Marvel-ous

I’m a huge Marvel fan and since I don’t have Netflix, just discovered that Disney has brought the Netflix Marvel shows home to roost on Disney +.

Here’s a list of what order to watch them.

1. Daredevil (Season 1) – 13 episodes
2. Jessica Jones (Season 1) – 13 episodes
3. Daredevil (Season 2) – 13 episodes
4. Luke Cage (Season 1) – 13 episodes
5. Iron Fist (Season 1) – 13 episodes
6. The Defenders (Limited Series) – 8 episodes
7. The Punisher (Season 1) – 13 episodes
8. Jessica Jones (Season 2) – 13 episodes
9. Luke Cage (Season 2) – 13 episodes
10. Iron Fist (Season 2) – 10 episodes
11. Daredevil (Season 3) – 13 episodes
12. The Punisher (Season 2) – 13 episodes
13. Jessica Jones (Season 3) – 13 episodes

Long day, lovely night

Long day at the Toyota place in Columbia. While driving home from a meeting Saturday night, suddenly my anti-collision and anti locking break system along with cruise control all malfunctioned in heavy traffic in Nashville. Turning the car off and on (after I parked somewhere safe) didn’t fix it. Neither did pulling the positive wire off the battery terminal on Sunday morning. So this morning I called the dealership and they said bring it in.

I didn’t really want all the bells and whistles when I bought a new car 4 years ago, but they all come with bells and whistles these days, so I bought a lifetime warranty to go with it.

I got to the dealer at 10 and at 1:30 they said they tracked it down to a blown fuse. They had to order the fuse from a supply house which was a town or two away.

Back on the road home and halfway there, the same issue occurred. So I called and they said bring it back.

The car was drivable, it’s just that I have gotten used to the bells and whistles. And without cruise control to regulate my speed, I have a tendency to drive 75 in a 45 without noticing until blue lights in the mirror remind me.

Thankfully, no blue lights in the mirror and I got back to the dealership around 2:30. At 5:45, they figured it’s a bad Anti locking Braking System module, but they can’t do anything until tomorrow when they call the warranty provider to see if the module is covered. (It better be.)

I drove home with all the sensors on except for the radar assisted cruise control, which also runs the brakes. I turned it off and used cruise control the way I’d used it for decades before I got my RAV4.

No issues going home and I even switched the radar cruise control back on when I got behind a guy driving 35 in a 55 on the winding-assed road from town to my home. Still no issues.

And when I got home at 7, Mother Nature was smiling on me with a bright clear sky and the Pleiades winking at me like those seven sisters have since I first found them through my dad’s binoculars in the drive way of our home on Julia St. when I was 8 years old.

Thanks and giving

This year’s Thanksgiving means a little more to me thanks to my sister’s discovery that we are descended from a handful of Mayflower passengers, including 3 who lived through that horrible first winter and survived to celebrate the first Thanksgiving in 1621 and contribute to the growth of what was to become the United States of America 160 years later.

William Mullins was a merchant who helped bankroll the trip for the Puritans, who were looking for a land where they could practice their Protestant beliefs without reprisal. Mullins wasn’t a Puritan but whatever his religious beliefs, they ran afoul of the Church of England and it’s Anglican form of a pope-less Catholicism.

Alice Mullins was his wife and they were joined on the Mayflower by his daughter Priscilla and their son Joseph. William Mullins was about 50. I’m not sure how old Alice was, but Rebecca was 17 and Joseph, 15, when they set sail for a new life in a land they had never seen before called Virginia.

Also onboard was Peter Browne, a neighbor and family friend of the Mullins family where they lived in Dorking, England. He was about 25 at the time they set sail.

John Alden, 21, was a cooper (barrel-maker) who was part of the ship’s crew.

Onboard were 62 Puritans, “Saints” as they called themselves, and 50 “Strangers,” as they referred to the others. The Mullinses, Alden and Browne were counted among the “Strangers.”

