloon in Hays City, Kansas.  When Hickok arrived and ordered the men to stop, Strawhun turned to attack him, and Hickok shot him in the head.  Strawhun died instantly, as did the riot.  The  citizens of Hays City were tired of the wild brawls and destructiveness of the hard-drinking buffalo hunters and soldiers who took over their town every night. They hoped the famous “Wild Bill” could restore peace and order, and in the summer of 1869, elected him as interim county sheriff.  Largely because of his methods, during the regular November election later that year, the people expressed their displeasure, and Hickok lost to his deputy, 144-89.

👉  On September 30, 1927, Babe Ruth hit his 60th home run of the 1927 season and with it set a record that would stand for 34 years.  Remembered more for his home runs than for his pitching, 1914 when Ruth was signed as a pitcher by the Baltimore Orioles.  That same summer, Ruth’s contract was sold by the Orioles to the Boston Red Sox.  He was recognized as the best pitcher on one of the great teams of the 1910s.  He set a record between 1916 and 1918 with 29 2/3 consecutive scoreless innings in World Series play, including a 14-inning game in 1916 in which he pitched every inning, giving up only a run in the first.  Before the 1920 season, Red Sox owner Harry Frazee sold The Bambino to the New York Yankees where he switched to the outfield, and hit more home runs than the entire Red Sox team in 10 of the next 12 seasons.  Here is one of his most famous home runs, the “called shot” in the 1932 World Series: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kvy_fuyj_kg.

👉  Today is National Gum Chewing Day (one of my favorites because I can pop gum like the cannons in Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky’s1812 Overture – and for the sheer pleasure of it, watch this Flash Mob version by Societat Musical d’Algemesi, performing in a public square, Placa del Mercat, in Valencia, Italy, where really big drums replace the cannons https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4NJRCCgK_AM.  Watching the Mob assemble from out of the crowd is incredible.  The music is great, too).

Anyway, humans have used chewing gum for over 5,000 years.  They may have chewed it for enjoyment, to stave off hunger, or to freshen their breath much like we do today.  The sources used to make gum resulted in minty and sweet chewable globs of wax or sap resin that fulfilled the human urge to gnaw.  In 2007, a British archaeology student discovered a 5,000-year-old piece of chewing gum made from bark tar with tooth imprints in it.

Speaking of chewing gum, I have the last known piece of Green Hubba Bubba bubble gum in existence.  I’ll tell you that story on Monday.

👉 Lessons from Stone Waterpots #3

You can read the whole story here:
https://classic.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=John+2%3A1-11&version=NKJV.

In this first miracle we have a fascinating glimpse of divine love.  One stone water jar would have satisfied the largest marriage company.  Jesus transformed all six pots because God gives with a lavishness that is staggering.  It is the lavishness of love.

Occasionally our supplies run short, so that we can realize that everything we have, all of our blessings, come from God’s hand.  When we link up to God, His supply links up to us.  When Christ is near, the Supplier of our every need is near.

You may, at this moment, not be in the best of health.  You may be facing a difficulty which seems ready to crush you.  There may be pressures on your job that seem to have no end.  Problems in your family break your heart.  And in the midst of this pain, you ask, “Why, God?”

Remember that little couple in Cana?  They were on the verge of want.  They did not know that their supply was about to run out.  But Jesus was there!  And at His touch their need was supplied.

Jesus is still the same.  Your problems may be about to overwhelm you, but they will never overwhelm Him.  No difficulties can baffle Him.  His resources are inexhaustible.  Ask Him to help you.  He is ready, right now!

This clip is a moving, and powerful, cinematic retelling of Jesus turning water into wine at the wedding in Cana: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cITLfD78o84.

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QUARANTINE BLOG # 183

September 29, 2020

Continuing yesterday’s “Signs of the Times:”

At an Optometrist’s Office: “If you don’t see what you’re looking for, you’ve come to the right place.”

In a Non-smoking Area: “If we see smoke, we will assume you are on fire and will take appropriate action.”

On a Maternity Room door: “Push.  Push.  Push.”

In a Veterinarian’s waiting room: “Be back in 5 minutes.  Sit!  Stay!”

