This has been a good year for finding myself headed to cities where old friends live who I have not seen in many years. This trip is to Greenville, South Carolina, where I had the opportunity to see Vince, another with whom I was stationed at Wüschheim Air Station in (what was at the time West) Germany.
Vince was one who had his head screwed on straight, even way back at age 20. Very devout Christian, very straight-laced, and what I characterized as "uptight." In that regard, little has changed, except the "uptight" part. He fell victim to the schoolboy mentality those of us employed who thought we were better than anybody we felt didn't fit. We thought he was uptight. We thought he was geeky. We poked endless fun at him, both in and out of his presence. But of all of us, he was probably more secure in his being than any of us was in our own. He refused to suffer our childish behavior and so seized every opportunity to avoid it, and was thus branded a loner.
While I was hanging out with friends, each of us trying to outdo each other in "cool," Vince was out in his car, traversing the countryside, touring Europe, visiting friends, both German and American, with every free moment he had available to him.
When Vince was in our midst, suffering our barbs and jokes, he was there not because he wanted to be, but because he had to be. He wanted not to be there not because he didn't like us, but because we didn't give him anything to like. One on one he and I got along together, but when the gang was around, I disappeared into the group mentality and was one of the voices from which he shrank. And yet he and I maintained, if not a friendship, at least a healthy acquaintanceship.
Thanks to Classmates.com (this is not a plug, just a statement of fact) these 20-odd years later, Vince and I were able to contact each other again. And, as luck would have it, my travels brought me to within a few miles of his home.
At a local restaurant we shared dinner and memories, and I amazed him with my recall of names, though I'm sure most of them were incorrect. And again I was awed to learn that I had so misjudged someone back in my youth that I now regret I didn't spend more time getting to know him. Of course, his devotion to his faith, and my lack of same would eventually have caused friction then. But I've grown much more tolerant of that sort of thing. Vince is in the middle of studies to become a minister, so he knows now that he will have his day to proselytize, and to those eager to hear him. This evening, despite the fact that I brought up the topic of the progress of his studies, and my curiosity about why he follows this path, never once did he utter the icon after which his faith is named. Was that out of respect for me?
After dinner we retired to his home where I met his lovely wife and kids, and where we shared more laughs, more names and more memories.
Where I felt remorse for "Rudy" and the life he led as a young airman, and for how much he realized he missed while under the influence of alcohol, I left Vince feeling remorse for myself, for being a stupid kid who thought I was more than I was, for thinking I was more than anybody was, and for missing an opportunity to embrace a friendship that could have shown me more about life than I already knew.
To my friend, Vince, very devout Christian, very straight-laced, but definitely not uptight.
dassall
Tuesday, October 25, 2005
Monday, October 24, 2005
Rainbows
As we ooze into adulthood, too many of us lose that sense of wonder we had as children. For, as children, the everyday humdrum is not so everyday, nor so humdrum, as we have experienced very little beyond our front doors. But we grow up. We get out of the house. We go to school. We learn about the science and technology that make up the world around us.
We learn how everything works that ever made us stop and scratch our heads, or made us say, “Aw, COOL!” And as the knowledge enters our brains, the wonder leaves.
Today started off as the typical Monday. It wasn’t a usual Monday as we had workers coming over to start a project at the house, and they were late. I had to wait for them to arrive to go over the areas where they were to work, pose and answer questions and whatnot. But they were late, making me late for work, to deal with rain-crazy traffic, which made me later for work, and that is the typical Monday.
But as traffic cleared and I headed northwest, the sun peeked out, giving promise to the day. I noticed something in the sky ahead of me to my left: a band of colors canted at an angle, floating in the sky. “Prism effect of the sun through the rain,” my brain automatically reminded me. But then, when I looked forward I had the illusion of driving toward a vast archway. I looked up and there it was, arching from the ground way off to the left of the highway, over the road, and down to the ground way off to the right, a complete rainbow! I hadn’t seen one of those in at least thirty years. I looked around at the drivers on either side of me, but no one seemed to have noticed my rainbow. It lasted a good three or four minutes, and I continuously marveled at it as I hurtled along the highway at 75 miles per hour (but that’s okay, as I am the world’s best driver).
