*   *   *   *

*   *   *   *

June 11,* 2025 – In the last post I said that this post would continue the story of my recent two-week trip to London, Liverpool and Stratford. (Including an account of arriving at “Lime Street Station in Liverpool, though perhaps not as ‘majestically’ as Brian Epstein.”) But first: Back in April 2015 I posted On leaving a legacy, so I’d say it’s about time for an update.

Of course one big part of my legacy will include the ongoing travel adventures, with the lesson being that you too “can become an old guy who still gets a kick out of life.” (I’ll be 74 in July.)

But back to 2015. I was a mere 64 years old. (“Young Pup!”) Yet even then I wrote that “the idea of leaving a legacy looms larger and larger.” The idea of leaving behind something for future generations to ponder, “even if it’s only some musings in a blog like this.” One quote I found on the subject said “Your legacy is putting your stamp on the future. It’s a way to make some meaning of your existence: ‘Yes, world of the future, I was here.  Here’s my contribution, here’s why I hope my life mattered.’” Another thought: “Carve your name on hearts, not tombstones. A legacy is etched into the minds of others and the stories they share about you.” Or consider this, from Bill Graham (1931-1991), the noted “impresario and rock concert promoter:”

Our days are numbered.  One of the primary goals in our lives should be to prepare for our last day.  The legacy we leave is not just in our possessions, but in the quality of our lives. What preparations should we be making now?  The greatest waste in all of our earth, which cannot be recycled or reclaimed, is our waste of the time that God has given us each day.

Of particular interest – to me as a writer – were the “I write” quotes from Shannon L. Alder, including these: “I write because God loves stories,” and “I write because one day I will be gone, but what I believed and felt will live on.” And so I write, mostly about things I believe.

One thing I believe – with Ralph Waldo Emerson – is that “Whoso would be a man, must be a nonconformist.” Another thing I believe: You don’t have to turn into a grumpy old frump just because you’re getting up there in years. See Why Are Older People More Conservative? – Psychology Today, to wit: Most old folk were “quite liberal when they were young, and younger people will become more conservative when they grow old.*” Another finding: “intellectual curiosity tends to decline in old age,” but that doesn’t apply to me. I’m still learning and hope to keep learning.

Still more findings: Old people are less tolerant of ambiguity, need more “closure and structure” and tend to “dismiss information that conflicts with their views.” And they act in “more prejudiced ways … because in older ages preserving old knowledge is more important than acquiring new knowledge.” Again, “Not me!” As I posted back in 2021 – when I turned a “mere 70” – I hope to live to 120, like Moses, with “eye undimmed and vigor unabated.” (Deuteronomy 34:7.)

Which accords with what John Steinbeck said in his 1962 Travels with Charley. (On the “1960 road trip [he made] around the United States … in the company of his standard poodle Charley.”) At the time he was a mere 58 years old – again “young pup” – but he’d been suffering a host of physical ailments. (“Steinbeck’s son Thom [said he] made the journey because he knew he was dying and wanted to see the country one last time.”) Thus Steinbeck began Part Two of Travels by noting that many men his age – told to slow down – “pack their lives in cotton wool, smother their impulses, hood their passions, and gradually retire from their manhood.” (They “trade their violence for a small increase in life span.”) But that wasn’t his way:

I did not want to surrender fierceness for a small gain in yardage… If this projected journey should prove too much then it was time to go anyway. I see too many men delay their exits with a sickly, slow reluctance to leave the stage. It’s bad theater as well as bad living.

I too would certainly not want to commit “bad theater.” On the other hand that brings up what Robert Louis Stevenson said in Travels with a Donkey in the Cévennes. (He pioneered a 140-mile hiking route – now called the GR 70 or “Chemin de Stevenson – that I hiked in 2023, as detailed in the Notes.) Here’s what Stevenson had do say about such “strenuous pilgrimages:”

Alas, as we get up in life, and are more preoccupied with our affairs, even a holiday is a thing that must be worked for. To hold a pack upon a pack-saddle against a gale out of the freezing north is no high industry, but it is one that serves to occupy and compose the mind. And when the present is so exacting, who can annoy himself about the future?

On such a Camino hike* today – I’ve done six or seven since 2017; I’ve lost count – you focus; you concentrate solely on getting up in the morning and reaching that day’s down-the-road destination. Or contemplate first-thing how good the fresh-squeezed orange juice and Café Crème tastes, and how good that first cold beer at the end of the day’s hike will taste. In other words you are mindful. You experience the eternal now. In plain words you don’t give a rat’s ass about the future and what problems it might bring, which is itself liberating.