They set sail on August 5, 1620 from Southampton, England, on a voyage to what they thought would take them to the New World and a magical place called Virginia.

But as what usually happens to members of my family, things didn’t quite go as planned. Storms buffeted the ship for months, knocking them far off course, and instead of Virginia, they found themselves off the coast of Cape Cod, in what would later become Massachusetts, where they found a suitable harbor to spend the winter.

But because they were not where they were supposed to be, some of the people onboard the ship started grumbling about the lack of laws to govern their conduct in this area of the New World, where their patents for land and social standing were useless.

So before they got off the ship, 41 men, including William Mullins, my 11th great grandfather, John Alden, my 10th great grandfather, and Peter Brown, also my 10th great grandfather, signed the Mayflower Compact, the first form of self-government that called for majority rule in the New World.

They approved the following resolution before setting foot on land and praising God that their voyage was over.

Here’s an approximation of what that document said (the original was lost):

IN THE NAME OF GOD, AMEN. We, whose names are underwritten, the Loyal Subjects of our dread Sovereign Lord King James, by the Grace of God, of Great Britain, France, and Ireland, King, Defender of the Faith, &c. Having undertaken for the Glory of God, and Advancement of the Christian Faith, and the Honour of our King and Country, a Voyage to plant the first Colony in the northern Parts of Virginia; Do by these Presents, solemnly and mutually, in the Presence of God and one another, covenant and combine ourselves together into a civil Body Politick, for our better Ordering and Preservation, and Furtherance of the Ends aforesaid: And by Virtue hereof do enact, constitute, and frame, such just and equal Laws, Ordinances, Acts, Constitutions, and Offices, from time to time, as shall be thought most meet and convenient for the general Good of the Colony; unto which we promise all due Submission and Obedience. IN WITNESS whereof we have hereunto subscribed our names at Cape-Cod the eleventh of November, in the Reign of our Sovereign Lord King James, of England, France, and Ireland, the eighteenth, and of Scotland the fifty-fourth, Anno Domini; 1620.

Sadly, all of the Mullins family except Priscilla died that first winter, leaving her orphaned.

John Alden who elected to stay with the group rather than rejoin the ship’s crew when it sailed back, married her sometime before 1623, when they were listed in the division of land as married.

I am descended from their son Joseph Alden and his daughter Hopestill Alden Snow. (Priscilla’s mother was Elizabeth Wood, who died a year after Priscilla was born.)

Hopestill’s husband William Snow was the son of Peter Browne’s daughter Rebecca and her husband Joseph Snow. (Rebecca’s mother was named Mary and came to Plymouth after the Mayflower.)

So thanks to my paternal grandmother, Emma Estelle Roland Bernard, I’m a blue-blood, all-American, Mayflower Society eligible man descended from hardy stock who has a penchant for charting our own course, but who are also amenable to agreeing to work together for the common good when times call for it.

On this Thanksgiving day, I give Thanks to God for those who have made this nation great, and who have made me a free-thinking individual in the process.

May your heart be filled with Thanks and Giving today and throughout the year.

Kinda creepy

Thanks to SiriusXM radio and the ’70s on 7 channel, I get to listen to the music of my youth pretty much any time I drive these days.

On a recent 10,000 mile road trip, I listened to those songs a lot and came to a conclusion: The world is screwed right now because we were all trained to be stalkers in our youth.

Don’t believe me?

“I can hear your music playing. I can feel your body swaying. One floor below me, you don’t even know me, I love you.” — Tony Orlando and Dawn, 1970

“I want you to want me. I need you to need me. I’d love you to love me. I’m beggin’ you to beg me.” — Cheap Trick, 1978

“One way, or another, I’m gonna find ya. I’m gonna get ya, get ya, get ya, get ya.” — Blondie, 1979

And it’s not just the ’70s. The ’80s are full of stalker songs, too.

“I’ve been alone with you inside my head, and in my dreams I’ve kissed your lips a thousand times. …” — Lionel Ritchie, 1980

And that’s just the first two lines.

