QUARANTINE BLOG # 372

April 6, 2021

First, a purely personal piece, and for all of those who have a connection to 117 Shenandoah Avenue in Loch Lynn, Maryland.  Melvin David Sisler, Sr. and Mary Elizabeth Bittinger were married 75 years ago today. 

Their wedding day photograph. That corsage is in a box in the Lego Room.

Mom and Dad drove to Cumberland, Maryland, to be married by a clergyman whose name I have forgotten.  April 6 was a Saturday that year.  Their wedding guests were their parents, Stella and Floyd Laudermilk (Dad’s mom and step-dad) and Orville and Grace Bittinger.

👉  We haven’t spun any tunes on the jukebox for a while, so let’s start the promised series of records featuring the names of girls.  One of the lists I read was “The 125 Greatest Songs With A Woman’s Name In The Title.”  The rules were: The song has to have a female’s name in the title, it has to be the first name, and no songs from the 1990s on up to the present can be included.  I don’t know if the QB will be as restrictive, but to spin the first tune, here is a song on Frank Sinatra’s concept album, Watertown, which is the only album Sinatra ever voiced over pre-recorded orchestral tracks.  The music was written by Bob Gaudio, and the lyrics by Jake Holmes.  Explaining the song, Holmes said, “It was real simple.  I just love that name.  Bobby was writing the song and that word just fell into the melody.  I just imagined a girl named Elizabeth and wrote words that were a tribute to her.”  Here is Frank Sinatra singing, “Elizabeth.”

👉  In response to the negative publicity of a recently passed Georgia law, requiring voters to authentically and accurately identify themselves before casting their ballots, someone posted this:

👉  Last week we took a look at some gangsters from the Prohibition Era.  Today, the first story about the lawmen who ended those lawless careers.

Under the direction President Herbert Hoover, a small team of Prohibition agents, working under a special United States attorney, was tasked to take down the gangsters.  Twenty-seven year old Eliot Ness was chosen to lead this small squad.  

With corruption of Chicago’s law enforcement agents endemic, Ness went through the records of all Prohibition agents to create a reliable team, initially of six, eventually growing to ten.  Within six months, Ness’s agents had destroyed bootlegging operations worth an estimated $500,000 and representing an additional $2 million in lost income for Capone.  Their raids would ultimately cost Capone in excess of $9 million in lost revenue.  Failed attempts by members of the Chicago Outfit to bribe or intimidate Ness and his agents inspired Charles Schwarz of the Chicago Daily News to begin calling them “The Untouchables.”

In 1931, a member of Al Capone’s gang promised Ness that two $1,000 notes (equivalent to $17,000 today) would be on his desk every Monday morning if he turned a blind eye to their bootlegging activities.  Ness refused the bribe and in later years struggled financially.  He was nearly penniless at the time of his death, with his role in bringing down Al Capone having been largely forgotten. 

👉  Hospitality businesses in Augusta, Georgia, view this week as an extra week of Christmas spending.  This is the week when Washington Road becomes a parking lot as golf fans flock to the Augusta National Golf Club for the first of golf’s major tournaments, and the only one played every year on the same course, the Masters.

Bobby Jones, an amateur golfer, was one of the most influential figures in the history of the sport.  Even though it was built in the depths of the Depression, Jones and his business partner, Clifford Roberts, enticed 59 men to pony up $350 each to join the new club.  Augusta National opened in January 1933 and in 1934 the inaugural Masters was held.  Horton Smith beat Craig Wood by a stroke to win.  It was called the Augusta National Invitational at that time, since Jones disliked the term Masters, which Roberts preferred.  Jones thought Masters too pretentious.  The Masters name, however, stuck with the members, golfers and fans, and Jones lost out – a rarity on or off the golf course.

Born in Atlanta in 1902, he won his first golf tournament – a children’s tournament – at the age of six at his home course of East Lake Golf Club in Atlanta.  At 14 he won the inaugural Georgia Amateur Championship.  In 1923, having just entered his twenties, he won his first major, the US Open.  In 1930 Jones won all four majors – US Open, British Open, US Amateur, British Amateur) – in one year, the Grand Slam, a feat no one else has ever equaled (the famous Tiger Slam wrapped over two years), and then he retired.  

He won 15 majors out of 20 attempts for a 65% winning percentage.  In comparison, between 1995 and 2015, Tiger Woods won 14 of the 76 majors he played, for an 18% winning percentage.  Jones’ total of 15 major tournaments wasn’t surpassed until Jack Nicklaus won his 16th major in 1980.

👉  This Little Light of Mine.

Jesus captured people’s attention with the stories he told.  His parables revealed truth, opening eyes to the deep insights of God’s kingdom; concealed truth from those whose hearts were twisted not to hear truth, and illustrated truth so that the simple, honest heart could understand.

The first recorded parable of Jesus in the Gospels is about light: “You are the light of the world – like a city on a hilltop that cannot be hidden.  No one lights a lamp and then puts it under a basket.  Instead, a lamp is placed on a stand, where it gives light to everyone in the house.  In the same way, let your good deeds shine out for all to see, so that everyone will praise your heavenly Father” (Matthew 5:14-16 NLT).

To be a light, specifically as Jesus put it, to be a lamp, is something that even a brand new believer can be.  A lamp does not have its own light, it reflects the light that is in it.  Before the wick is lit, it is just a lamp, but once the wick is lit, it becomes a light shining so all call see.  In John 8:12 Jesus said, “I am the light of the world.  If you follow me, you won’t have to walk in darkness, because you will have the light that leads to life.”  As believers, we do not give off our own light, we reflect Jesus.  The small wick may give a small light, but no matter how small, when lit, it chases away the darkness.

Growing in Christ, some become like a lighthouse, shining a welcoming beam far out into the darkness.  Newly born in Christ, others give light only to their home, or to their school, or to their work.  But large or small, the light leads to safety.

Like we used to sing at Summer Bible School, “This little light of mine, I'm gonna let it shine.”

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