QUARANTINE BLOG # 581

November 1, 2021

Google, who did not put a “doodle” on 9/11, found the time to do one for Halloween.

👉  Here is a Fox Trot comic strip, closed circuit for one of our faithful blog readers:

👉  Everyday language is littered with lists: laundry, grocery, honey-do.  David Letterman’s Top 10 List has become a bona fide art form.  I am told that some Facebookers make lists of 25 things while others cut it down to 3.  Not being a Facebooker, I cannot verify that.  But I do know that most of us make lists.  National Public Radio (NPR) did a piece on why we make lists – it was a list that is 10 items long.  Here is an edited version (the full 10 can be ready by clicking here).

Lists bring order to chaos.  Lists help us in organizing what is otherwise overwhelming.

Lists help us remember things – at the hardware store, for the vacation trip, Christmas presents.  Checklists help you remember what you have done and what you have to do.  Your favorite bloggers have a checklist for cruising – and hope to use it soon.

Lists can keep us from procrastinating.  Making a list enables us to get our heads around really big tasks – and helps us tackle the work one aspect at a time. 

👉  Two “Ooo You’re Gold” panels that every parent– at one time or another – can understand:

👉  One of my favorite clergy persons is Fred Rogers, better known to most folks as Mr. Rogers.  This Presbyterian had a world-wide pulpit and a very young audience.  His ministry, of course, was his television show that communicated so much good news to children.

Rollins College in Florida has raised a statue of Mister Rogers, complete with puppets and adoring children.  It’s a tribute to the beloved TV host who graduated from Rollins 70 years ago.  Rogers wears his iconic cardigan and sneakers in the larger-than-life bronze statue, smiling as he holds his Daniel Tiger puppet in the center of a throng of children.  The sculpture, “A Beautiful Day for a Neighbor,” was created by British artist Paul Day. 

There are other statues sculpted in the likeness of Fred McFeely Rogers.

In Latrobe, PA

In Pittsburgh, PA

And Alice Katchar crocheted a large red sweater for the Pittsburgh state of Mr. Rogers.  Because of the way the statue was made, with his arms against his legs, she couldn't just crochet a sweater.  It had to be done in panels and then sewn onto him.

👉  TBH more than 300 million people in the world speak English and the rest, it sometimes seems, try to.  It would be charitable to say that the results are sometimes mixed.  Consider this warning to motorists in Tokyo: “When a passenger of the foot heave in sight, tootle the horn.  Trumpet at him melodiously at first, but if he still obstacles your passage, then tootle him with vigor.”

It would appear that one of the beauties of the English language is that with even the most tenuous grasp you can speak volumes if you show enough enthusiasm – a willingness to tootle with vigor, as it were.  Well, I’ve said all of that to say this, English is a constantly changing language, and if you don’t believe it, the Merriam-Webster dictionary has just added 455 new words.

One of my favorites is “fluffernutter” – “a sandwich made with peanut butter and marshmallow crème between two slices of white sandwich bread.”  Another new entry, and this one I identify with is “dad bod” – “typical father physiques that are slightly overweight and not extremely muscular.”  Oh, that TBH at the beginning of this piece has been added, too.  It means “to be honest.”

👉  Speaking of changing language, at the turn of the century, almost every ballpark had a large bull-shaped Bull Durham tobacco billboard on the outfield wall.  Relief pitchers would warm up in the shadow of the bull, and the area eventually became known as the bullpen.  

Well, in an era when the Cleveland Indians are now the Cleveland Guardians and the Washington Redskins are now the Washington Football Team, when pressure is on the Atlanta Braves to not only change their name, but stop the chop, there is a new movement afoot.  This one is being perpetrated by PETA, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals.  They want Major League Baseball to change the name of the place where pitchers warm up from “bull pen” to “arm barn” because – and I am not making this up – the word “‘bullpen’ mocks the misery of animals and devalues players.”

👉  With mornings now cold enough here in the sunny South that furnaces are turned on, here is a QB helpful hint for that day soon when there will be Frost On the Pumpkins:

Use a microfiber cloth to prevent frost from forming on your car’s windshield

👉  Carl Boberg, a twenty-six-year-old Swedish minister, wrote a poem in 1885 that he called “0 Store Gud” – “O Mighty God.”  The words, literally translated to English, said: “When I the world consider ... Then doth my soul burst forth in song of praise / Oh, great God, Oh, great God!”  Several years later Carl was surprised to hear it being sung to the tune of an old Swedish melody, but the poem and hymn did not achieve widespread fame.

Hearing this hymn in Russia, English missionary Stuart Hine was so moved he modified and expanded the words and made his own arrangement of the Swedish melody.  He later said his first three verses were inspired by Russia’s rugged Carpathian Mountains.  The first verse was composed when he was caught in a thunderstorm in a Carpathian village, the second as he heard the birds sing near the Romanian border, and the third as he witnessed many of the Carpathian mountain- dwellers coming to Christ.  The final verse was written after Dr. Hine returned to Great Britain.

During the 1954 Billy Graham Crusade in Harringay Arena, George Beverly Shea was given a leaflet containing this hymn.  He sang it to himself and shared it with other members of the Graham team.  Though not used in London, it was introduced the following year to audiences in Toronto.

In the New York Crusade of 1957, it was sung by Bev Shea ninety-nine times, with the choir joining the majestic refrain: “Then sings my soul, my Savior God to Thee, How great Thou art! How great Thou art!”

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