These days we have plenty of future to worry about. (Things that might happen but hopefully won’t.) So it’s rewarding to take a break from the nowaday sleepless nights and concentrate on reaching today’s destination, with everything you own carried on your back, and looking forward to that hot shower, warm bed and cold beer. Or it could come down to this basic lesson in life: “To have a mountaintop experience, you have to climb the &^*@$# mountain!”

As noted previously – repeatedly – “I dread the day when I have no more mountains to climb.”

But how the heck did we get to all that from a lead-off picture of a stork delivering a baby? For one thing it has to do with my style of writing. I’ve been told in the past – repeatedly – that my writing goes all over the place! (But as I said in the last post, “You know, like Leviticus, Isaiah and Tristram Shandy?”) But to me that’s the fun of blogging. The chance to learn new things in doing the research, in going off on those rabbit trails, those off on a tangents. In other words, the chance to stretch your mind, in the same way you should be stretching your body.

For example, I’ve been doing the yoga pose below since at least 1976, and I always thought it was the “fish pose.” But in fact – as I learned only yesterday, researching this post – I’ve actually been doing the Supine Hero Pose. I also discovered – just yesterday, researching this post – that I’m not the only one who thinks “Get to the point!” when reading one of the prevailing New Journalism-style articles so popular these days. (Where you have to plow through all the unconventional, subjective literary psychoanalysis just to get an answer to the question raised by the headline.) And third, I also discovered – just yesterday, researching this post – just how the stork-delivering-a-baby meme came to be. Including but not limited to the fact that to some people storks were seen as omens of stability and family devotion, while others thought storks bring harmony and prosperity to households where they nested.

And all this new learning came about because my niece in Massachusetts introduced a new baby boy into the world just yesterday morning. (Thus the “stork” lead-off meme.) Which is why I’m finishing up this post in West Springfield (Massachusetts) rather that back home in the ATL. (I wanted to See The Baby!) And “Li’l Sam” also provides another good reason for me to leave a legacy. For one thing, to prove to him and others his age – who one day will be running the country – that not all those who turn 100 years or older are grumpy old frumps. (Also, “Please don’t ship me off to a nursing home, just because I turned 100!”)

In the next few posts I hope to get back to both leaving a legacy – comparing and contrasting my views from back in 2015 – and back to that wonderful two-week trip to “London, Liverpool and Stratford.” In the meantime I can remind those people my age – and those coming up to my age – to “stretch your mind, and your body! Follow those rabbit trails! Go off on those tangents! Take the Road Less Traveled. Don’t take the safe route other have taken. (‘Bor-ing!’)” Mostly because making those original and independent choices can make life a lot more rewarding.

Even if sometimes you write “all over the place.” (Like Leviticus, Isaiah and Tristram Shandy.)

*   *   *   *

*   *   *   *

The upper image is courtesy of Stork Delivering Baby – Image Results. See also Why Storks are Associated with Delivering Babies, and What bird is said to bring newborn babies? – Birdful, for even more “off on tangents.” Such as:

The stork myth evokes notions of care, nurturing, and the safe arrival of a vulnerable new life. It also allows parents to avoid explaining the complex realities of human procreation to young children. Simply telling a child “the stork brought you” can satisfy juvenile curiosity and provide a romantic, gently fantastical origin story.

Also, “In Ancient Greek and Roman mythology, storks were seen as omens of stability and family devotion, while in many European traditions, “storks were believed to bring harmony and prosperity to households where they nested.” See also the Young Pup link, saying the expression is “often used to refer to someone who is young and inexperienced, particularly in the context of a particular field or profession[, or] in a derogatory manner to suggest that the person being referred to is naive or lacks the necessary skills or knowledge to succeed in their chosen field… When used in this way, the term ‘Young Pup’ can be extremely offensive.” Or you might just be using sarcasm or irony.

A side note: I dated the original post “May 11.” Maybe because I’ve been distracted lately?

For this update I also borrowed – or plan to borrow, for future additions – posts including Achieving closure, On achieving closure – Part II. and “I pity the fool!” On living beyond the usual “three score and ten,” see From two years ago – “Will I live to 141,” Still pushing the envelope, at “ripe old” 72, and posts listed in October 2023, November 2023, December 2023. (On the 2023 Stevenson Trail hike.) On the “three score and ten,” Psalm 90:10 Three Score And Ten – Meaning & Origin.