I returned momentarily to an amalgam of all of my grade school classrooms, imagining the voice of a teacher explaining the science of a rainbow. “Blah blah blah sunlight blah blah blah refraction blah blah blah prism blah blah.” But once you’ve seen one in all its glory, the scientific explanation doesn’t seem sufficient. It became very easy to understand the origins of the folklore of rainbows, as they are so magnificent, people of centuries ago must have desired to touch them, to see them up close. The area where it “touched” the ground seemed to be illuminated in a sort of spotlight, but I’m sure it was more trick of the mind than trick of the eye. Nonetheless, it lent to the sense of magic that I experienced.
All too soon it was gone and I was once again aware that I was headed to work. On a Monday. And a rainy Monday at that. Any magic that rainbows may possess, now or during my childhood, disappears with the rainbows, as my Monday turned out to be worse than the average Monday. Unless the magic of the rainbow is the smile worn on your soul, no matter how lousy is your day, when the image of the rainbow arches across your memory.
dassall
We learn how everything works that ever made us stop and scratch our heads, or made us say, “Aw, COOL!” And as the knowledge enters our brains, the wonder leaves.
Today started off as the typical Monday. It wasn’t a usual Monday as we had workers coming over to start a project at the house, and they were late. I had to wait for them to arrive to go over the areas where they were to work, pose and answer questions and whatnot. But they were late, making me late for work, to deal with rain-crazy traffic, which made me later for work, and that is the typical Monday.
But as traffic cleared and I headed northwest, the sun peeked out, giving promise to the day. I noticed something in the sky ahead of me to my left: a band of colors canted at an angle, floating in the sky. “Prism effect of the sun through the rain,” my brain automatically reminded me. But then, when I looked forward I had the illusion of driving toward a vast archway. I looked up and there it was, arching from the ground way off to the left of the highway, over the road, and down to the ground way off to the right, a complete rainbow! I hadn’t seen one of those in at least thirty years. I looked around at the drivers on either side of me, but no one seemed to have noticed my rainbow. It lasted a good three or four minutes, and I continuously marveled at it as I hurtled along the highway at 75 miles per hour (but that’s okay, as I am the world’s best driver).
I returned momentarily to an amalgam of all of my grade school classrooms, imagining the voice of a teacher explaining the science of a rainbow. “Blah blah blah sunlight blah blah blah refraction blah blah blah prism blah blah.” But once you’ve seen one in all its glory, the scientific explanation doesn’t seem sufficient. It became very easy to understand the origins of the folklore of rainbows, as they are so magnificent, people of centuries ago must have desired to touch them, to see them up close. The area where it “touched” the ground seemed to be illuminated in a sort of spotlight, but I’m sure it was more trick of the mind than trick of the eye. Nonetheless, it lent to the sense of magic that I experienced.
All too soon it was gone and I was once again aware that I was headed to work. On a Monday. And a rainy Monday at that. Any magic that rainbows may possess, now or during my childhood, disappears with the rainbows, as my Monday turned out to be worse than the average Monday. Unless the magic of the rainbow is the smile worn on your soul, no matter how lousy is your day, when the image of the rainbow arches across your memory.
dassall
Thursday, October 20, 2005
The Gift of Music
Taken out of context, the title I've chosen for this post can be interpreted in several ways: a gift certificate from Amazon.com? A CD wrapped in pretty paper and given at a birthday? An innate talent for creating sounds pleasing to the ear? Yeah. That's it. That last one's close.
