Free Postcards

Recently, a free post card service was brought to my attention via TechCrunch.  It sounded like a great idea: you could upload your own photo, write a message, and send the post card entirely for free.  I tried it out on myself.  Uploaded a goofy photo of me and the wife, wrote a nice note and send the card on its way.  As a bonus, the service included letting me pick the advertisement on the back of the card (the service claims that this part is great for advertisers).  The confirmation email informed me that I would receive my postcard within 2 to 3 days.  I assumed that because the company had to print the card that it might be a couple days later than what they actually said.  Two and a half weeks later I still don’t have a postcard.  I’m disappointed, but at the same time, optimistic that my postcard will come.  My hope is that with the advertising they received on TechCrunch they are simply overwhelmed with postcard requests.  I’ll sit and wait a little longer, then maybe try sending another one.  I’d write the name of the company and offer up a link to their site, but I don’t want your postcard to get sent before mine.

“And In Flew Enza”: Influenza in Grand Rapids, Michigan

 

            Victory was eminent for the Allies on the western front in 1918.  In January President Wilson announced his Fourteen Points of Peace program signaling to the nation that victory was just around the corner.  Grand Rapids had been a strong supporter of the war right from the start.  Thousands of young, able-bodied Grand Rapids boys enlisted when the United States entered the war and by the time the draft was called, less than 300 men were called up from Grand Rapids.  Besides manpower, Grand Rapids played its part in helping to pay for the war effort by buying Liberty Loan bonds.  Parades were held in Grand Rapids and across the country to increase awareness of the public duty to buy more Liberty Loan bonds.  Kent County as a whole subscribed for $38,460,400 Liberty bonds during the World War drives for funds and the city of Grand Rapids subscribed for around $30,000,000.  The war was a time for great pride and joy in the city of Grand Rapids and the citizens showed it by going above and beyond the call of duty in their support of the Liberty Loan program.  In the months and weeks leading up to the end of the war there was cause for much celebration. 

            All over the country, men returned from combat and were greeted with huge parades and fanfare. Little did they know they were carrying a disease so contagious and so deadly that in little more than a year, estimates as high as 100 million people worldwide (one-fifth of the world’s population) would have to be buried. The disease killed more people than any other disease in history. The disease would leave entire cities decimated, families devastated, and workforces wiped out. It was a disease so horrible and so deadly that history has tried to forget that it ever happened. What scared people the most was that this killer disease was nothing more than the common flu, hardly something to worry about. Many at the time recalled the last outbreak of influenza in 1889-90 but none were prepared for the ferocity of this new strain of flu. They called it Spanish Influenza because at the time of discovery it was very prevalent in Spain but historians today often refer to it as the Purple Plague because of the color it left its victims. Men and women were literally drowned by their own bodies. Spanish flu brought entire continents to their knees. Historians compared the 1918 city scenes to that of European cities during the Black Plague. Carts rode through the cities beckoning citizens to bring out their dead and mass graves were dug wherever there was room. Central Park in New York City was the site of one of the largest of these mass graves. Every town and every city in the world was affected by Spanish flu but there were some that did well to avoid the devastation that influenza was known for.  Grand Rapids, Michigan was one such city.

            The furniture capital of the nation should have been affected just as badly as its larger neighbors, Chicago and Detroit, but made it through virtually unscathed.  Very little has been written about this era of history in Grand Rapids but what little survives gives a very clear picture of how this fair city was able to weather the storm and fight off one of the worst disease pandemics in the history of the world.  Rigorous implementation of local and state public health programs such as voluntary and mandatory bans on public gatherings, city and state-wide poster campaigns in theaters and churches, influenza masks, a placard system on homes, voluntary individual quarantines, and the creation of isolation hospitals for influenza patients combined with constructive and positive reporting on the pandemic in the city’s newspapers prevented heavy loss of life in Grand Rapids, Michigan.

why I love my wife in 300 words

My wife is a truly amazing person.  She’s beautiful, caring, loving, smart, funny, athletic, and did I mention beautiful?  We met our freshman year of college in the dorms.  She lived down the hall with a friend of a friend.  The moment I met her I fell in love.  This girl had the face of an angel.  When I think back on it now, I swear there was wind blowing, a choir singing, and an angelic glow about her.  It took a year for her to realize how I felt about her but once she knew she never looked back.  It all started with a conversation and a foot rub.  WHen you can give a foot rub to a girl with sensitive feet you know something is working.  From the foot rub we moved to late night conversations with John and Norah serenading.  Three and a half years after our first date I married that girl.  It was the single greatest day in my entire life.  I married the one person in the world that loved me for me and knew without a single doubt that I loved her for her.  There is no greater feeling in the world than knowing this.  It makes life worth living.  

The Beauty of Writing

The hardest part about writing is deciding what to write about.  A writer with an active and creative mind will never be without ideas but sometimes even the most active and creative mind runs out of things to write about.  I have run into this situation countless times and I have found that the best solution (which every writer knows) is to keep writing.  This has always seemed fairly vague to me.  If I am supposed to keep writing even though I have nothing to write about, what am supposed to write about?  Looks to me a like a catch 22 at it’s finest.  When this situation occurs I generally try to write about the first thing that comes to mind.  If my mind is blank, I write about the first thing I see.  It does not matter what that thing is, just that I write about it.  I force at least one hundred words out before I stop.  Take this blog post.  I’ve already hit 308 words and I’ve written about absolutely nothing.  That is the true beauty of writing.