On people getting more conservative as they “grow in age.” There is that quote, supposedly from Winston Churchill, that “if you’re not a liberal when you’re young you have no heart, and if you’re not a conservative when you are old you have no brain.” (Or words to that effect.) There is ample evidence Churchill never said that. Further, “Surely Churchill can’t have used the words attributed to him. He’d been a Conservative at 15 and a Liberal at 35!” Yquotes.com. See also Quote Origin: If You Are Not a Liberal at 25, etc. All of which is a slew of new things I just learned, doing further research on this post and tweaking it the morning after publishing. (“The learning never stops!”) 

On Camino hikes. I define them as where at the end of each day you can look forward to a hot bed, warm shower and a cold beer.

On Rabbit Trails (or “rabbit holes”) see Rabbit hole Meaning & Origin | Slang by Dictionary.com, Definition of ‘go off on a tangent’ – Collins Online Dictionary, Unity and Coherence in Essays | Writing Center, and Unity & Coherence – ENGLISH 087: Academic Advanced Writing. (The last two articles show that at least I’m trying.)

Re: “See the baby.” Unlike the baby in the Seinfeld “Hamptons” episode, Li’l Sam was “cute as the proverbial button.“

The “Road not taken” quotes are from the “familyfriendpoems.com” article, The Road Not Taken By Robert Frost, Famous Inspirational Poem. Others have interpreted the poem differently, as noted in Road Not Taken – Wikipedia: “its interpretation is noted for being complex and potentially divergent.” Also that while it is Frost’s most popular poem, it is frequently misunderstood; for example, that “the road he will later call less traveled is actually the road equally traveled. The two roads are interchangeable.” Which is yet another thing I learned “only yesterday, researching this post!”

The lower image is courtesy of Fish Pose (Yoga Pose Explained) – Yoga Pose Encyclopedia, under the link Supine Hero Pose. Meaning this is yet another something “new under the sun, Ecclesiastes – Qoheleth,” that I just learned today, researching this post. As noted, all these years doing yoga – since at least 1976 – I thought I was doing the fish pose, not Supine Hero pose.

*   *   *   *

A note for the upcoming August trip to England (back to England), see Faye – Whole-Trip Travel Insurance. I’ll update my research on this travel issue in upcoming posts. Also for a future post, How to Write Like a Journalist (12 Tips) – Omniscient Digital. That came from reading an article on two names you should never name a new baby. The explanation came way down after you had to read through a bunch of crap to find out what the two names were. My thought: “Get to the point!” (On that note see New Journalism – Wikipedia: “a style of news writing and journalism, developed in the 1960s and 1970s, that uses literary techniques unconventional at the time. It is characterized by a subjective perspective, a literary style reminiscent of long-form non-fiction. Using extensive imagery, reporters interpolate subjective language within facts whilst immersing themselves in the stories as they reported and wrote them.” In “Old Journalism” the reporter is said to be “invisible,” and facts are meant to be reported objectively But Point One in Write Like a Journalist says:

Know the inverted pyramid[;] capture attention and communicate effectively… It is a way of organizing information so that the most important points are at the beginning, and the less important points are at the end. This style is perfect for online marketing, because it ensures that readers will get the most important information first. People are too concerned with “storytelling,” or the vague notion they have of what storytelling is. This results in blog posts with 500 word long introductions that don’t say a damn thing, when all I want to know is [whatever I searched for]. Journalists know to get to the point. 

All of which is another one of those rabbit trails, to which I’d say, “I couldn’t agree more!”

*   *   *   *

*   *   *   *

I’m in the process of writing two new posts. One is on an upcoming trip to Italy, to hike the Way of St Francis. (From Assisi to Rome, in September, barring World War Three or something like that.) The other post will talk about how Vladimir Putin started his Ukraine campaign of Cyberwar and Misinformation way back in 2014. But they’re both going to take some time to develop, and my last post came almost two weeks ago. So here’s another “look back” review.

From May 11, 2020, there’s Week 8 of the Coronavirus shut-down. And from June 6, 2020, there’s Random thoughts (on “Socialism,” etc.) – from March 2020. I’m not sure why I called the June post “from March 2020,” but I did turn 70 in 2021, so maybe it was a sign of early senility.

Let’s hope not. But anyway, “Week 8 … shut-down” had a lead image of Voltaire, as a prototypical “intellectual recluse” who lived well enough during an earlier time of “destruction let loose.” Which seemed to fit the early weeks of the COVID, and which brought up a question: “What did people do in the Olden Days when disaster struck?” But based on my life experience, I’d say that one question you don’t want to ask at such times is, “What else could go wrong?”

