What Would Jimmy Do?

I always look forward to this time of year — I’m not a big fan of cold weather and usually, by now, the weather is getting consistently warmer around here. Of course this year is a “different” year, for lots of reasons — many of them having nothing to do with the weather. 

Even though the first three or four months of this year has been a few days of unseasonably warm weather, followed by several days of very cold weather, the trees are beginning to get leaves and the grass is growing — the picture is our back yard after the last cutting. 

It would be nice if the weather always offered the ideal conditions for lawns to thrive — 60 degrees at night and 80 degrees during the day, and two-inches of soft, steady rain every week… but that doesn’t happen, and the grass still manages to grow. 

I don’t look forward to cutting the grass, but I really don’t mind it either — given the choice, I’d rather cut grass than shovel snow. Someone once said that grass is the cheapest plant to install and the most expensive to maintain. I guess that may be true, but it’s nice to look out and see that nice green carpet all around the house. Of course, there is one good thing about snow — it makes your lawn look as nice as your neighbor’s…..
— 30 —

I have been extremely fortunate to have met and worked with a lot of very interesting people over the years. One of those people was Tommy Thompson. I worked with Tommy, or as we always called him, Mr. Thompson, in my early years working at FAA. Mr. Thompson was a veteran of World War II and had a lot fascinating stories.

One story that I remember was that he helped assemble the first “helicopter” that was procured by the U.S. Army air Corps. Unfortunately, I don’t remember all the details of the story, but I always thought it was pretty cool…. 

The world’s first practical helicopter was designed by Igor Sikorsky and built by the Vought-Sikorsky Aircraft Division of the United Aircraft Corporation. It’s first flight was made on September 14, 1939 at Stratford, Connecticut. That flight was “tethered” and lasted only a few seconds. The first free (un-tethered) flight took place on May 13, 1940. The machine (the word helicopter wasn’t used until much later) was called the VS-300. 

The VS-300 became the model for all modern single-rotor helicopters and the U.S. Army Air Corps contracted with Sikorsky Aircraft (in December of 1940) to build an easily manufactured version of the VS-300.  The new version was designated the XR-4 and was demonstrated in January 1942.

Now here’s what I remember about Mr. Thompson’s story — The first delivery of the new machine was made to Wright Field in Dayton, Ohio (I think) to be tested by the Army Air Corps. It was delivered by truck and had to be assembled. Mr. Thompson was one of the group of Army personnel that put the machine together. He said he had never seen anything like it and didn’t even know what it was supposed to do. People were calling it an aircraft, but it didn’t have any wings… I can imagine the skepticism from Mr. Thompson and his team. He said everyone was amazed that they apparently put it together correctly, and the thing did “fly.” You may have noticed that I used “machine” and not “helicopter” while writing this — the term helicopter wasn’t used until 1948. Mr. Thompson helped put the “thing” together in 1942. 

Not sure why I thought of this today, but it was nice to remember Mr. Thompson and his stories. You probably won’t ever see his name in history books, but if you ever visit the helicopter exhibits in the Smithsonian or the Edison Museum in Dearborn Michigan , think of Mr. Thompson.
— 30 —

Since we moved to Shepherdstown, every year we help make the Easter Candle for our church. Obviously, it’s become a tradition. I never realized how expensive these candles are, and with the church watching it’s pennies, it seems like a prudent way to save a little money. I not only didn’t realize the cost of the candles, I really never gave the candle much thought at all… however it is one of the most sacred and enduring elements in Christianity.

The Easter, or Paschal, Candle is lit at the Easter Vigil and used throughout the year in the church. 
The candle must be made of pure wax representing the sinless flesh Christ took on from Mary. The flame represents His divinity and the wick His humanity. The Candle itself is not blessed at the Easter Vigil, but the blessing is for the fire from which the candle is lit. 

At the beginning of the Easter Vigil, a “blazing fire” is lit outside the church. The fire represents the glory of Christ’s resurrection after the darkness of the church following the Mass of the Lord’s Supper on Holy (Maundy) Thursday night. The priest first blesses the fire, praying that through the paschal celebrations, the people will be “inflamed with heavenly desires.”

The precise use of the Paschal candle has varied over the centuries. Initially it was broken up after the Easter Vigil and fragments were given to the faithful. But from the 10th century onward it was kept in a place of honor near the Gospel until the Feast of the Ascension, 40 days after Easter. By the 12th century, it was common to inscribe the candle with the current year. Over time the candle grew in size to merit the description of “pillar.”

The word paschal originally meant the “passing over.” The word took on a new meaning with christianity, referring to Our Lord’s passion, death, resurrection, and glorification. 

We didn’t see this year’s Easter Candle lit, but it’ll still stand in its place in the church, representing the death and resurrection of Our Lord — and — the faith, hope and eternal life for us all.
Happy Easter…..
— 30 —

Today is Good Friday — the ultimate misnomer. I know I’ve mentioned this before, but it just never seems right that today should be called Good Friday. It seems it should be called Bad Friday… I think maybe the the Germans describe it better — in German, the day is called Karfreitag or Sorrowful Friday.

