QUARANTINE BLOG # 673

February 21, 2022

Today’s sermon, from the Crawfordville Pulpit, “What Do You Do When Life Goes Bump?” is from Genesis 37:1-11.

👉  From north of the border, a good chuckle to begin the day:

After a tiring day, a commuter settled down in his seat and closed his eyes. As the train rolled out of the station, the young woman sitting next to him pulled out her cell phone and started talking in a loud voice: “Hi sweetheart. It’s Mary. I’m on the train. Yes, I know it’s the six thirty and not the four thirty, but I had a long meeting. No, honey, not with that Kevin from the accounting office. It was with the boss. No sweetheart, you’re the only one in my life. Yes, I’m sure, cross my heart!” 

Fifteen minutes later, she was still talking loudly. When the man sitting next to her had enough, he leaned over and said into the phone, “Mary, hang up the phone and come back to bed.”

Mary doesn’t use her cell phone in public any longer. 

**  Here’s the Monday Pun:

👉  All over the country, governors are walking back from face mask mandates.  Maybe they should think about the comment made by Non Sequitur.

👉  Three Blackouts:

  A head-scratcher from an old TV Guide:

👉  A couple from Ooh You’re Gold:

👉  And two Smilies:

For everyone who has ever been to 117 Shenandoah Avenue, take a look over Skinny Pappy’s left shoulder:

👉  Back in the before time, when I was the manager of Taber’s Jewelers, your jeweler with the 100 day money back guarantee, a woman walked into the store and asked to see our “Errples.”  I said, “Errples?”  She said, “No.  Errples.”  I said, “Errples?”  She said, “No! Errples!”  After this conversation was repeated several more times she walked around the store, stopped in front of a case with semi-precious stones and with a large smile pointed and said, “Errples!”  I walked over, looked into the case and said, “Oh, opals!”  She said, “Yes!  Errples!”

Well, that little memory and bit of miscommunication was resurrected by a sale yesterday of the largest gem-quality opal in existence.  The opal, dubbed the “Americus Australis,” weighs more than 11,800 carats, according to the auction house Alaska Premier Auctions & Appraisals.  

Most recently, it was kept in a linen closet in a home in Big Lake, north of Anchorage, by Fred von Brandt, who mines for gold in Alaska and whose family has deep roots in the gem and rock business.  The opal is larger than a brick and is broken into two pieces, which von Brandt said was a practice used decades ago to prove gem quality.  Von Brandt said the stone has been in his family since the late 1950s, when his grandfather bought it from an Australian opal dealer named John Altmann.

The sale price, including buyer’s premium was $143,750 – for one errple!

👉  After a couple of amusing (hopefully) pictures, Wednesday’s and Friday’s blog will be devoted to a two-part story.  Part 1 is “Food Fight,” when food became a weapon, and won the first battle of the Cold War.  Part 2 is an episode from that fight featuring Lieutenant Gail Halvorsen, the “Candy Bomber.”

🛐  The exact details of the writing of this hymn are not known, but from a number of different sources we find that the writer, James Black, was a Sunday School teacher in Williamsport, Pennsylvania. 

In 1893 he supposedly befriended a poorly dressed girl who lived “down on Front Street, along the river.” He invited her to attend Sunday School but she hesitated because of her shabby clothes. Black apparently saw to it that she had something decent to wear and she began to attend. One day when he called the roll she failed to answer. Upon checking on her he found that she was very sick with typhoid fever and had little hope of recovery. Death came quickly. 

It is said that when Black realized that she would never again be there when the roll was called, he made the comment that he trusted that when the roll is called up yonder that she’ll be there. It is said that he couldn’t find an appropriate song to respond to this sad situation. The thought came to him that he should try to write one. When he got home he sat at his piano and the words and music to this hymn just flowed from his heart. 

And neither the words or the music have ever been changed. And so for many years this up tempo song – When the Roll Is Called Up Yonder” – has been sung by thousands as a reminder of the day when an important roll will be called. And those of us whose names are written in the Lamb’s Book of Life will be there to respond and enter the joys of that heavenly realm. What a day that will be!

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