Cue the ongoing Russian invasion of Ukraine and a new poser, “Do I Need a 4th COVID Shot?”

The “March ’20” post talked about how I passed the time in those early days of the pandemic. I described my exercise routine – at length – and also about watching lectures on Great Courses Plus. One course hit a chord, on how Americans who tamed the frontier West learned to “adapt, to cooperate with one another, and to treat each other as equals.” (Emphasis added.) And that by such means – mutual cooperation and treating each other as equals – they “subdued the wild lands around them, working out ideas and techniques unknown to their ancestors.”

Needless to say, I was struck by the words “cooperate with one another” and “treat each other as equals.” To which I can only say, “What the hell happened?”

The fact is that in those pandemic early days I was “busier than the proverbial one-legged man in a butt-kicking contest.” Which meant following the advice Voltaire (right) set out in his 1759 Candide, “we must cultivate our garden.” Or put in another setting, “Life is bristling with thorns, and I know no other remedy than to cultivate one’s [own] garden.” (See Voltaire’s Solution to a Life Full of Thorns.) 

I also noted that I’d decided to make this Blog (I actually wrote “this post“) more like a series of personal essays. I even included a link for my own self-instruction, 7 Helpful Tips on How to Write a Memorable Personal Essay. One lesson, “Personal essays relate the author’s intimate thoughts and experiences to universal truths… They conclude with the author having learned, changed, or grown in some way and often present some truth or insight that challenges the reader to draw their own conclusions.”

I’ll try to keep that in mind, but just for “your” information: I’m retired now, and so prefer to write like I paint. “What I like,” and if you don’t like it, that’s your privilege. (On the upside, this is a great time to be retired.) Which means it’s time for Random thoughts (on “Socialism,” etc. 

There I wrote about the fall of 2019, when I toyed with the idea of going to my 50th high school reunion. So I hooked up with the Facebook reunion group, and “friended” some former classmates. But I was surprised to find out how many had become “grumpy old geezers.”

As evidenced by the many grumpy, whiny and negative posts that way too many of them put on Facebook. (Which is why I learned the magic of “unfollowing” rather than “unfriending.”)

Then too, for some reason “socialism” was a big topic at that time and among my former classmates. Along with the idea that Social Security is not an entitlement. “I earned it, I paid into it, and nobody is going to take it away from me!” Which led me to do a little research… It turns out that life expectancy is a lot longer now than it was when we first started paying in, back in the 1970s. The key is, we paid for our parents’ Social Security, and our children and grandchildren are paying for ours. But we’re living a full eight years longer – on average – than our parents did.

Which means that you – my typical Old Geezer high-school classmate – are getting a “free” eight years of Social Security benefits. In other words, for at least eight years of your life – assuming you make the “expected” life span of 79 or so – YOU’RE GOING TO BE A SOCIALIST! (In other words a mooch, a freeloader, or whatever other label you want to use.)

Then there were the George Floyd protests going on, not to mention the June 2, 2020 post by Jacob G. Hornberger, titled “Trump and His Standing Army.” As you recall, the Floyd protests spread across a number of American cities, which led to then-president Trump’s “warning to state governors that he is prepared to send his military forces to quell violent protests in cities across the land.” Hornberger wrote that Trump’s theory of power “serves as another reminder of why our ancestors had such a deep antipathy toward standing armies.” Which was illustrated by this bit of news: “Heavily armed men who refuse to identify themselves are patrolling the streets of Washington, DC. They were sent by the Bureau of Prisons.” 

That review – of March, 2020 – led me to think, “You know, maybe things today aren’t that bad.”

At least we have a grown-up in the White House…

*   *   *   *

*   *   *   *

The upper image is courtesy of Way Of St Francis Pilgrimage – Image Results.

The lower image is courtesy of Responsible Leader Image – Image Results.

*   *   *   *

*   *   *   *

Super Bowl LVI – “56” – is now history. Which means that today there are undoubtedly some LA Ram fans who think their team won because of something they did. On the flip side, there are doubtless some Bengal fans asking, “Why did my team lose? What did I do wrong?”

Which reminds me of the 2017* Super Bowl, when I found myself asking that same question.

Five years ago – in 2017 – I did a post on Super Bowl LI (51). In that game, “some clown named Tom Brady” led the New England Patriots to “the largest comeback in Super Bowl history.” Which is another way of saying my favorite NFL team – in the Super Bowl at that time – blew a 28–3 lead. (“My” Atlanta Falcons led 28–3 with 8:31 left in the third quarter.)