“Cause I wonder where you are and I wonder what you do. Are you somewhere feeling lonely or is someone loving you? Tell me how to win your heart, for I haven’t got a clue but let me start by saying, I love you.”

Try walking up to a woman who doesn’t know you today and say those words.

The ’90s? Yep. They had them too.

“And I’d give up forever to touch you. ‘Cause I know that you feel me somehow. … And I don’t want the world to see me, ‘Cause I don’t think that they’d understand. When everything’s made to be broken, I just want you to know who I am.” — Goo Goo Dolls, 1998

I’m sure there’s more from the past 20 years, too, but I don’t listen to that music, so I can’t help you.

Just remember that if I wear my sunglasses at night, so I can watch you weave then breathe, I learned it from Corey Hart in 1983.

A Mason’s Christmas

By Carl H. Claudy

(First printed in the book “The Old Past Master” published in 1924 by the Masonic Service Association, of which Brother Claudy was an associate editor. Brother Claudy later served as the Grand Master of the District of Columbia in 1943.)

“I don’t believe in a Christmas celebration by the lodge. I don’t think we ought to have one, or be asked to contribute to one or in any way engage in Christmas festivities.”

The Junior Mason spoke emphatically and with marked disapproval of the little ante-room group nearby, making happy plans for Yule-tide.

“That’s very interesting,” commented the Old Past Master. “I like to hear points of view unfamiliar to me. Would you mind telling me why?”

“Of course not. It’s very simple. Masonry is not Christian. King Solomon, of course, wasn’t a Christian, nor were either of the Hiram’s. Masonry admits to her ranks any good man of faith; Christian, Jewish, Islamic, Buddhist … it makes no difference, so he has a Faith. Then, as a lodge, we celebrate a holiday belonging to one faith?

“Now I personally am a Christian, and of course I celebrate Christmas. But my brother across the way is a Jew, who does not recognize Christianity. To ask him to spend his proportion of lodge funds in celebrating the birth of a Leader in whom he does not believe would be exactly like asking me to celebrate, with my proportion of lodge money, the birth of Confucius.

“Of course, I have only one vote and the majority rules, but when it comes to personal contributions to a Masonic Christmas celebration, my hands will never come out of my pockets.”

He shoved them deeper in as he spoke to emphasize his intention not to spend.

“Hum!” answered the Old Past Master. “So you think your Jewish brother across the way doesn’t recognize Christianity? Don’t you mean he doesn’t recognize Christ as the Son of God? Wait a minute … Oh, Brother Samuels.” The Old Past Master called across the ante-room. “Here a minute, will you?”

The Jewish brother rose and came forward.

“I just wanted to ask you if you are in favor or against the lodge Christmas celebration?” asked the Old Past Master.

“Me? I am in favor of it, of course, both for the lodge appropriation and the individual contribution.”

“Thank you,” nodded the Old Past Master. Then as the Jewish brother went back to his seat, he turned to the Junior Mason.

“You see, my son, our Jewish friend is not narrow. He does not believe in Christ as the Redeemer, but he recognizes that he lives in a country largely Christian, and belongs to a lodge largely Christian.

“To him the Christmas celebration is not one of His birthday, but of the spirit of joyousness and love which we mean when we sing, at Christmas time ‘Peace on earth, good will towards men!’

“If you argue that ‘peace’ is only a Christian word, he might even quote to you the words of One who said ‘I bring you not Peace, but a Sword.’

“Now let me explain something to you. The Jew has just as much right to refuse to recognize Christ as the Son of God, as you have to refuse to consider Mohammed the Prophet the followers of Allah say he is.

“But as an educated man, you must know that Mohammed was a good man, a devout leader, a wise teacher. As an educated man, you admit that the religion founded by Buddha has much in it that is good, and you admit that Confucius was a wise and just leader.

