low down mind messin and steadily depressin’ covid nineteen blues
Based on Jim Croce’s Workin’ at the Car Wash Blues.
According to Wikipedia, “Workin’ at the Car Wash Blues” is a 1974 single written and recorded by Jim Croce. It was the third single released from his album I Got a Name. It reached a peak of #32 in July 1974 on the Billboard Hot 100. It is Croce’s last Top 40 hit to date. It was also the fourth single released (including Christmas-themed release “It Doesn’t Have To Be That Way”) after Jim Croce’s passing in September 1973.
Croce explained he came up with the idea for the song while in the military at Fort Jackson running telephone cables on poles and thinking he should be doing something else.
Fort Jackson is about 40 miles from where I am right.
Covid Ninetime Blue is what I am right now.
Not exactly anything to complain about.
I am not sick.
I do have a great job.
I work from home.
I work from home at my desk.
My desk is between my bed and a window.
I sleep 8 hours.
I work 8 hours.
I spend 16 hours a day in an area about the size of my car.
slight shades of difference religion, manners, habits triumphed together
For George Washington’s Birthday, this was taken from General Washington’s 32 page farewell address to the nation written in 1796.
Famous for his warning against Foreign entanglements saying, “Against the insidious wiles of foreign influence (I conjure you to believe me, fellow-citizens) the jealousy of a free people ought to be constantly awake,” the General was also aware of the problems of party and states and government by party and by states.
The General said this:
“Citizens, by birth or choice, of a common country, that country has a right to concentrate your affections. The name of American, which belongs to you in your national capacity, must always exalt the just pride of patriotism more than any appellation derived from local discriminations. With slight shades of difference, you have the same religion, manners, habits, and political principles. You have in a common cause fought and triumphed together; the independence and liberty you possess are the work of joint counsels, and joint efforts of common dangers, sufferings, and successes.”
Citizens, by birth or choice,
of a common country,
that country has a right to concentrate your affections.
The name of American, which belongs to you in your national capacity, must always exalt the just pride of patriotism.
I recently ran across an essay that took the form of an email from a grand father to a grand son trying to explain the what this country was in danger of losing.
Have to point this essay appeared in the New Yorker on April 6, 2020 (Love Letter by George Sanders)
“… disrupt something so noble, so time tested and seemingly strong that had been with us literally everyday of our lives. We had taken a profound gift for granted. We did not know the gift was a fluke, a chimera, a wonderful accident of consensus and mutual understanding.”
The General understood this.
He even warned us saying:
“Interwoven as is the love of liberty with every ligament of your hearts, no recommendation of mine is necessary to fortify or confirm the attachment.
… you should cherish a cordial, habitual, and immovable attachment to it; accustoming yourselves to think and speak of it as of the palladium of your political safety and prosperity;
watching for its preservation with jealous anxiety;
discountenancing whatever may suggest even a suspicion that it can in any event be abandoned;
and indignantly frowning upon the first dawning of every attempt to alienate any portion of our country from the rest, or to enfeeble the sacred ties which now link together the various parts.”
Happy Birthday General.
We miss you very much and wish you all the best.
As a postscript and a new citizen of the State of South Carolina I have to point out this little factoid.
The image I used today is from a portrait of
The image I used today is from a portrait of George Washington as Colonel in the Virginia Regiment, Charles Willson Peale, in 1772.
Notice around his neck is a small metal ‘gorget’ that was worn by officers of the era as a symbol of military rank.
The shape of the gorget was adapted as the insignia or badge of the 1st and 2nd South Carolina Regiments that were formed to protect Charleston from a certain British invasion in 1775.
These two regiments manned Fort Sullivan in Charleston Harbor that held off an attack of Royal Navy, June 28, 1776.
Fort Sullivan was constructed of palmetto trees.
The gorget and the palmetto tree are the symbols on the flag of State of South Carolina.
Sometime after the flag was designed a state functionary changed it a bit by tilting the gorget which makes folks think it is a crescent moon.
It is not the moon but the gorget badge of the 1st and 2nd South Carolina Regiments.
I wrong. You right. I … have the big humility. So, how about you?
In the movie Lilies of the Field from 1963, Homer Smith, played by Sidney Poitier is frustrated when the local families want to pitch in and help Smith build a chapel for their local Catholic community.
When is spite of Smith’s protest, the locals take over the major part of the labor, Smith goes off in a sulk.
Sitting under a tree the owner of the local diner who has befriended Smith walks over and talks.
Juan, played by Stanley Adams, says in heavily accented and paced Hispanic english:
“So… Oh, do not stop now. OK, OK. I thought you was loco. I was wrong. You was right. See, I have the big humility, amigo. How about you?“
“The only wisdom we can hope to acquire Is the wisdom of humility: humility is endless“
When I put that together I wondered just what Mr. Eliot meant.
I wondered just what Mr. Eliot meant by humility and I went to the OED for a definition of the word and none of the definitions to me really seemed to work.
Then by chance Lilies of the Field was on TV last night.
I have seen the movie 50 times.
I have seem Big Juan walk over to talk to Homer Smith 50 times.
And for the first time I really heard Juan say, “See, I have the big humility.”
I have the ability to admit and say out loud I was wrong and you was right.
The only wisdom we can hope to acquire, Is the wisdom of humility.
fear of fear, frenzy wisdom can hope to acquire is humility
Adapted from TS Eliot in East Croker, Four Quartets: II. Fear and Humility.
Do not let me hear Of the wisdom of old men, but rather of their folly, Their fear of fear and frenzy, their fear of possession, Of belonging to another, or to others, or to God. The only wisdom we can hope to acquire Is the wisdom of humility: humility is endless. The houses are all gone under the sea. The dancers are all gone under the hill.
I looked up humility in the OED and got back, The quality of being humble or having a lowly opinion of oneself; meekness, lowliness, humbleness: the opposite of pride or haughtiness.
Having a lowly opinion of oneself?
Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm,
Meekness?
Lowliness?
Humbleness?
Saved by the last, the opposite of pride or haughtiness.
If you follow the news of late it would seem that it is the lack of humility, the lack of any wisdom we can hope to acquire, is endless
No Haiku For You 