I felt at the time that – needless to say – there were some Patriot fans who thought their team won because of something they did. The flip side back then was that among Falcon fans, some were undoubtedly asking, “Why did they lose? What did I do wrong?” And – I’m a bit embarrassed to say – I was one of the latter. Which brings up the topic of “sports fan superstitions.”

For one example, see Two-thirds of sports fans are superstitious about game days. (The article added, “40% think a family member is bad luck!”) Dated November 2021, the post noted a survey that said “3 in 5 sports fans have blamed themselves following a loss by their favorite sports team.” So if I was being weird back in 2017, I wasn’t the only one.

In that 2017 post, I had my own game-time ritual all set. However, it got messed up by the lady I was dating at the time. The thing is, after many years of aggravation I had decided, “No more watching games on TV showing any team that I care about.” That became a big part of my game-time ritual – for teams I cared about – and it seemed to be “ritually efficacious.” It seemed to help my teams play better, and was way less aggravating for me. In turn, in 2017’s Super Bowl 51, that formula worked out well – for the first two and a half quarters…

We – or at least I – deliberately didn’t watch the game on TV. The lady and I went out to a movie, then to a late dinner, but every once in a while I’d sneak a peek at the game progress. The Falcons were doing unexpectedly well. Then we adjourned to her house, and I suggested we play cards. (To pass “game time.”) Then came my big mistake.

The Falcons had been winning big, but then we decided to stop playing cards and check out the game on TV. Which we did, but then it wasn’t long before the Patriots starting coming back. At that point I suggested – rather strongly – that we turn off the TV and go back to playing cards. But the lady said no, she was “invested.” Then the comeback – or “choke,” to Falcon fans – started in earnest, so I started begging her to turn off the TV and go back to playing cards. (“Bad karma,” or something like that.) She ignored my pleas, and that led ultimately – in the fullness of time – to the Falcons going on to suffer that biggest “choke” in Super Bowl history…

But that wasn’t the worst part. The worst part came when she had the nerve to say, “You don’t seriously believe that us turning off the TV would change the outcome of the game, do you?”  

Which eventually led me back to the Battle of Rephidim. That’s where Moses became the first guy to ever say, “It’s only weird if it doesn’t work!” (Like that old Bud Light commercial?) Put another way, that Bible episode – at Exodus 17:8-16 – showed Moses “helping his team win:”

Moses, Aaron and Hur went to the top of the hill. As long as Moses held up his hands, the Israelites were winning, but whenever he lowered his hands, the Amalekites were winning. When Moses’ hands grew tired, they took a stone and put it under him and he sat on it. Aaron and Hur held his hands up – one on one side, one on the other – so that his hands remained steady till sunset. [E.A.]

In other words, Moses “helped” his team in the same way that many modern sports fans help their teams win. (Mirrored by some fans who feel guilty because of something they didn’t do, or did wrong, or jinxed their team, or otherwise caused their team to lose.)

Which raises the question: Suppose Moses had listened to “logic and reason?” Or suppose his wife had come up the mountain and said to him, “Moses, you look ridiculous. Do you honestly think that holding your hands up like that is going to change the outcome of the battle?”

The short answer? The world as we know it would be much different. If nothing else, had the Amalekites beaten the Children of Israel, world history would be “worse, much worse.” Moses would never have had the chance to write – or at least finish – the first five books of the Bible, that “most influential, most published, most widely read book in the history of the world.”

So one point of all this is that devoted sport-fans love to think that if their team wins, they – the fans – helped out. (Through their rituals, their “lucky shirts” and the like.) But in doing so they aren’t acting any stranger or more weird than Moses did back at the Battle of Rephidim.

Of course there are skeptics. Like Faulty logic: Post hoc, ergo propter hoc « Gotham Skeptic: “It’s a natural tendency for people to make connections between events. ‘When I do this, that happens…’ Primitive people developed superstitions in similar ways.” In doing so, Mr. Snide-remark Skeptic not-so-subtly compared modern fans to “primitive people.” And by extension he compared Moses to those “primitives” as well, most likely because he didn’t know his Bible…

Either way, Moses seems to have used just that kind of “post hoc” logical fallacy at the Battle of Rephidim. “Hmmm. When I hold my hands up, my Israelites start winning the battle. But if I let my hands down, they start losing. Gosh, I wonder what I’ll do?” And as has been noted, “events that occur in succession may well be causally related, but they may also be completely unrelated.” In Moses’ case, I’m glad he didn’t take any chances. I’m glad he went with his gut.

