QUARANTINE BLOG # 680

March 7, 2022

The sermon for today from the Crawfordville pulpit is “The Lord Never Forgets.”  The text is Exodus 1:1-8 and 2:11-25.

👉  I got a good laugh out of the follow picture which Brian sent – unusual, but it makes perfect sense.  Enjoy.

👉  While you are smiling, enjoy 3 panels from Family Circus.

👉  A social media announcement by Chiquinho Scarpa, a wealthy Brazilian businessman, said that he was going to bury his $500,000 black Bentley Flying Spur, so he would have a comfortable place to rest in his next life. He said he had been inspired by accounts that ancient Egyptians were buried with their possessions. Mr. Scarpa posed by the hole with a shovel. 

Reporters assembled in São Paulo, but Mr. Scarpa stopped the proceedings just as the car was being interred. An ad agency had helped create this stunt, to promote organ donation. “It is absurd to bury bodies, which can save many lives. Nothing is more valuable. Be a donor, tell your family,” Mr. Scarpa.

Well, after that publicity stunt you may raise an eyebrow about other stories about people burying their cars and/or being buried in them.  But I found a couple which all reports indicate are true.

Sandra Ilene West, a flamboyant Beverly Hills oil heiress, was reportedly buried with her baby-blue 1964 Ferrari, California license RBM 362, in 1977.  The Ferrari register confirms that the owner of left-hand-drive chassis No. 5055, Sandra West, was “buried in car in San Antonio.”

When Ms. West made her will, she requested that she be buried inside a Ferrari “with the seat slanted comfortably.”

The late Sandra West and her Ferrari being buried.

When the box with the car and the departed driver was sealed, crews transported the box to the cemetery, where a crane placed it into a grave measuring 19 feet long, 10 feet wide and 9 feet deep.

Once the box was inside the grave, crews covered it with cement to discourage potential looters.

George Swanson of Pennsylvania had his ashes interred with his 1984 Corvette in 1994.

In 2009, Lonnie Holloway and his 1973 Pontiac Catalina went into the ground together in South Carolina.

If I can find one, I would request burial in one of these:

👉  Leaving the graveyard for another subject where there is no movement and no life, let’s visit some baseball parks – where there is no action, and probably won’t be for a while as greedy millionaires strike (or whatever they are doing, keeping vendors  and ticket takers and security people and parking lot attendants and restaurant owners and restaurant servers and a lot more besides from working and earning a living).  I found an article entitled “Foul! The Worst Ballparks in the Major Leagues.”  According to Scott Nordlund, here are a few (follow this link if you want to check them all out).  Forbes has ranked all 30 MLB stadiums, taking into account design, amenities and views (and they got the # 1 best ball park in the major leagues wrong).  Here are a few.

The third worst ballpark, according to that article is Guaranteed Rate Field, Chicago, home of the White Sox.  

Though it was the first of the retro-modern stadiums when it opened in 1991, it “never had any charm,” Forbes says.  It’s hard to compete with the Chicago Cubs’ historic Wrigley Field.

Second worst is Oakland-Alameda County Coliseum, Oakland, California, home of the Oakland Athletics.

The Oakland Athletics play in a park with an “aging, cookie-cutter design” that lacks views of the surrounding Oakland Hills, Forbes says.  If the 53-year-old stadium doesn’t seem totally baseball-friendly, that’s because, until recently, it was also home to the NFL’s Oakland Raiders (now the Las Vegas Raiders).

The worst baseball parking according to Forbes is Tropicana Field, St. Petersburg, Florida.

In the cellar on this list is the Tampa Bay Rays’ ballpark, the majors’ only remaining stadium with a dome that doesn’t retract. That “makes the ballpark experience call to mind being inside a fluted cow pie,” Forbes says.  Another negative is that “crowd” sizes can be about the same as what minor league clubs draw.

👉  I almost forgot to include the Monday pun:

👉  And Garfield has a comment about Monday:

👉  A trio of Smilies:

🛐  Today’s close is by Susanna Aughtmon.

“I know what it is to be in need, and I know what it is to have plenty. I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want” (Philippians 4:12).

In our family, if you epitomize a certain character trait, it becomes your name for the day.  If you are cranky, you are Cranky Crankerson. If you are adorable, you are Cutie Cuterson.

Lately, I have been Wanty Wanterson because I can’t stop wanting more. More lip gloss. More clothes. More Starbucks. More money. More furniture. More inpatients for the front yard. That’s a whole lot of wanting more for one girl to keep bridled inside. I am not allowing myself to go to Target at this point, because I know I will go for toilet paper and come back with patio furniture.

I’ve been pondering this discontented person that I am. I have prayed asking Jesus, “Why do I want so much right now?” and “Is it really so wrong to want lip gloss?” And I have felt some answers brewing in my soul such as: 1) I am made for more and that is okay; and 2) lip gloss, in and of itself, is not evil.

Mostly I feel that Jesus is asking me, “What are you doing with what I’ve already given you? And then I think, hasn’t He given me all I need and more? And the answer to that question would be yes. So in lieu of new patio furniture, I have decided to enjoy the blessings and responsibilities Jesus has already given me. If I do that, then maybe I can just be... me.

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