Again, as I’ve mentioned before, the term “good” as applied to Good Friday is an Old English expression meaning holy. It is also referred to as Holy Friday sometimes.

As to the question of why it’s called “Good,” we’re consistently reminded that Good Friday is always tied to Easter Sunday — a joyful celebration of the resurrection of Jesus. He could not have been resurrected if he had not died first. 

I read something from a Dean at Samford University (Timothy George) that summed it up nicely: “Theologically, we must keep Good Friday and Easter together. Good Friday without Easter is doom and despair. Easter without Good Friday is empty sentiment and sentimentality. We have to remember what Jesus did on the cross, which is the fulfillment of God’s eternal plan for the whole world. It has cosmic consequences. It’s a day to be silent, it’s a day to remember, to focus on who Jesus is and what He meant for humanity. It really was a bad Friday, a horrible Friday, but when it is seen as leading to the Resurrection, it was indeed a Good Friday.” 

So Good Friday it is — regardless of the name, it’s a very significant day, and maybe a reminder, especially this year, that things often seem darkest just before the light. Someone said that today marks the day when wrath and mercy met at the cross. That’s why Good Friday is so dark and so Good.
— 30 —

Today is Maundy Thursday, which commemorates the Last Supper and Jesus washing the feet of his disciples. The Thursday before Easter is known as Holy Thursday or Maundy Thursday. Maundy is derived from the Latin word for “command,” and refers to Jesus’ commandment to the disciples to “Love one another as I have loved you.”

Today commemorates the Last Supper that Christians consider the institution of communion or the Holy Eucharist. The Last Supper was a Passover Seder (ritual dinner,) “the feast of unleavened bread” that Jesus and the disciples shared. Passover, the subject of yesterday’s blog, is the Jewish festival commemorating the exodus of the Jews from Egypt, when they left so quickly there was no time for the bread to rise. The Last Supper was a Passover Seder, the feast of unleavened bread.

Maundy Thursday is also associated with foot-washing — Jesus washed the feet of the disciples, as a way of teaching them to be servants. Jesus instructed his followers to love and serve. Most Catholic churches have a Mass on Maundy Thursday evening that includes the washing of feet. 

During the Last Supper, Jesus said that He would eat no more until the Kingdom of God is fulfilled. He also said that “one of you will betray me,” as He pointed out Judas as the one that would betray Him….
— 30 —

This evening is the beginning of Passover. Passover is the most celebrated Jewish holiday — a celebration of spring, of birth and rebirth, of a journey from slavery to freedom, and of taking responsibility for yourself, the community and the world.

The Torah states that Jews are to observe Passover for seven days, beginning on the 15th of the Jewish month Nisan (usually in April.) This year Passover begins this evening (April 8) and ends the evening of April 16. The first night always includes a special seder (ritual dinner.) Traditional Jews outside of Israel don’t work on either first two or the last two days of the seven-day period. 

Passover can be thought of as honoring the renewal of the sun (it’s always on the first full moon after the Vernal Equinox,) or a time to step firmly into springtime. It can also be thought of as a celebration of the Jewish people’s “birth certificate” and “Declaration of Independence.” It’s also memorializing something that God did for the Jews over three thousand years ago. 

Jewish people have four Hebrew names for Passover, each pointing to a particular aspect of the holiday. The most common Hebrew name is Pesach, that usually translates as “passing over,” as the Angel of Death passed over the homes of the Jews in Egypt. The other Hebrew names for Passover are: Chag Ha-matzot (Festival of Unleavened Breads,) Z’man Cheiruteinu (The Time of Liberation,) and Chag Ha-aviv (Festival of Spring.)
And as the Jewish community begins Passover, we prepare for Easter….
— 30 —

I’m sure everyone had a good time last night on New Beer’s Eve and are ready to settle in for National Beer Day. Today, of course, is set aside to recognize the world’s most widely consumed alcoholic beverage — it’s the third most popular drink in the world (after water and tea.)

National Beer Day was created by Justin Smith, a Richmond, Virginia Craft Beer Examiner, and his friend Mike Connolly, from Liverpool, England. Today its the day prohibition ended after the signing of the Cullen-Harrison Act. 

Benjamin Franklin said, “Beer is proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy.” But our friend, Winfried, always said, “Everybody should believe in something; I believe I’ll have another beer.”
Happy Beer Day…..
— 30 —

If you are a beer drinker, or more specifically, were a beer drinker in the years 1920 to 1933, those years were incredibly sad for you. That was, of course, the period of Prohibition in the United States. All forms of alcohol were verboten.

You faithful readers know that in 1933, the United States government came to their senses and the President signed the bill to end 13 years of Prohibition. As you’re aware, or have figured out by now, the date that Probation ended was April 7. On that date, Americans could legally buy alcohol once again. So the day before, people began lining up to buy their first legal drink since 1920. Since 1933, this day has been referred to as New Beer’s Eve — the day before New Beers Day.