“This works. This doesn’t. I think I’ll go with what works!” (It ain’t brain surgery…)

*   *   *   *

And now, back to that “clown named Tom Brady.”

The good news is that in the fullness of time, he redeemed himself, at least to me. That is, after he broke the hearts of all those Falcon fans in 2017 – including me – I really didn’t like him too much. In fact, I never liked him or the Patriots all that much. The combination of the two – like Steve Spurrier and the Florida Gators* – was just too obnoxious. But then, a miracle…

You see, before moving to the Atlanta area in 2010, I lived in Florida’s Tampa Bay area for some 50 years, starting in 1956. Which means I was a Tampa Bay Buccaneer fan for way longer – since 1976 – than I’ve been a Falcon fan. But after their breakthrough Super Bowl win in 2003, the Bucs suffered a long, 17-year “playoff drought.” They “would not win another playoff game until their second Super Bowl championship season in 2020.*”

And how did that happen? How did that drought end? A big part of it happened in March 2020, when Tom Brady officially signed with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. And then, less than a year later, he led my beloved Buccaneers to their second Super Bowl win, in a 31-9 “butt-kicking of Biblical proportions.” So the good news? “Tom Brady, all is forgiven…”

*   *   *   *

*   *   *   *

The upper image is courtesy of Rephidim – Wikipedia.  The full caption:  “Moses holding up his arms during the Battle of Rephidim, assisted by Hur and Aaron, in John Everett Millais‘ Victory O Lord! (1871).” Also, this post was gleaned in large part from posts in a companion blog, Moses at Rephidim: “What if?” And Romans 11 – and “What happened to FSU football?” See also – from this blog – On football, Moses and Rephidim.

A note about the 2022 Super Bowl. In a big sense, I didn’t have a dog in that fight. I was kind of hoping the Bengals would win, both because a lot of friends and relatives have them as their favorite teams, and because the &^%$ Rams beat my beloved Tampa Bay Buccaneers. On the other hand, as a Buc fan I can now say, “Well, we lost, but only to the team that went on to win the Super Bowl…”

The “2017” Super Bowl. That game was played on February 5, 2017, to “determine the champion of the National Football League (NFL) for the 2016 season.” In the same way, the Buccaneers capped their championship 2020 season in the Super Bowl played on February 7, 2021.

The “ritual” link is to Superstitions, a sports tradition – The Aggie.

Re: The Falcons suffering that biggest “choke” in Super Bowl history. On the flip side, two “Atlanta area” teams later also redeemed themselves in 2021-22, ending what had also been long “sports droughts.” First, the Atlanta Braves won the World Series for the first time since 1995 on November 2, 2021, then on January 10, 2022, the Georgia Bulldogs football team won the 2021 college football national championship. (Georgia hadn’t won a national championship since 1980.)

The “old Bud Light commercial.” Searching that term got me 455,000 results, See also my October 2015 post, Was Moses the first to say “it’s only weird if it doesn’t work?”

Re: “Jinxing.” The link is to 20 Ways to Successfully Jinx a Sports Team. Among the ways: Forget to wear something lucky, leave a game early, or “talk serious trash.” The writer, from the Cleveland area, said, “I have yet to see any of my favorite teams hoist a championship trophy in my lifetime, and can recall plenty of times when I’ve truly believed to have jinxed one – or all – of them in a loss.”

Re: The Bible as “most influential, the most published, the most widely read book in the history of the world,” see Asimov’s Guide to the Bible (Two Volumes in One),  Avenel Books (1981), at page 7.

The quote beginning “Superstition is a large part” referred back to Super Bowl XLVIII, between the Seattle Seahawks and Denver Broncos:

Superstition is a large part of a fan’s repertoire these days, especially when the home team is in Super Bowl XLVIII today… Kenny Shisler has similar superstitions. The lifelong Broncos fan said he will wear Broncos gear all week long, but refuses to do so on game day… “Like the Bud Light commercials [say], ‘It’s only weird if it doesn’t work…’”

That is, Super Bowl XLVIII decided the title for the 2013 NFL season. The Seattle Seahawks beat the Denver Broncos 43–8, “the largest margin of victory for an underdog” in Super Bowl history. Also incidentally, the quote itself is from a “Gotham skeptic” article that is “now defunct.” But see also Post Hoc Ergo Propter Hoc (Logical Fallacy … – Fallacy In Logic.