In the front yard of a Funeral Home: “Drive carefully.  We’ll wait.”

And the best one for last: Sign on the back of a Septic Tank Truck: “Caution –  This Truck is full of Political Promises”

👉  With apologies to one of the blog readers who drinks chocolate milk and eschews coffee, National Chocolate Milk Day was Sunday – September 27.  In the late 1680s, an Irish-born physician by the name of Hans Sloane invented the chocolatey beverage. 

When offered the position of personal physician to an English Duke in Jamaica, Sloane jumped at the opportunity.  While in Jamaica, Sloane encountered a local beverage.  The locals mixed cocoa and water together.  Sloane reported the flavor to be nauseating.  After some experimentation, the doctor found a way to combine cocoa with milk.  The creamy combination made it a more pleasant-tasting drink.  Years later, Sloane returned to England with the chocolate recipe in hand.  Initially, apothecaries introduced the concoction as a medicine.

Oh, we also missed National Chocolate Milkshake Day – September 12.  Sorry.

👉  Last Tuesday I told you about The New York Times’ 1619 Project, an attempt to rewrite our nation’s history.  Oprah Winfrey is going to develop it for film and television.  It’s being incorporated into curricula from grade schools to universities through the Pulitzer Center.  The lead author, Nikole Hannah-Jones, won a Pulitzer Prize in the commentary category (the center and the prize are unrelated).

Now Hannah-Jones and the Times are quietly taking back the project’s most controversial claim: that 1619, not 1776, was America’s “true founding.”  President Trump recently attacked the 1619 Project as representative of left-wing, anti-American bias.  Hannah-Jones says that right-wingers were distorting the project.  She said on CNN recently that the 1619 Project “does not argue that 1776 was not the founding of the country.”

The problem is that this is simply a lie.  The original magazine package, in both the print and online versions, said: “The 1619 Project is a major initiative from The New York Times observing the 400th anniversary of the beginning of American slavery.  It aims to reframe the country’s history, understanding 1619 as our true founding ...”

Along with other major historical facts and interpretations which the Project got grossly wrong, 1619 wasn’t the first year African slaves came to our shores, and 1619 wasn’t particularly significant beyond being a convenient 400 years prior to the publication date. 

One commentator, Jonah Goldberg, says the reason the Times is backpeddling is to deny President Trump and his fans a talking point.  Maybe there is varnish on the Times’ version.

👉  One more quote from Tom Brokaw’s excellent The Greatest Generation: “The women and members of ethnic groups who were the objects of acute discrimination even as they served their country remember the hurt, but they have not allowed it to cripple them, nor have they invoked it as a claim for special treatment now.  They’re much more likely to talk about the gains that have been achieved rather than the pain they suffered.”

I repeat my recommendation that this book be used in middle school and high school history classes.

👉  I once overheard someone turn down a bottle of Coca-Cola saying, “The only time I drink Coke is when I dilute it with rum.”  Well, that rum and Coke drinker is in the minority because Coca Cola is available in every country in the world.  In North Korea and Cuba it is called a “grey import,” coming in from another country without the direct permission of The Coca-Cola Company. 

How about some other interesting “coke-isms” you may not have known? 

From 1886 to 1959, a 6.5 glass or bottle of Coca-Cola was just 5 cents. 

When Coca-Cola was ready to import to China, they chose the name “Kekoukela” which sounds similar phonetically, but translates to “bite the wax tadpole.”  So the name was changed to “Kekoukele” which means “tasty fun.”

Coca-Cola was made in a colorless version for importing to the Soviet Union.  The regular stuff was seen as a symbol of American imperialism, but Marshal Georgy Konstantinovich Zhukov, who was introduced to it by General Dwight Eisenhower, became a big fan of Coke and appealed to the company for a non-political version.  With President Harry Truman’s endorsement, Coke responded with a colorless soft drink presented in a clear glass bottle closed by a white cap with a red star on top.  A rose by any other name?

👉  Some things strike me as strange – the label of this Campbell’s soup can for instance.  As I was fixing my lunch yesterday I wondered, “Why would anyone put stale noodles in chicken noodle soup?”