“Were you in the land where the birthdays of any of these were celebrated, would you refuse your part in the people’s joy in their Leader, simply because you followed another? I trust not. Well, neither do our Jewish brethren or our Mohammedan brethren, desire to be left out of our celebration. They may not believe in the Divinity of Him we as Christians follow, but if they are good men and good Masons … they are perfectly willing to admit that the religion we follow is as good for us as theirs is for them, and to join with us in celebrating the day which is to us the glad day of all the year.

“Believe me, boy, Christmas doesn’t mean Christ’s birthday to many a man who calls himself Christian. It is not because of joy that He was born that many a good man celebrates Christmas. It is because his neighbor celebrates it, because it is a time of joy for little ones, because it is a day when he can express his thanks to his God that he is allowed to have a wife and family and children and friends and a lodge, because of that very ‘peace on earth’ spirit which is no more the property of the Gentile than the Jew, the Chinese or the Mohammedan.

“It is such a spirit that Masons join, all, in celebrating Christmas. It is on the Masonic side of the tree we dance, not the Christian side.

“When this lodge erects its Christmas tree in the basement and throws it open to the little ones of the poor of this town, you will find children of all kinds there; black, white, yellow, and brown, Jew and Gentile, Christian and Mohammedan.

“And you will find a Jew at the door, and among the biggest subscriptions will be those from some Jewish brethren, and there is a Jew who rents cars for a living who will supply us a dozen free to take baskets to those who cannot come.

“And when the Jewish Orphan Asylum has its fair in the Spring, you will find many a Christian Mason attending to spend his money and help along the cause dear to his Jewish brethren, never remembering that they are of a different faith. That, my son, is Masonry.”

“For Charity is neither Christian nor Jewish, nor Chinese nor Buddhist. And celebrations which create joy in little hearts and feed the hungry and make the poor think that Masons do not forget the lessons in lodge, are not Christian alone, though they be held at Christmas, and are not for Christians alone, though the celebration be in His honor.

“Recall the ritual: ‘By the exercise of brotherly love we are taught to regard the whole human species as one family, the high and low, the rich and poor, who, as created by one Almighty Parent, and inhabitants of the same planet, are to aid, support and protect each other.’

“It is with this thought that we, as Masons, celebrate Christmas, to bring joy to our brethren and their little ones, and truly observe the brotherhood of man and the Fatherhood of God, whether we be Jew or Gentile, Mohammedan or Buddhist.”

The Old Past Master ceased and stood musing, his old eyes looking back along a long line of lodge Christmas trees about which eager little faces danced. Then he turned to the Junior Mason.

“Well,” he said smiling, “Do you understand?”

“I thank you for my Christmas present,” came the answer. “Please tell me to which brother I should make my Christmas contribution?”

Carl Harry Claudy (1879–1957) was an American magazine writer, a journalist for the New York Herald and author of a number of books relating to photography and to aviation, including First Book of Photography: A Primer of Theory and Prize Winners’ Book of Model Airplanes. During the early 1900s, Claudy photographed many important aeronautical events such as Alexander Graham Bell’s tetrahedral kite experiments and the Wright Flyer Army Trials at Fort Meyer, Virginia. Claudy wrote many science fiction stories for The American Boy magazine during the early 1930s. Four novelization books were printed from some of those stories. From 1939-1941, he wrote for DC Comics.

Brother Claudy’s association with Freemasonry began in 1908, when, at the age of 29, he was raised a Master Mason in Lodge Harmony No. 17 in Washington, DC. He served as its Master in 1932 and eventually served as Grand Master of Masons in the District of Columbia in 1943.

His Masonic writing career began in earnest when he became associated with the Masonic Service Association in 1923, serving as associate editor of its magazine, The Master Mason, until 1931. Under his leadership the Masonic Service Association was brought to a place of preeminence through his authorship and distribution of the Short Talk Bulletin which made his name familiar to virtually every lodge in the country. He authored approximately 350 Short Talk Bulletins. In addition to the bulletins themselves, he wrote and distributed innumerable digests, special bulletins, and portfolios of an historical and factual nature.