“Steve Spurrier and the Florida Gators.” I went to law school at Florida State University – UF’s arch rival – and so became an ardent FSU fan and “Gator hater.” Not that I’m biased or anything…

The lower image is courtesy of Tampa Bay Buccaneers Super Bowl – Image Results. With an article, “Super Bowl: Tampa Bay Buccaneers celebrate victory as Tom Brady wins seventh title.” 

*   *   *   *

Could we too learn there is more to admire than despise in our fellow human beings?

 *   *   *   *

I’m working on a new E-book. The tentative title is “Turning 70 in 2021 – and still thinking the best is yet to come.” One chapter will be “On the music of my life,” and how important it’s been to me. One chapter will be “On the music of my life,” and how important it’s been to me. (Like making those long Camino hikes – illustrated at left – more enjoyable, as well as those endless hours of canoe-paddling, say on the “Rideau Canal Adventure?”) But that project is turning out to be more complicated than I thought. And it’s been awhile since I last posted. (March 20, and this is April 4, Easter Sunday.)

So in the meantime, I’ll paste together this quick review from last March, 2020.

It seems I only did two posts last March: On “Mad Men” – Revisited, March 11. 2020, and – on March 26, 2020 – Meditations on “the new plague.” But to get back to the beginning of that “new plague,” I need to revisit On Week 8 of the Coronavirus shut-down, from May 11, 2020.

There I explained that, to me, the pandemic hit full swing – “the ‘stuff’ hit the fan” – on Thursday, March 12, 2020. That was the day the ACC basketball tournament got cancelled. Then the whole 2020 college basketball “March Madness” got called off, along with the college baseball season. And the NBA, NHL and other major pro sport seasons all cancelled as well. (Though Major League Baseball did have a shortened season – 60 games – starting July 23, 2020.)

So my definition of the “First Full Week of the Covid-19 Pandemic” has it starting Sunday, March 15 and ending Saturday, March 21. (Meaning we’re actually starting the ninth full week of the pandemic.) And that pandemic shows no signs of abating, which means we need to continue adjusting to a “New normal…”

On that note of “weeks of Covid,” this Easter Sunday – April 4, 2021 – will mark the start of the 56th full week of the COVID-19 pandemic.* (That’s 14 full months.)

So now, back to “Mad Men” – Revisited and Meditations on “the new plague,” from March 2020.

Note that I posted “Mad Men” on March 11, 2020. The day before “the pandemic hit full swing,” according to my reckoning above. (The day before “the ‘stuff’ hit the fan.”) So in a way, looking back was kind of like the night before Kennedy was assassinated. My family – I was 12 in 1963 – watched a TV special the night before. It showed Wally Cleaver – Tony Dow as the older brother in Leave It to Beaver – getting a girl pregnant. That was quite a shock, standing alone.*

Then came that afternoon of November 22, 1963. Which brings up the idea of “knowing what’s going to happen.”

Suppose you could go back to that morning of November 22, 1963, and know what was going to happen that afternoon? But you couldn’t change it, and you would have to relive the pain you felt that afternoon – and the following long weekend – all over again?

Strangely enough, doing that “Mad Men” post was – to me – similar to being able to see into the future… And how that “gift” might not be such a great thing to have. (I knew the “Mad Men” future because I watched the episodes out of order.)  For example, knowing that “the lovely ‘Midge'” – shown above right – would end up turning into a skinny, emaciated heroin addict.

That’s a tantalizing topic I may wish to explore at length in a future post. In the meantime, we’ll  move on to the next post from March 2020, ATC’S’HTF. (After the “Covid ‘stuff’ Hit The Fan.”)

As noted, Meditations on “the new plague” came some two weeks after “Mad Men:”

Last March 12 [the day after “Mad Men”], I went to the local library and checked out a copy of The Plague by Albert Camus. (In light our new Coronavirus pandemic.)  Which book, incidentally, I cannot now return, because that library and all others in the area are closed… At the same time I checked out a copy of What Jesus Meant, by Garry Wills, for a bit more uplifting reading. And I also started researching more on this “plague” business.

That post noted the difference between epidemic and a pandemic, and adjusting to the new normal, kind of: “No more dine-in lunches, or dinners, or stopping by a local bar for a beer or two before Wednesday-night choir practice. And no more choir practice, or church on Sunday either for that matter.” And I found a review of “The Plague” which gave some perspective:

Being alive always was and will always remain an emergency; it is truly an inescapable “underlying condition…” This is what Camus meant when he talked about the “absurdity” of life. Recognizing this absurdity should lead us not to despair but to a tragicomic redemption, a softening of the heart, a turning away from judgment and moralizing to joy and gratitude.

