With COVID-19 and the lockdown, I have ended up watching television at some of the less viewed times as opposed to the prime times. A big difference is that there are a lot of advertisements for various charities probably because the stations have a certain quota of ads that they run on the cheap or possibly even free to the advertiser if they are public interest ads.

Now and then I clicked through all 100+ channels that I get while hunting for something I hadn’t seen many times before and something other than a story about the pandemic. I must admit that I often ended up watching the same three or four channels. Having been interested in numbers for years, and being bored enough that I actually watched the ads, I noticed four particular ads that ended up using the same number: 19. And no, their use of “19” was not for COVID-19, though the ads generally pulled on the heart strings and emotions.

Possibly the most touching advertisement was for the Shriners Hosptals for Children. Several children of various ages were shown obviously under treatment at the hospital and they made a plea for money to help their treatment and for other similar children. The call was for the viewer to send just $19 a month and with the first donation they would get a fuzzy blanket as a thank you.

St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital was quite similar and they also asked for $19 a month. Both of the appeals for the hospitals have been doing this for many years, St. Jude’s Hospital started appeals years ago with Danny Thomas as those of you who go back to early television shows may remember. The Danny Thomas show aired between the early 1950s and the middle 1960s. His daughter, Marlo Thomas (married to Phil Donahue), who starred on TV as “That Girl” continues his tradition of supporting St. Jude’s Hospital.

Getting away from hospitals, a third advertisement has been shown a number of times in support of the Wounded Warrior Project. But again as I recall, a fleece blanket would be sent to you for your contribution of $19 per month.

The fourth advertisement was not for helping human beings, but rather it was the opportunity to send your $19 a month to the ASPCA — the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals. The TV pictures for this one included a horse that could barely stand on its own legs, plus some shivering dogs and cats.

All four of those charities are worthwhile and there are so many more with the general problem being how you choose to which charity you will donate.

However, what fascinated me was that appeal of sending $19. I suppose it is a number sort of like a gasoline price of: 159 and 9/10s. It just sounds better and sounds like a lot less than saying 160 just as 19 sounds a lot cheaper than $20, so maybe that appeal does generate more funds.

jtr

The number 19 also has some significance in some religions and numerology. Wikipedia claims that 19 is in the Qur’an as the number of angels guarding Hell (Saqar).

Also the Baha’i faith calendar has 19 months of 19 days along with a cycle of 19 years and a supercycle of 361 years (19×19). If you are not familiar with the Baha’i, there is a most beautiful Baha’i temple in Wilmette, Ill., (just north of Chicago) that is open to the public.

The number 19 is used in several places in the Bible. There were 19 kings in Israel before they were conquered by the Assyrians. Mary, the mother of Jesus is mentioned 19 times. The Israelite tribe of Naphtall inherited 19 cities. Generally, 19 is used as a symbol of faith.

The number 1 signifies the beginning whereas 9 is the last of the single digits or the end — together then 19 is the time set for a new beginning.

jtr

As for COVID-19, most of you probably know, that COVID-19 is short for COVID-2019 even though we barely heard of it until 2020. Somewhat confusing is the difference between the disease and what causes it.

There are official naming groups for both the disease and what causes it. Diseases are generally named by the World Health Organization in the International Classification of Diseases. The virus name is based on the genetic structure primarily by virologists and a scientific committee, namely, the International Committee on Taxonomy of Viruses.

Further, the disease has been shortened to be called COVID-19 and the virus is “severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2” shortened to SARS-CoV-2.

Until next time: Oh, Fiddlesticks!