QUARANTINE BLOG # 571

October 22, 2021

Yesterday we drove back to Bryson City and went in the Great Smokey Mountain National Park and hiked to 2 waterfalls.  The first was Tom’s Branch Falls, the second Deep Creek Falls.  Here are some pictures.

Tom's Branch Falls

Deep Creek Falls

👉  The Associated Press reports that U.S. regulators on signed off on extending COVID-19 boosters to Americans who got the Moderna or Johnson & Johnson vaccine and said anyone eligible for an extra dose can get a brand different from the one they received initially.  FDA officials said they wanted to make the booster guidance as flexible as possible, given that many people don't remember which brand of vaccine they received.

“Being able to interchange these vaccines is a good thing – it’s like what we do with flu vaccines,” FDA’s Dr. Peter Marks said.  “Most people don’t know what brand of flu vaccine they received.”  

The agency’s mix-and-match decision was based on preliminary results from a government study of different booster combinations that showed an extra dose of any type revs up levels of virus-fighting antibodies.  That study also showed recipients of the single-dose J&J vaccination had a far bigger response if they got a full-strength Moderna booster or a Pfizer booster rather than a second J&J shot.

Health authorities stress that the priority still is getting first shots to about 65 million eligible Americans who remain unvaccinated.

👉  Pearls Before Swine dishes on Twitter:

👉  Bucking the trend in much of the Americas, several Caribbean countries are reporting significant surges in known coronavirus infections, World Health Organization officials warned.  Reports of new cases are up 40 percent over the last week in the Dominican Republic and Barbados, said Dr. Carissa F. Etienne, the director of the Pan American Health Organization, a division of the W.H.O.

“In fact,” Dr. Etienne said, “half of Barbados’s cumulative Covid infections since the pandemic began have been reported in the last month.”

Cases are also rising in Trinidad and Tobago and some smaller island nations and territories in the region, including St. Martin, St. Kitts and Nevis, Anguilla and the Cayman Islands.

👉  In 1666 Quakers and Baptists moved from New Hampshire to northern New Jersey and setup house keeping.  All was well until they tried to decide when to celebrate the Sabbath.  Was it Saturday or Sunday?  Continuing to fuss and quibble about it (Sabbath is technically the Jewish day of worship, so it is Saturday – the Christian day of worship is the Lord’s Day, the day Jesus rose from the grave, so it is Sunday) their settlement was called Quibbletown.  Incorporated in the late 18th century, today it’s known as Piscataway, but parts are still Quibbletown, like the middle school.

If towns were named today because of debates between Christian communities think of the wonderful names we’d have.  Do we baptize face forward or face backward?  Do we dip or dunk?  What about speaking in tongues (as opposed to speaking with tongues, usually forked, often hateful and disruptive)?  Feel free to continue the list and let me know if you come up with a name for those I’ve suggested or disputes of your own choosing.  And those don’t even come close to the current Methodist uproar over whether God meant what he said when “holy men of old were inspired by the Holy Spirit.”

And New Jersey has more strangely named towns.  Like Buttzville which was named after the founder, Michael Robert Buttz; and that poor guy had to go through life with the initials M. R. Buttz (say it fast with a twang, and you’ll feel his pain). Clearly they had to flip a wooden nickel to choose from all the possibilities: Buttztown, Buttzland, Buttzberg … and it’s tails for Buttzville! (Oh, the puns are bottomless!)

Leaving the Northeast for the South, let’s stop in at Toad Suck, Arkansas.  The legend behind Toad Suck refers to the time when steamboats traveled the Arkansas River.  When the water was not deep enough, the steamboats tied up where the Toad Suck Ferry Lock and Dam now spans the river near Conway, Arkansas.  While captain and crew waited, they loitered over refreshments at the local tavern.  People living nearby commented, “They suck on the bottle ‘til they swell up like toads.”

Leaving the strange town names for today, one of blog readers commented about Pee Pee Creek, and wondered if it is beside the creek you go up without a paddle.

👉  And inspired by Buttzville:

MR DUCKS

MR NOT

O S A R

C M WANGS

MR DUCKS

👉  Ten more state license plates to go.  Here are the next to last 5.

👉  Some pictures to make you smile:

👉  Today’s close is from Praying with the Psalms, by Eugene H. Peterson.

“He reached down from on high, he took me; he drew me out of mighty waters” (Psalm 18:16).

We can’t save ourselves by pulling on our bootstraps, even when the bootstraps are made of the finest religious leather.  But if we can’t lift ourselves to God, God can, and does, reach down and lift us to himself.

Prayer: By your grace, O God, I will simply relax in your salvation, letting you do whatever you need to do to draw me to yourself.  Salvation is your work, not mine.  Thank you, in Jesus’ name.  Amen.

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