Two exercise videos to share

I have been getting these exercises in email, but only today did I notice that "Share" up in the corner of this 3-minute Coordination Challenge from SilverSneakers.  I clicked on it, and was given the option to grab the necessary url and post it here.  Unfortunately, I don't know how to reduce the size to fit into my blog better.  You can, however, just click on this Coordination Challenge link and go there.

I also follow SilverSneakers on Facebook, where I did Skills and Drills with Jenny today.  This one is 30 minutes long, and it doesn't start until about half a minute into the video.

What we say and what we do

Words matter

People who cannot get out and march have been putting Black Lives Matter signs in their yards.  Some people in my town have been putting signs like this in their yards.  And some of us, who are still staying at home, are putting pictures of signs on our blogs.  We do what we can and what we feel may make a difference.

Masks matter

A hair stylist in Missouri was diagnosed with covid-19 in late
May, and she ended up directly exposing 84 customers who had
sat just inches from her face for up to 30 minutes each.  She had symptoms, but wore a face mask; salons were one of the few places where people were required to wear them.  Because of that, health officials say, none of her customers was infected. 
The result appears to be one of the clearest real-world examples of the ability of masks to slow the spread of the coronavirus.

Read more in a Washington Post article.  This pandemic has changed the way we think, and I think I'll be wearing masks for a long time, even if others around me choose to toss them when things open up.  Since I'm 80 years old, I feel safer around people wearing their masks.

"83 Days" ~ FREE movie ~ right now

83 Days is an award-winning short film about George Stinney, Jr. (October 21, 1929 – June 16, 1944), an African American child who was convicted of murdering two white girls, ages 7 and 11, in his hometown of Alcolu, South Carolina.  The proceeding was later vacated as an unfair trial,  He was executed by electric chair on June 16, 1944.  They released this award-winning short film to the public worldwide for free at 6:30pm EST, today, exactly 76 years to the day and time that he was electrocuted.  The pictures above are from a much shorter YouTube clip.

This isn't taught in our history classes, so here's another YouTube video from 2019.  This one includes an interview with the man who was his cellmate when he was taken away to be electrocuted.  Maybe we can learn a little bit more of our history.

Covidiot and masticate ~ TWOsday words

Most of you have probably never, ever heard this word spoken.  But I have.  Repeatedly.  My Aunt Bonnie, known to my siblings and me as Auntie, used this word so often that I laughed when I saw this pun.

Word of the Day #1

mas·ti·cate / ˈmastəˌkāt / verb = chew (food).  Example:  "He bit off more than he could masticate."

Word of the Day #2

Covidiot = Someone who ignores the warnings regarding public health or safety.  A person who hoards goods, denying them from their neighbors.  Examples:  "Did you see that covidiot with 300 rolls of toilet paper in his basket?" and "That covidiot is hugging everyone she sees."

I saw "Covidiot" for the first time yesterday and found the definition in the Urban Dictionary.  People who are crowding back into bars right now are "Covidiots."  I'll have to remember this word because it is so perfect.  Did I really need to define it for you?

It ain't over yet

A couple of weeks ago, Clawdia got to visit outside with her good friend Sharon, who was wearing a mask.  I was at the far end of Clawdia's leash, also wearing a mask.  The mosquitos were terrible that day for the two humans.  I don't know about Clawdia.

Here's my little black panther in her open window this morning.  Having it open is her usual way to get fresh air.  She begs me to open it.  Unless it rains or gets too hot, I try to keep it open for her.  It's 85° out there right now, but I've left the window open because there's a breeze.

I'm still sheltering in place, until I see what happens as things open back up.  Many of us can relate to this cartoon.  The days seem to stretch on and on and on.  Some of us enjoyed sitting outside recently — all socially distanced — and actually talking to real people.  At least, the couple in this cartoon have each other.

Some of the gardeners have planted things in the raised beds near the gazebo.  I noticed this sign has all the right letters to spell O-K-R-A, my favorite food.  On the back, the sign is in Chinese.  I assure you that no ORCAS were mistreated in the making of the gardens here at the Crown Center.

A memory popped up

While reading Chapter 5 of Trevor Noah's Born a Crime, I was brought up short by his memory of getting a set of encyclopedias.

"My mom ... bought a set of encyclopedias, too.  It was fifteen years old and way out of date, but I would sit and pore through those.  My books were my prized possessions.  I had a bookshelf where I put them, and I was so proud of it" (p. 67).

A memory popped into my head, and I stopped reading.  I was back in my own childhood.  We lived in barracks that had been converted to apartments for military people returning from World War Two, when there was not enough housing available for them and the boom of babies that ensued.  My dad had been drafted into the Army in late 1944, even though he had two children and another on the way.  Those barracks weren't built as solidly as most houses, and when it rained really hard, water would drip from the ceiling.  Our apartment was on the second floor, so I guess it was a leaky roof because rain was getting in somewhere.  Anyway, when it rained, we'd run to cover our beds or anything we didn't want to get wet.