“Legend” has it that at 12:01, April 7, 1933, President Roosevelt said, “I think this would be a good time for a beer.” 

And it’s fitting that the president got the first batch. Many stories indicate that Anheuser-Busch delivered beer with their Clydesdale carriage directly to the Commander in Chief. That makes a good story, but I don’t think it’s completely accurate. My extensive research turned up a story from the New York Times from April 7, 1933 — The headline read, “At 12.:04 A.M. today the great drought ended.”
The article reads as follows: “A shiny new beer truck, swifter if less picturesque than the brewers’ big horses of ante-bellum days, shot down Pennsylvania Avenue through a light Spring rain, stopped at the White House and delivered two cases of legal beer, addressed to President Roosevelt. The truck bore a big sign announcing” ‘President Roosevelt, the first real beer is yours!” The President was already in bed, but the Secret Service accepted the delivery for him. 

So every year, on April 6, we celebrate New Beer’s Eve — it may be a little subdued this year, but maybe that’s all the more reason we need a day like this. If you think about it, this is the quintessential American holiday. What we’re really celebrating (along with the beer) is the realization that Prohibition was wrong…. and the government and the leadership in the White House realized it and committed to fixing it. And now, once again we didn’t get something right, and once again we’re looking to our leaders to fix it — there’s always hope. Cheers!!
— 30 —

A few days ago, someone said they thought we were fighting two pandemics — coronavirus and stupidity. I decided that this was probably a fairly true statement. Hopefully the coronavirus will subside or go away — unfortunately, stupidity won’t.

We’ve all heard statements like, “Life is hard, but it’s harder if you’re stupid.” And, “you just can’t fix stupid.” Today, stupidity is on display more than ever before. To be able to deal with this dimwitted behavior, we need to better understand it. I realize there seems to be a movement against paying attention to science recently, but there are, in fact, scientific laws and theories that help us explain our world. We all studied Kepler’s Laws, and Newton’s Laws, Archimede’s principle, and we know about Murphy’s Laws, etc. Well, luckily, a professor at the University of California, Carlo M. Cupola, introduced a set of laws that address our problem — “The Basic Laws of Human Stupidity.”

This set of five laws is a helpful guide to understanding stupidity.
His first law states: Always and inevitably everyone underestimates the number of stupid individuals in circulation. The first law kind of prepares you for what’s out there — lots of people that do stupid things, many times without notice. And there are more of them than you think — a lot more.

The second law states: The probability that a certain person will be stupid is independent of any other characteristic of that person. This means that anybody can be stupid — and — the idiocy persists at roughly equal proportions at all levels of society. The implications of this law are frightening; it implies that no matter who you associate with, or where you live, you always have to face the same percentage of stupid people. And the number of them will always surpass your expectations. 

The third law: A stupid person is a person who causes losses to another person or to a group of persons while himself deriving no gain and even possibly incurring losses. Think of the idiot tailgating you, or some jerk that starts a fight in a bar or a baseball pitcher that deliberately throws at a batter’s head… these are the types of thoughtless actions that reasonable people don’t do. They’re performed by stupid people. There is no explanation as to why these people do these things — well, maybe there’s one explanation — these people are stupid. 

The fourth law: Non-stupid people always underestimate the damaging power of stupid individuals. In particular non-stupid people constantly forget that at all times and places and under any circumstance to deal and/or associate with stupid people always turns out to be a costly mistake. The fact is that most of us know, or have a good idea, who stupid people are, and we still hang out with them. Over the years, countless people have failed to take into account the Fourth Basic Law and the failure has caused mankind incalculable losses.

The fifth law: A stupid person is the most dangerous type of person. In many respects, stupid people are the most dangerous — even more than criminals. At least bank robbers, while they inflict losses on others, do reap benefits for themselves (if they’re successful.) 

Stupid people drag down society as a whole — it becomes the responsibility of everyone else to keep them in check. There’s a lot of truth in these “laws.” I’d never seen stupidity summed up and analyzed so well. I’ve always believed that stupid people should have to wear a sign, so we wouldn’t have to waste our time trying to reason with them, but I suppose that wouldn’t work… they’d probably forget to wear the sign. We must just continue to try to keep stupidity in check — the great mistake made by intelligent people is to refuse to believe that the world is as stupid as it is.
— 30 —

Needless to say, nothing seems the same these days. Staying at home as much as possible is easier if, like us, you’re retired. So we don’t miss the daily routine of having to get ready for work… but — we do, of course, miss the interacting with other people, going to church, out to eat, and I miss playing golf. We’ve gotten “carry out” at a couple of the local restaurants and the food is still just as good — it just seems strange eating it at home.

The trees are beginning to get their leaves, and I’ve already had to cut the grass, so things seem a little brighter when you look out the window. And a couple of days ago, I put gas in the car and only paid $1.63 a gallon — now that’s got to be good news. I guess the bad news is that now our car is “all gassed up and no place to go.” 
—30 —