Epilogue

This weekend, I learned that Alexa can call your phone, which came in handy when I couldn’t find my phone after I got home tonight.

So I asked Alexa to call it. My handset phone system, which is connected to my iPhone by Bluetooth, rang, but I couldn’t hear the old phone sound of my cell phone. But for the handsets to ring, I knew my iPhone had to be nearby.

Then I remembered that I had the iPhone on silent mode during tonight’s Masonic meeting, so I turned off all the lights in the house and had Alexa call.

No lights anywhere other than from the three handsets in the house.

So I stood with the front door open and asked Alexa to call again.

On the ground, next to the driver’s door, partly covered by leaves, I could see the phone light up.

Technology can have an upside, too.

The long and winding road

In 1980, I was flush with oilfield cash and spent more than $20,000 on a Heritage model T-Bird.

That was an unheard of price back then, but it had a digital dashboard and all the bells and whistles you could imagine.

I loved that car but after the warranty expired (and before I wrecked it twice), and after I got laid off from the oilfield and no longer was flush with cash, all the bells and whistles stopped working. Not all at once, but one by one, leaving me in a bind.

That included the digital speedometer. It would read 0 most of the time, but every now and then flicker the actual speed, so I had to rely on my own guesstimate of how fast I was going. I bought a radar detector and that helped me keep out of trouble until I was able to buy a new car in 1987.

My new car was a 1987 Chevy Nova with manual transmission as well as manual windows and an analog radio. I wasn’t taking any chances.

I think about that T-Bird every time I am tempted to buy a “smart home” gadget.

My sister gave me a couple of smart plugs and an Echo Flex for Christmas last year, and I have to admit, I really like them. I even bought a couple of more plugs to use for lights that are hard for me to reach.

Being able to program them so that when I walk through the door and say “Alexa, I’m home” and watch lights magically pop on has been a cool thing. Telling Alexa goodnight and watching all the lights go out from the comfort of my bed is pretty neat too.

But thanks to my ’81 T-Bird, there’s a lamp by the door that turns on and off manually. It’s the same in my bedroom.

On this Cyber Monday, I find myself tempted to buy smart outlets and more plugs so that I can do all sorts of neat things without lifting a finger.

But the lessons learned from that old T-Bird prevail.

My RAV4 has all the bells and whistles that I could ever imagine having in a car and some that I never imagined. I also bought the lifetime warranty. I just hope I never have to use it.

Technology is a wonderful thing until it quits working.

Suddenly, it’s September

Finally. I never thought September would get here.

This is what the pirogue looked like after I loaded it on the car, all wrapped in shipping plastic to keep the love bugs off of it.

I picked up my pirogue in Bunkie weekend before last. Folks were getting ready for two hurricanes at the time, so I did a quick trip from Nashville. Down on Saturday, home on Sunday, though it may have been a little after midnight when I finally got home.

I installed a luggage rack Saturday afternoon in Memphis, where I was working with some Masonic friends to get our Grotto hall in shape. Headed to Alexandria, La., afterward, pulling in to town around midnight. Got up at the crack of 8, traveled to Home Depot for some quick supplies to wrap the boat to protect it from insects flying into it and picked up my cypress pirogue in Bunkie before noon.

The pirogue weighs about 60 pounds, easy enough for me to handle on my own. But I had to put it on the rack upside down and I couldn’t drive faster than 50 so it wouldn’t try to go airborne.

This is what it looked like after 10 miles. I had to stop at Dollar General and buy garbage bags and duct tape to protect the bow, after the wind ripped the shipping plastic to shreds.

50 mph, 600 miles to home. Ugh. I haven’t driven 50 in a vehicle since my mom last rode with me. I didn’t want to be “that guy” on the interstate, so I worked my way through the back roads of central Louisiana to Natchez, where I got on the Natchez Trace (speed limit 50 mph). It took a while to get home.

So what does any of that have to do with September? Everyone knows when you buy a pirogue, you have to paint it green. The builder suggested a stain rather than paint and I had to order it from Home Depot since they don’t normally stock “coonass green” stain for some unknown reason. (OK, they call it alligator green, but we know better.)

