QUARANTINE BLOG # 562

October 13, 2021

Canadian Thanksgiving was Monday.  Here is one more look.

When the “official” date was set in 1957 the government indicated that Canadian Thanksgiving was much earlier than American Thanksgiving because of the more northern climate – specifically that the bulk of the harvest was completed in late September, mid-October, due to harsher/earlier winters.  Because of this the official date was set earlier than the American date.   

“Custom Combining Crews” would arrive in Northern Alberta in early September and work their way south with the changing weather.  These custom combining crews were normally from the mid-United States and made a business of helping farmers take off their grain crops – they would arrive with swathers, combines, trucks to haul the grain and crew trailers; usually six plus men per crew.   They would be finished in Alberta by mid/late October and be available in the mid-western US in time for harvest there.  As farms have gotten larger and equipment has become more sophisticated these “harvest helpers” are now a thing of the past.

👉  The Wall Street Journal report was different yesterday.  Monday, they detailed one email with a racial trope by John Gruden.  Yesterday they reported, “Jon Gruden is stepping down as the Las Vegas Raiders coach, after a scandal that began last week with the revelation of his use of a racial trope in an email worsened Monday when other emails surfaced in which he used antigay language.”  Both WSJ and The New York Times have confirmed the existence of the emails.  Disturbed by the content of these newly renewed emails, QB nevertheless renews its earlier declaration: prejudice is wrong.  Period.

👉  Here are the next 5 state license plates:

👉  Enjoy “dramatic license” from my favorite comic strip couple, Edda and Amos:

👉  We’ve been playing some Number One songs from the 1960s, and while there were a lot of hits in 1963, only one makes QB’s presentation.  “You'll Never Walk Alone,” by Gerry and the Pacemakers.

Actually “You’ll Never Walk Alone” is a show tune from the 1945 Rodgers and Hammerstein musical “Carousel.”  In the second act of the musical, Nettie Fowler, the cousin of the female protagonist Julie Jordan, sings “You’ll Never Walk Alone” to comfort and encourage Julie when her husband, Billy Bigelow, the male lead, kills himself to avoid capture during a failed robbery.  It is reprised in the final scene to encourage a graduation class of which Louise (Billy and Julie’s daughter) is a member.  The now invisible Billy, who has been granted the chance to return to Earth for one day in order to redeem himself, watches the ceremony and is able to silently motivate Louise to join in the song.

👉  Some up and down images for your amusement:

👉  Your intellectual question for the today.  When you are coming to the end of toothpaste and you have to push it up from the bottom every time you brush, do you use less so it will last longer or do you use more so you can throw the empty away quicker and get a new one that is not such a bother?

👉  Here is today’s “Ooo You’re Gold.”

👉  My favorite satirist, Tom Lehrer sings, “Deck the halls with boughs of holly.  Fill the cup and don’t say when.”  Well, I certainly don’t echo his curmudgeonly look at Christmas, but with what used to be the celebration of the birth of Jesus, and now is almost exclusively an excuse for shopping and overspending – does anyone remember Jim and Della Young – you may have noticed that we are barely 2 months away from December 25.  And just so you’ll have something to be concerned about, the halls may be decked, but chances are very good the shelves will be empty long before the last purchase is made on Christmas Eve.

The prices for shipping containers from China – where most toys are made – is up, and there are clogs in the supply network.  The cost to get that “must have” under the tree is up dramatically from last year.  It is so bad that toy suppliers are leaving large parts of their inventories on the docks.

Like all manufacturers, toy companies have been facing supply chain woes since the pandemic started and temporarily closed factories in China in early 2020.  Then, U.S. stores temporarily cut back or halted production amid lockdowns.  The situation has only worsened since the spring, with companies having a hard time meeting surging demand for all sorts of goods from shoppers re-entering the world.

Maybe you read that first paragraph and asked, “Jim and Della Young?  Who are they?”  But now you remember O’Henry’s The Gift of the Magi, the story of a woman who had only $1.87 to buy a gift for her husband, and so she sold her hair to buy a gold chain for his most precious possession, a gold watch that a long time ago belonged to Jim’s father.  And Jim sold the watch to buy decorative combs for Della’s beautiful hair.  

I'll give William Sydney Porter, better known by his pen name O. Henry, the final word (and it you want to read the whole story, it’s only 6 pages long):

“The magi, as you know, were wise men – wonderfully wise men – who brought gifts to the newborn Christ-child.  They were the first to give Christmas gifts. Being wise, their gifts were doubtless wise ones.  And here I have told you the story of two children who were not wise.  Each sold the most valuable thing he owned in order to buy a gift for the other.  But let me speak a last word to the wise of these days: Of all who give gifts, these two were the most wise.  Of all who give and receive gifts, such as they are the most wise.  Everywhere they are the wise ones.  They are the magi.”

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