👉  As a general rule, I don’t give to panhandlers.  For instance, when I was taking groups to Russia, I told my fellow travelers, do not, under any circumstances, give money to beggars.  If you want to give, give the money to the church we are visiting for their ministry to the poor.  Many of the beggars you see are professionals working scams with cohorts that will see where you keep your money and rob you.  There is a whole society of people who are taught to beg almost from the day of their birth.  But I have a friend who, if he saw the fellow in this picture begging, would drop money in his tin cup.

👉  Lessons from Stone Waterpots # 2.  The story of the turning of water into wine does not tell us about something Jesus did once and never does again, but of something which He is always doing.

You can read the whole story here:
https://classic.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=John+2%3A1-11&version=NKJV.

The importance of this miracle is not that Jesus once upon a time turned some stone jugs of water into wine.  God wants us to see that whenever Jesus comes into a person’s life, there comes a new quality which is like turning water into wine.

Without Jesus, life is dull and stale and flat.  When Jesus comes into it, life becomes vivid and sparkling and exciting.

Without Jesus, life is drab and uninteresting.  With Him it is thrilling and exhilarating.

Remember that John wrote his gospel many years after Jesus was crucified.  For decades he had thought and meditated and remembered, until he saw meanings and significances that he had not seen at the time.

When John told this story he was remembering what life with Jesus was like, and it is as if he said, “Whenever Jesus came into a life it was like water turning into wine.”

In this story is John saying to us: “If you want new exhilaration, become a follower of Jesus Christ, and there will come a change in your life which will be like water turning into wine.”

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QUARANTINE BLOG # 182

September 28, 2020

We begin this Monday with one from our “You’ve Got To Be Kidding Me Department.”  New York City’s Metropolitan Transportation Authority has officially banned pooping on its subways, buses and transit facilities.  The New York Post writes, “The dirty deed is already barred under current rules, which subject any rider to a $100 fine for ‘create[ing] a nuisance, hazard, or unsanitary condition (including, but not limited to, spitting or urinating).’  But the rule change will specifically add ‘defecating’ to the list of bodily expulsions.”  The MTA has to pass a do not poop rule?  You’ve got to be kidding me!

👉  Tomorrow is National Coffee Day.  I’m letting all of you drinkers of the brown nectar know early so you can sign up for free coffee.  Lots of places are giving a free cup: some are doing it through their phone apps: 7-Eleven, Circle K, and Love’s Travel Stops.  At Huddle House, Krispy Kreme, and Wawa just come in and get it.  At Starbucks you have to enter a contest.  Drink up.

👉  Today is Yom Kippur, also known as the Day of Atonement, the holiest day of the year in Judaism.  Its central themes are atonement and repentance.  Jews traditionally observe this holy day with a day-long fast and intensive prayer, often spending most of the day in synagogue services.

Sandy Koufax, the Hall of Fame pitcher for the Los Angels Dodgers, decided not to pitch Game 1 of the 1965 World Series because it fell on Yom Kippur.  Hall of Fame first baseman Hank Greenberg, nearly three decades earlier, refused to play baseball on Yom Kippur, even though the Tigers were in the middle of a pennant race, and he was leading the league in RBIs.  When Greenberg arrived in synagogue on Yom Kippur, the service stopped suddenly, and the congregation gave an embarrassed Greenberg a standing ovation.

On Yom Kippur, October 6, 1973, a coalition of Arab states led by Egypt and Syria attacked Israel.  The United States and the Soviet Union initiated massive resupply efforts to their respective allies during the war, which began with a successful Egyptian crossing of the Suez Canal.  Egyptian forces advanced virtually unopposed into the Sinai Peninsula.  After three days, Israel had mobilized most of its forces and halted the Egyptian offensive, resulting in a military stalemate.  Israeli forces had pushed the Syrians back from the Golan Heights, and then launched a four-day counter-offensive.  By October 24, the Israelis had improved their positions considerably and completed their encirclement of Egypt’s Third Army and the city of Suez.  A cease-fire was imposed cooperatively on October 25 to end the war.