Anyway … it should arrive at the Home Depot in Bellevue today and I can start the process of making my pirogue hold water.

It’s not a bayou, but the Harpeth River is in for a workout in a few weeks.

The masked blogger

I think I am addicted to buying masks.

At the outset of this virus, I was scrambling to find masks, hand sanitizer, toilet paper, etc. I made my own sanitizer and have been lucky to find toilet paper at opportune times. But masks. Nope.

I asked a seamstress friend to make three masks for me when the solution was first publicized.I have my mother’s sewing machine, but I still haven’t taken the time to learn how to use it. I will. But not now. So I contacted an old friend and agreed to pay her what she thought they were worth.

Two days later, as anxiety set in, I asked another seamstress friend to make a few masks for me because I was getting antsy about how soon the first friend’s masks would arrive and I was still venturing out to the store every two or three days.

With her, I exchanged a roll of elastic I picked up last summer for the masks.

Both sets of masks arrived on the same day, so I went from none to six in a week and a half and I was contented for a while.

A few weeks later, I saw a mask with the Royal Arch Mason’s emblem on it. I am a state officer for Royal Arch Masons, so naturally, I had to have one since we were still planning to have a convention in the summer.

A week or two later, a brother Mason on a Facebook forum said his wife was ordering cloth with the Masonic square and compasses on it and he was taking orders. I ordered one. I am a Mason, after all, and I could wear it to masonic meetings, too.

In June, while dining with fellow members of Zaman Grotto, I stumbled across masks with the Grotto emblem of Mokanna, the veiled prophet, on it on eBay.  I ordered one while we chatted about the Grotto at a Mexican restaurant. I wore it to the Allied Masonic Degrees meeting at the end of June and used it as a recruiting tool for the Grotto. I haven’t worn it at Grotto, yet.

A few days later, while scrolling through my saved searches on eBay, I found another homemade mask with the square and compasses on it. I bought it, too, since the Facebook brother hadn’t mentioned his wife’s masks since asking who wanted one.

Three weeks after I got the eBay mask in, the Facebook brother announced the masks were ready, so I sent him a check last week and got the mask in the mail yesterday.

On Monday, while preparing for our annual ceremony at a time capsule the Cryptic Masons have at the state capitol, I picked up a pack of 10 disposable masks, in case anyone needed one. They didn’t, so I have that pack on hand now, too.

That’s 20 masks altogether: 10 cloth and 10 paper. And yet, I’m still looking at masks online and in the store.

God, grant me the serenity to accept the masks I already have, the courage to wear them everywhere I go, and the wisdom to know when enough is enough.

The continuing adventures of a bachelor hermit

Busy morning when compared to the other days this week. I ran out of bread last night, so peanut butter crackers played the role of breakfast.

The masks my friends are making won’t get here until Thursday at the earliest, and I’d rather not go into town without one. Since I do have hotdog buns, hot dogs played the role of lunch.

Supper was a creation I call a bologna quesadilla.

I warmed a tortilla on the griddle, flipped it over, put a slice of cheese on and then bologna, topped with a second slice of cheese and another tortilla. I flipped it twice and let the cheese melt and the bologna heat up.

Not bad if I do say so myself.

I was chatting with a friend on the phone and we were talking about masks. She’s worried about me not having any yet.  I told her I tried to make a mask out of a t-shirt, but it wasn’t long enough to cover my beard.

The other option, using a bandana with rubber bands, wasn’t an option because I don’t have rubber bands. But it occurred to me I could cut strips out of a t-shirt and use as ties.

I did a few minutes ago and darned if it didn’t work. I’ll use this to get bread tomorrow. And while I’m in town, I’ll get a sausage and pepperoni pizza to go from Jonah’s.

I get paid tomorrow, so it will be a win-win kind of day.

Here’s me and my bandana mask with t-shirt ties.

Stay safe.