QUARANTINE BLOG # 171

September 17, 2020

From the section titled “Shame” in The Greatest Generation.

Martha Settle Putney, an ambitious young black woman from an industrial town where most black women could find work only as domestics, now a retired history professor after a distinguished teaching career at Bowie State and Howard universities, then a lieutenant in the Women’s Army Corp – the WACs:  “Work hard.  If you fail, don’t look around for others to blame.  Look in the mirror.  You have to accept responsibility for your own life.”

Johnnie Holmes, a volunteer after Pearl Harbor was attacked, who while in uniform strayed into an all-white neighborhood and was met with shouts of “Hey, boy, what you doin’ here?  Git outta here, nigger!”, who while at Fort Hood was forbidden to go into the PX, but German POWs at the Fort were allowed to shop there, who was in combat for 183 straight days, including the worst of the Battle of the Bulge: “If I let all of the negatives intervene, I would have never achieved anything.  I kept focused on what I wanted to do, which was to make money, provide for my family.”

👉  NASA astronaut Eileen Collins was the first female pilot and later the first female commander of a Space Shuttle.  To serve as the commander required an astronaut to have at least 1,000 hours of experience piloting jet aircraft.  Collins was also the commander on Columbia for Shuttle mission STS-93, launched in July 1999.  She commanded Discovery, STS-114, NASA’s “return to flight” mission – after Columbia broke up on reentry on February 1, 2003.  During STS-114, launched on July 26, 2005, Collins became the first astronaut to fly the Space Shuttle through a complete 360-degree pitch maneuver.  This was necessary so astronauts aboard the ISS could take photographs of the Shuttle’s belly, to ensure there was no threat from debris-related damage – like what destroyed Columbia – to the Shuttle upon reentry.

Tomorrow, the Mercury 13.

👉  On September 17, 1862, early in the morning, Confederate and Union troops clashed near Antietam Creek, just outside of Hagerstown, Maryland.  The Battle of Antietam marked the culmination of Confederate General Robert E. Lee’s first invasion of the Northern states. President Abraham Lincoln put Major General George B. McClellan in charge of the Union troops. 

Fighting began in the foggy dawn hours of September 17.  As savage and bloody combat continued for eight hours across the region, the Confederates were pushed back but not beaten, sustaining some 15,000 casualties.  By the time the sun went down, both armies still held their ground, despite staggering combined casualties – nearly 23,000 of the 100,000 soldiers engaged, including more than 3,600 dead.  It was the bloodiest single day in American military history.

👉  Today is Free Queso Day at Moe’s Southwest Grill.  Each year on this day, Moe’s gives out a free six-ounce cup of their queso as a way to thank their loyal customers (and get them to by more).  In past years, the restaurant held contests giving those who enter the opportunity to win free queso for life.  Last year the day was expanded to “Queso Season,” and queso was celebrated all of September.  If the current pandemic has caused Moe’s to suspend the holiday this year – and their website doesn’t give a clue either way – you can make your own.  The recipe is at https://www.myfoodandfamily.com/brands/velveeta/recipe/182873/creamy-white-queso-dip.

👉  Hurricane Sally came ashore near the Florida-Alabama line yesterday with 105 mph winds and rain measured in feet, not inches, swamping homes and trapping people in high water as it crept inland for what AP News says could be a long, slow and disastrous drenching across the Deep South.  More than 2 feet of rain was recorded near Naval Air Station Pensacola, and nearly 3 feet of water covered streets in downtown Pensacola.

“It’s not common that you start measuring rainfall in feet,” said National Weather Service forecaster David Eversole in Mobile, Alabama.  “Sally’s moving so slowly, so it just keeps pounding and pounding and pounding the area with tropical rain and just powerful winds.  It’s just a nightmare.”

👉  On August 11 the Big Ten Conference said it would not compete until at least 2021.  Yesterday officials said the conference would try to play football as soon as the weekend of October 23.  The league said players, coaches, trainers and others who are on playing and practice fields would undergo daily testing for the coronavirus, and that any player who tested positive would be barred from games for at least 21 days.  The move by chancellors and presidents representing the Big Ten’s 14 universities has caused outcries that the league is prioritizing profits, entertainment and placing public relations ahead of health and safety.

The Atlantic Coast Conference and the Big 12 earlier said they would try to navigate the epidemiological perils of the pandemic.  The New York Times says, “Now the Big Ten is poised to try to join them, potentially salvaging the seasons of some of the most renowned and lucrative [emphasis mine] names in college sports, including Michigan, Nebraska, Ohio State, Penn State and Wisconsin.”

👉  A few comic strips and panels before we close:

I can’t remember if I’ve published this one or not, but regardless, it is a salute to one of my favorite frequent flyers.

👉  Today’s close is from Praying with the Psalms, by Eugene H. Peterson.
“By the rivers of Babylon – there we sat down and there we wept, when we remembered Zion” (Palm 137:1 NRSV).

The Hebrew exiles, despondent beside Babylonian canals, were taunted by passersby: “You people who are so famous for songs of praise, sing us one of your happy Zion tunes!”  And they, homesick with longing, thought they couldn’t do it.  But they learned to sing when they realized that their Lord would be as precious to them in Babylon as he ever was in Jerusalem.

Prayer: At the very moment, Lord, when I think all is lost, that there is nothing to be done, that defeat is total, show me the way of resurrection whereby you can bring new life, new song and new hope.  In my Babylonian moods keep the vision of Jerusalem alive in my heart and teach me new songs of praise.  Amen.

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