👉  President Donald Trump announced Circuit Judge for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit, Amy Coney Barrett, as his nominee to fill the empty seat on the U.S. Supreme Court Bench.  Yesterday he acknowledged that the confirmation of Barrett may not go “smoothly.”  Joe Biden implored the Senate to hold off on voting on her nomination until after the Nov. 3 election to “let the people decide.”

The Democratic nominee is right, and the people have already decided – 232 years ago.  On June 21, 1788, the Constitution became the official framework of the government of the United States of America when New Hampshire became the ninth of 13 states to ratify it.  Hello, Joe!  The Constitution of the United States, Article 2, Section 2, Clause 2 states, “[The President] shall have Power ... to nominate, and by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate, shall appoint ... Judges of the supreme Court ...”  Donald J. Trump is the president of the United States.  Period.

👉  On September 28, 1941, the Boston Red Sox’s Ted Williams – the Splendid Splinter – played a double-header against the Philadelphia Athletics on the last day of the regular season and got six hits in eight trips to the plate, to boost his batting average to .406 and became the first player in nearly a dozen years to hit .400.  No major leaguer since Williams has hit .400.

Williams played his last game exactly 19 years later on September 28, 1960, and retired with a lifetime batting average of .344.  His achievements are all the more impressive because his career was interrupted twice for military service: Williams was a Marine Corps pilot during World War II and the Korean War and as a result missed a total of nearly five seasons from baseball.

👉  Speaking of baseball, the coronavirus shortened season has come to an end and the playoffs – expanded from the usual 10 teams to 16 – are about to begin.  The Pittsburgh Pirates won the first draft pick for 2021.  The rest of the winners for the first round, best-of-three series are: for the American League No. 1 Rays vs. No. 8 Blue Jays, No. 2 A’ vs. No. 7 White Sox, No. 3 Twins vs. No. 6 Astros, No. 4 Indians vs. No. 5 Yankees, and for the National League No. 1 Dodgers vs. No. 8 Brewers, No. 2 Braves vs. No. 7 Reds, No. 3 Cubs vs. No. 6 Marlins, No. 4 Padres vs. No. 5 Cardinals.  This round begins tomorrow.

👉  And now three signs of the times.

👉  Today’s message from the Crawfordville pulpit: “Elijah, God’s Man (Part 1):  http://davidsisler.com/christian/ElijahGodsManPart1.mp3.

👉  What can exhausted pastors do to relax on Sunday nights after a hard day’s work? Baptist preacher Robert Lowry went home to his wife and three sons and wrote hymns.  Born in Pennsylvania in 1826, he pastored churches in New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania. Lowry gained a reputation for keen biblical scholarship and powerful, picturesque preaching.

hen gospel song editor William Bradbury died in 1868, Lowry was chosen to replace him as a publisher of Sunday school music.  He’s best known, however, for his own gospel songs, including: “Nothing but the Blood,” “Shall We Gather at the River?” “All the Way My Savior Leads Me,” “I Need Thee Every Hour,” and
“Marching to Zion.”

“Christ Arose!,” was written one evening during the Easter season of 1874 while Lowry was engaged in his devotions.  He became deeply impressed with Luke 24:6-8, especially the words of the angel at the tomb of Christ: “Why do you seek the living among the dead? He is not here, but is risen!”

The words and music began forming together in his mind. Going to the little pump organ in his home, Lowry soon completed what was to become one of our greatest resurrection hymns.

Low in the grave He lay
Jesus, my Savior
Waiting the coming day
Jesus, my Lord
Vainly they watch His bed
Jesus, my Savior
Vainly they seal the dead
Jesus, my Lord
Death cannot his prey
Jesus, my Savior (My Savior)
He tore the bars away
Jesus, my Lord
Up from the grave He arose (He arose)
With a mighty triumph o’er His foes (He arose)
He arose! He arose!
Hallelujah! Christ arose!

Here is a beautiful acapella rendition by Michael Eldridge: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uGNCIL4uIqY.

For a very different, but equally moving version by Voice Of Eden, click here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2fs760h4yI4.