From that I gleaned a lesson – back in March 2020 – that the “current pestilence might lead” to a change in our national life, “and especially our national political life. That is, “the present ‘Coronavirus‘ might lead to a general and sweeping American ‘softening of the heart.'”

I suppose the jury is still out on that question…

In the meantime, there are now some places where you can have a sit-down, dine-in lunch, or dinner. There are some bars open for business, but no more visits before Wednesday night choir practice. (No more choir.) On the other hand, just today my local Episcopal Church opened up for a 10:00 a.m. in-person service, and about 90 people showed up. (While some other denominations have been open for crowds a long while, “my” church has taken a more cautious approach. See Episcopal churches offer a mix of in-person and online worship options.)

One other bit of good news? At least we didn’t have to get to this point:

*   *   *   *

“Their headgear was particularly unusual…” 

*   *   *   *

The upper image is courtesy of The Plague – Wikipedia. See also ‘There is more to admire in men than to despise’: The Plague is essential reading for a pandemic. The “fuller story” is below.

Re: “Camino hikes.” My brother and I hiked the “Camino Frances” in September-October, 2017. We hiked the “Portuguese Way,” from Porto, in September 2019, joined by his wife, my sister-in-law. “The Way” was marked by the yellow-and-blue scallop shell. The caption from Wikipedia reads: “A stylised scallop shell, the modern sign post of the Way.”

Re: The ACC tournament, March Madness and college baseball. For what those sports mean, see June 2018’s “Unintended consequences” – and the search for Truth, and February 2019’s On my “mission from God.”) Or Romans 11 – and “What happened to FSU football?” (From my companion blog.)

Re: “New normal.” Referring to social distancing, extreme caution and shortages of all kinds. Which brought up the question: “What did people do in the Olden Days when disaster struck?”

Re: Full weeks of Covid. My day planner has weeks starting on Mondays and ending on Sundays. So for me the 56th full week of Covid will start on Monday, April 5, and end on Sunday, April 11, 2021.

Re: “Wally Cleaver, getting a girl pregnant.” The TV show in question was “Dr. Kildare” Four Feet in the Morning (TV Episode 1963) – IMDb, which aired November 21, 1963. (Thank you, Internet!) 

A pregnant teenager is admitted to Blair with signs of food poisoning, the result of an apparent attempt to induce abortion. Meanwhile, the father of the baby, getting little help from his bickering parents, struggles with his responsibility…

A photo caption from Wikipedia reads: “From the CBS television series ‘Leave It to Beaver,’ showing main character Wally Cleaver (Tony Dow).”

Re: Knowing the future but not being able to change anything. I remember reading about that in an old book by Bonnie Prudden. She had the idea: If you could go back in time for a “do over,” the catch would likely be that you couldn’t change anything and you would have to go through all the pain you experienced “all over again;” the same pain you felt when it “just happened.”

The lower image is courtesy of Plague Beaked Mask – Image Results. See also Why plague doctors wore those strange beaked masks, from a web article that is apparently now defunct:

During the 17th-century European plague, physicians wore beaked masks, leather gloves, and long coats in an attempt to fend off the disease… [T]hey covered themselves head to toe and wore a mask with a long bird-like beak. The reason behind the beaked plague masks was a misconception about the very nature of the dangerous disease… Plague doctors wore spectacles … and a mask with a nose “half a foot long, shaped like a beak, filled with perfume with only two holes, one on each side near the nostrils…” Plague doctors also carried a rod that allowed them to poke (or fend off) victims.

*   *   *   *

Re: A “foul-up” resulting in this old (April 2020) post being made so prominent right now. Maybe it’s a sign from God? See for example Sign From God Meme – Image Results, including the one featuring various church billboards, including the one billboard saying, “Well, you did ask for a sign.”

Also on the not-up-to-date main page: Here’s the original note, when the April | 2020 | The Georgia Wasp started coming up as the main page. Here’s the note I wrote for that SNAFU:

I have no idea why this old post – from April 2020 – comes up as the main page when you Google “georgiawasp.” Something happened on the evening of April 3, 2021, and I’m not sure what. I was writing up the new post, Revisiting March 2020, that I finally published on Easter Sunday, April 4, 2021. For another more-recent post, click on An Updated ‘Geezer Guide to Supplements…’ Meanwhile, I’ll work on fixing the problem.

*   *   *   *