One year, our mother bought a set of World Book Encyclopedias.  Maybe a traveling salesman had knocked on the door, and she began to make monthly payments on those green and white volumes.  I was like Trevor about those books.  They were special, I learned things from them, and I wanted to know all those things.  After we acquired those special books, when my brothers and sister would run to cover their beds, I invariably ran to protect the encyclopedias.  If I had to sleep on a damp bed, so be it.  But I didn't want those special books to be ruined.  So I ran to the bookshelves.  I kept those books safe, and — after I grew up, married, and moved away — the family still had them.

While looking for an online illustration for this post, I found a fun article about "People of the Book, yes.  But which one?"  Was it Encyclopedia Britannica?  or World Book?  or Compton's?  In pre-internet days, which encyclopedia was in your house?  We were a World Book family.

Word of the Day

en·sue / inˈso͞o, enˈso͞o / verb / ensued is the past participle = happened or occured afterward or as a result.  Example:  "After the war, a boom of babies ensued.  We call them the Baby Boomers."

Memories are made of this ... and this ... and this

Chattanooga telephone directory, September 1944

A woman named Cathy posted this picture in the "You Know You're From Chattanooga If..." group on Facebook, saying, "This piece of history is talking to me!  It’s been through some rough times.  Hopefully I can preserve it."  And she was willing to look up names for those of us who were curious.

I didn't know if our phone number in 1944 was in the name of William E. Setliffe, Jr. or Bonnie Reynolds, since we moved into my maternal grandmother's house with my Aunt Bonnie in 1943.  I memorized my address and phone number as a child:  3208 5th Avenue, and 2-9060.  I thought my paternal grandfather — William E. Setliffe, Sr. — might also be in that book, even though he died during that year.  Cathy reported, "There's two listings for William E. Setliffe Jr."

• W E Setliffe Jr (r) 822 E Main....6-8990
• Mrs. W E Setliffe Jr (r) 3208 5th Av....2-9060

She added, "I don't see your grandfather listed."  I didn't remember off-hand which month my grandfather died (I was only 4, after all).  It was probably earlier in 1944.

My dad's listing at 822 Main Street would be the grocery store he owned at the SW corner of Main Street and Central Avenue, directly across the street from Miss Griffins Foot-Long Hot Dogs.  Her little stand used to be right at the corner in a little triangle until the streets were widened.  Her place is still at that corner, but now it's bigger.  I asked if Gladys Setliffe was listed, but Cathy didn't find my dad's mother listed.  I remember that she lived on Cameron Hill after his father died.  When she remarried and moved to Florida a few years later, I was in the third grade.  That would have been the spring of 1949.

Mom, me, and Dad holding my brother Bill, in the house on 5th Avenue about 1944

Family memories

Then I started thinking about the (r) Cathy had mentioned.  I presume that means "residence," and both listings have that (r) designation.  When I was very young, we lived behind the grocery store.  Then we moved about a block up Main Street (toward the Ridge) before moving in with my Aunt Bonnie after my maternal grandmother died.  Maybe the grocery store had no phone, or maybe my dad had one in the back where we used to live.  After all, who would have had time to answer the phone all day, when he was running the store by himself?  He was also the meatcutter, chopping and weighing and wrapping meat.  Phones were not as ubiquitous in the 1940s as they are now.

Word of the Day

u·biq·ui·tous / yo͞oˈbikwədəs / adjective = present, appearing, or found everywhere.  Ubiquity is generally used to describe something "existing or being everywhere at the same time, constantly encountered, widespread, common."  Ubiquitous can also be used as a synonym for words like worldwide, universal, global, pervasive, all over the place.  Example:  "Phones were not as ubiquitous in the 1940s as they are now."

Blast from the Past

Imagine the smile on my face and the uplift this message on Facebook gave me last week.

"Hey, Bonnie — I feel badly that we've lost touch over the years.  I think the last time I saw you was at a Bible study when you were leading Forrest Avenue United Methodist here in Chattanooga, but I still remember you fondly from Baylor days when you worked in the library.  You were so encouraging to me in so many ways.  In fact, I used to call you my 'guru,' and you'd sign your notes 'bjguru.'  I'm back in Chattanooga now, although over the past decade or so I worked some here and some outside of Philadelphia.  I just happened to think of you the other day and wondered how you were doing, then thought I'd check Facebook and see if I could find you.  Looks as if you're in Missouri now: what led you there?  Hope you and your family are safe and well and that you're happy and enjoying life.  You were always a great influence on me, and I'm grateful."

Keith was in high school when I met him in 1974 at Baylor School in Chattanooga.  I was working in the school library, shelving books much as I do now at the Crown Center for Senior Living.  That's how I paid my way through college for my first degree.  I remember Keith bringing the children's choir from First Christian Church to sing at Forrest Avenue United Methodist, maybe in the late 1980s.  A group of six-year-olds.  More memories.  Keith and I are now Facebook friends.