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QUARANTINE BLOG # 181

September 27, 2020

THE BEST LAID PLANS

You will never convince anyone who has ever run up against it – and who among us has not – that Murphy’s Law was not meant as a defeatist principle.

The military engineer who coined it, intended it to be a call for alertness and adaptation in a world which technology makes increasingly unpredictable. So explains Edward Tenner in his book, Why Things Bite Back. This marvelous book, which discusses unforseen consequences of things animal, vegetable, mineral, and human, is testimony that the best laid plans of mice and men frequently mess up.

Cigarette smokers who switch to low-tar-and-nicotine brands, unconsciously compensate for the reduced volume of nicotine by inhaling more often or more deeply. An editorial in the American Journal of Public Health speculates “that the existence of low tar and nicotine cigarettes has actually caused more smoking ... and thereby raised the morbidity and mortality associated with smoking.”

In the original forests of the West, periodic natural fires burned off small trees and brush. The U.S. Forest Service’s Smokey the Bear campaign did not understand that such a fire was invigorating for the forest. Now accumulating vegetation in the forest allows  fire to climb to the crowns of mature trees, where it can spread more rapidly than ever. The new-style forest frequently explodes into flame. Ask California.

The Exxon Valdez hit Bligh Reef off the Alaska Coast almost 30 years ago, discharging 35,000 tons of crude oil. Tidying up the oil spill produced even more disastrous effects. The cleanup relied heavily on hot water applied by high-velocity pumps which scalded the beach, killing many organisms that had survived the oil. The pumps disrupted the natural sediments of beaches, both gravel and sand, smothering clams and worms. The area still suffers from both the spill and the cleanup.

Red fire ants first landed in Mobile, Alabama in the 1930s. The U.S. Department of Agriculture sprayed millions of acres with DDT, spent hundreds of millions of dollars, and left more fire ants than ever. They are so resilient they even migrate as part of insecticide shipments. Spraying campaigns may have promoted an even more ominous trend that already dominates Florida: densely spaced supercolonies, as many as five hundred per acre, each with a hundred queens or more, resulting in peak densities of over 500 fire ants per square foot.

During the New Deal the U.S. Soil Conservation Service advocated kudzu, a vine native to Asia, as a plant that could restore devastated Southern cotton lands. The Soil Conservation Service paid farmers $6 to $8 per acre for planting it. Without diseases or North American insect enemies, it thrives, pulling down telephone poles, shorting high-voltage lines on long-distance electric transmission towers, and spreading over bridges. Growing at the rate of one foot per day, it now covers about 7.5 million acres.

All of the above examples and more, Mr. Tenner reported. He did not describe the most momentous unforseen consequence of all time.

Almost 2000 years ago, the Apostle Paul, referring to all the forces of evil, wrote: “None of the rulers of this age understood God’s secret wisdom, for if they had, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory” (1 Corinthians 2:8). Without the crucifixion of Jesus, there would have been no resurrection. Without His resurrection, there would have been no hope.

Their miscalculation was always in God’s eternal plan. Murphy never had a chance!

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QUARANTINE BLOG # 180

September 26, 2020

The first time Bonnie and I went to Madeira we were not scheduled to go there, but a storm in the area of Ponta Delgada in the Azores caused a change of schedule.  We got to Ponta Delgada a year later, but as they say, “It is an ill wind that blows no good.”  This first of three stops at Madeira quickly became one of our favorite visits.  When there is a safe way to travel again, we hope to do an extended visit at Christmas time (you’ll see part of the reason at the end of this rambling).  Well, off to Madeira.

2000 years ago Phoenicians, Romans and North-Africans make references to what could be the archipelago of Madeira in ancient texts. Quintus Sertorius, a Roman statesman, “met seamen recently arrived from Atlantic islands, two in number.” Details seem to indicate Madeira and Porto Santo, which is much smaller than Madeira itself, and to the north east of it.

In addition to this shadowy report, the story of the discovery of Madeira has many versions. Some say the nearby island of Porto Santo was discovered first and then the 21 miles of ocean to its west was sailed and escapees or explorers landed on Madeira.

Let’s begin with the most fanciful.

