QUARANTINE BLOG # 374

April 8, 2021

We’ll wrap up the gangsters and gangster catchers vignettes today with Melvin Purvis, law enforcement official and FBI agent.  

Purvis became noted for leading the manhunts that captured or killed bank robbers such as Baby Face Nelson, John Dillinger, and Pretty Boy Floyd, but his high public profile was resented by local law enforcement.  Purvis became the FBI’s golden boy, having captured more of designated public enemies than any other agent, but found himself sidelined after he began to enjoy better press than J. Edgar Hoover.

Purvis appeared as a contestant on the game show “To Tell the Truth” (aired September 24, 1957).

On February 29, 1960, Purvis was at his home in Florence, South Carolina, when he died from a gunshot wound to the head.  The shot was fired from the pistol that was given to him by fellow agents when he resigned from the FBI.  The FBI investigated his death and declared it a suicide, although the official coroner's report did not label the cause of death as such.  A later investigation suggested that Purvis may have shot himself accidentally while trying to extract a tracer bullet from the weapon.

👉  A panel with good advice (says the guy who takes a nap every afternoon):

👉  When Jennifer Boyd and her sister Pattie started modeling in London, she never took it seriously enough to even learn the slinky catwalk walk the models all walked.  Instead, she would dance.  Because Pattie was dating George Harrison – and later married him – Jenny hung out with him a lot, and the other Beatles.  When George invited her to join Pattie and the other Beatles on their India trip, Jenny was thrilled and said, “How can I ever thank you?”  George said only, “Be yourself.”  

Jennifer, Ringo, George, and Pattie.

Moving in the world of rock stars, Jennifer married Mick Fleetwood, twice.  Mick Jagger told her he had written a song for her, though he didn’t mention which one.  And Donovan Phillips Leitch, who performed under just his first name, wrote “Jennifer Juniper” for her.   Here is our girl’s name song of the day, “Jennifer Juniper.” 

👉  Just before I introduce a piece from our “What Do They Use For Brains Department,” a panel which may help the situation to be described:

👉  Maybe I’ll rename the department “Do They Have Any Brains?”  Last week Georgia Governor Brian Kemp outlined a plan – which starts today – to start rolling back many of Georgia’s remaining coronavirus restrictions next week, even as President Joe Biden and health experts warn of a potential fourth surge of the pandemic if people let down their guard.

Today ends a ban on large gatherings, eliminates shelter-in-place requirements for vulnerable populations, and pares down a lengthy list of safety guidelines that businesses such as bars, retail stores and entertainment venues are supposed to follow.  The governor has said loosening the rules is a crucial step to returning to “normal life” as the number of new infections in the state has declined from the winter peak and millions of Georgians secure at least one dose of vaccine.  But the timing comes amid sharpening concerns of new, more worrisome variants of the disease, and the fact that COVID-19 is again spiking in several states.

Kemp’s new executive order also eliminates the ability of law enforcement to close an organization for failure to comply with the rules.  This clip from the original Star Trek episode, “Spock's Brain” is very appropriate.  Brainless.

👉  I talked to a travel agent this week who said cruise lines are beginning to put pressure on the CDC to loosen up their restrictions and let ships sail (I have maintained since the get-go that cruise lines were blamed, and restricted, far above any other segment of the entertainment/travel agency).  Today I received an email from the Carnival Entertainment Department which had some discouraging words Christine Duffy, president of Carnival Cruise Line: “While we have not made plans to move Carnival Cruise Line ships outside of our U.S. home ports, we may have no choice but to do so in order to resume our operations which have been on ‘pause’ for over a year.”

👉  Well, a couple of light notes before we close:

One call, that's all.

👉  Potential.

An engineer received complaint that a road construction work was behind schedule.  He decided to visit the site to larn the cause of delay.  On getting to the site, he read a road sign which stated, “Slow men at work.”  What the supervisor wanted to write was, “Slow, men at work.”  The comma is a small thing, but when lost or misplaced, the entire meaning of a sentence is changed.

Here’s another small thing: “For want of a nail, the shoe was lost.  For want of a shoe the horse was lost.  For want of a horse the rider was lost.  For want of a rider, the message was lost.  For want of a message the battle was lost.  For want of a battle, the kingdom was lost.  All for the want of a horse shoe nail.”

Jesus talked about small things: “The kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed, which a man took and sowed in his field, which indeed is the least of all the seeds; but when it is grown it is greater than the herbs and becomes a tree, so that the birds of the air come and nest in its branches” (Matthew 13:31-32 NKJV).

In Palestine this little grain of mustard seed did grow into something very like a tree.  Jesus’ point was crystal clear when he said that his Kingdom was a mustard seed.  The Kingdom of Heaven starts from the smallest beginnings, and no one knows where it will end.  

The parable of the mustard seed is a story about potential.  If you were to hold this mustard seed in your hand, or any seed for that matter, you might have no idea what it would produce.  Will it become, like this mustard seed, a tree large enough for birds to nest in?  Will it become a rose whose blossoms would fill the air with their beautiful aroma?  Will it become a vegetable to be prepared and placed before a hungry person?  

The potential is there, but it has not yet been unlocked.  It must be planted.  It must be watered.  It must be nourished.  Then it becomes what God made it to become.  And the Christian?  Once the seed is planted, will it bear fruit?  Will it be like the seeds scattered, in another of Jesus’ parable, into four different types of soil, to never sprout up, to be choked out, to burst to life and never become what it was intended to become, or to bring a harvest multiplying many times over?

This seed, so small to be considered insignificant, has incredible potential.  It can lie dormant, or be released in power.  This seed, your seed, your place in God’s plan, what will it become?  

Jesus was saying to his disciples, and to his followers today, release your faith, serve and witness each in your place, and from that small beginning the Kingdom will grow until the kingdoms of the earth finally become the kingdoms of our Lord and of his Christ, and he shall reign for ever and ever.

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