Porto Santo was discovered by Seve Ballesteros around the year 2000. Seve designed Porto Santo Golfe, which plays along spectacular cliff tops. It opened in 2004.

The signature hole on the 7,041 yard par 72 course is Number 13, playing 175 yards over an open chasm.

That’s probably not the way it happened.

My favorite story of the discovery of Madeira is reported by many sources. I call it “Romeo and Juliet on the Bounding Main.”

Robert Machin was a 14th century English adventurer, who is credited by some with discovering Madeira.

Robert was an English aristocrat who fell in love with Anne d’Arfet. Anne was of a higher social standing than Robert, and the two had to elope. Their ship was driven away from the coast of France by a storm, and after thirteen days they landed on Madeira. Anne died from exhaustion, and Robert died few days later. The crew of the ship made it to North Africa, where they are captured by the Moors. One of their fellow prisoners was rescued by a servant of Prince Henry the Navigator of Portugal. When Prince Henry heard of the story he sent out an expedition that found the island of Madeira.

All speculation aside, we know that the Portugese discovered Porto Santo and Madeira and appointed Bartolomeu Perestrelo the first governor of Porto Santo.

History reports that Perestrelo released a female rabbit that had littered on the voyage, along with her offspring, which multiplied catastrophically in a desert island ecosystem that had evolved in isolation and had never known a flightless mammal. The loss of the native flora laid the island slopes open to erosion and colonization by European weeds that accompanied the settlers. As a result, the Porto Santo of 1400 is as lost to us as is the world before the Noachian flood.

During the first centuries of settlement, life on Porto Santo was harsh, owing to the scarcity of potable water, the depredations of feral rabbits, and constant attacks by Barbary Coast pirates and French privateers.

Speaking of feral rabbits, do you remember when President Jimmy Carter was attacked by a “killer rabbit”?  True story.  Check it out: https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=63&v=i4p6_G4gQpk&feature=emb_logo.

In 1419 Joao Gongalves Zarco and Tristao Vaz Teixeira landed on the island, and colonized it for Portugal’s Prince Henry the Navigator.

Before anything could be planted, the thickly forested island first had to be cleared. Fire was used, and the ash, when added to the virgin soil, produced a land of agricultural potential. But before it could be put in crops, one additional problem had to be resolved.

Although water was abundant on the island, rainfall was irregular, especially in the lower, flatter areas where agriculture would be undertaken. The solution was a “simple” matter of redirecting the flow of water by gravitational force from a higher point to another point at a lower elevation. Because of the trade winds the rain is more evenly distributed on north side of Madeira than it is on the south side of the island, and  precipitation is heaviest above 4,000 feet.

Slaves were forced to build the levadas, the irrigation system. The irrigation works, which include 25 miles of tunnels, transformed Madeira into an agricultural paradise. Today the 1,350 miles of levadas provide hydro-electric power.  Check out this video clip I made: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YpppttOLBcg.

Sugar cane was introduced into Madeira from Sicily. The juice was first squeezed from the plants in hand-operated presses. Later Henry constructed a water-driven mill, or engenho, in Madeira.

By 1455 the annual production was in excess of 100 tons. By 1472 more than 2,500 tons were being produced, and two decades later, 13,000 tons. Madeira was soon supplying most of western Europe with sugar.

I will tell more of Madeira’s story next Saturday, but let’s close with some pictures showing the beauty of the island.

Nun's Village

Straight ahead, in the middle of the picture is the old road up to the top of the mountain. The new road we took in a tour bus wasn't much better.

Botanical Gardens

The fishing village of Camara de Lobos

This is the chapel where fishermen's wives went to pray for the safety of their husbands while they were out. It is on a street with businesses, and easy to miss, but we chanced on it, and enjoyed the peaceful sanctuary. The chapel as it is today is from a remodel in 1723.

Christmas: Funchal is the most incredibly decorated city for Christmas I've ever seen.  There are no politically correct worries.  The Nativity, Santa Claus, and modern celebrations are all featured.  You can see from these few pix that the whole city is decorated.

This picture does not do this nativity scene justice. It is a hillside village that is incredibly done.

A life-size nativity.

TTFN

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