I would love to say that I'm talking about me, but I'm not. Musical ability is an untapped undercurrent in our family. My paternal grandfather was a professional musician back in the Italian immigrant heyday of the early 1900s. To say he was a professional does not mean he made his living at it, rather, he toiled in a steel mill by day in order to support his passion. I don't really know much about the man; he died at age 42 when my father was a tender age 4...in 1928. What I do know is that he was a talented musician, and he played the accordion. I have photos. This talent was evident in my oldest brother who took accordion lessons and was able to play quite well on an instrument which was dying with the immigrant culture it rode in on.
I, too, have a talent for creating music, but it was a talent I discovered late. When I was a kid we had this cheap chord organ, basically a toy, but it was my first access to a musical keyboard. My older brother introduced me to "Chopsticks," and a love was born. In the 36 years hence I have dabbled with keyboards - the chord organ; pianos at schools, churches, community theatre auditoriums; and, yes, my oldest brother's old accordion - never creating anything terribly sophisticated, yet still creating. I never learned to write, so the things I created were committed to, and played back from, memory. Most have also been lost. Music has never been my number one passion, and with no training and no sophisticated outlet, the talent I possess has remained nascent. My love has remained the keyboard, and I purchased an expensive cheap one about ten years ago. It's a Casio I purchased as a demo model from some electronics and appliance store. It came with no instruction manual, no box, not even a power supply. It features an array of buttons that can create a bazillion sounds and rhythms. With it I have created my most sophisticated tunes, but, don't be mistaken, they are far from sophisticated.
As possessor of a new iMac G5, I discovered a little program that comes installed on it called "Garage Band." I haven't yet delved deeply into the program, but basically it enables anyone from an accomplished musician to someone like, say, ME to compose music. Shortly after I discovered "Garage Band," I discovered a Mac compatible, Plug-N-Play USB MIDI Controller musical keyboard. I won't go into the laundry list of its features, but I will simply say that its purchase rendered my old Casio obsolete.
My older brother, the one who taught me how to play "Chopsticks," now has two boys of his own, ages 12 and 9. Among their endless sponsored sports and activities they are each studying music, the older trumpet, the younger clarinet. With my recently obsoleted keyboard I thought maybe the boys' musical training would benefit if they had another instument at their disposal. My brother was receptive to the idea, and since I was giving it away there was no obstacle to block the idea.
The boys were typical kids at a keyboard: they simply banged on the keys with open hands just to hear it make noise. As I showed them the features I understand, their interest became more focused. I played a few of the tunes I made up, and I played "Heart and Soul," recording the left-hand, chord progression part, then played it back as accompaniment so I could play the right-hand part. Now the boys were hooked! The older boy was interested in how the keyboard worked, how to access each different sound and rhythm. I spent a long time showing him these things while he repeatedly slapped away the hand of his younger brother who really wanted to get at the keys himself. Their mother retrieved one of their musical instrument lesson books and we tried to show the older boy where the notes on the scale were located on the keyboard...the blind leading the blind!
After a while my brother told his older son that it was his brother's turn on the keyboard. They traded places and, after a few minutes of exploring the more annoying sounds the instrument can make, the boy started poking at individual keys. Suddenly I heard the melody of "Heart and Soul" being plunked out slowly! While the older boy had focused on the mechanics of getting the instrument to make sounds, the younger had focused on how to use it to make music. He had studied his inept uncle's pathetic rendition of "Heart and Soul," and he was able to play it back almost perfectly (as his uncles example!) the first time! He is the more expressive boy, as enthusiastic about doing plays and singing in choir as he is about playing baseball and basketball and soccer and volleyball, so I guess I shouldn't be surprised. But I am fascinated by how quickly he seized upon a melody, how he studied what he had seen and heard, and then duplicated it. I didn't bestow upon him the talent to play music, I just simply gave an old electronic keyboard. But I gave him a new outlet. I gave him a true gift of music.
His parents have the money and the circumstance to provide the boys with the music and instrument lessons that our parents could not afford. I wish now that I could have had lessons then, even if they had to force me to do them. I hope my brother and his wife will keep their boys on the path to music. I'd like to know that I had something to do with that.
dassall
I would love to say that I'm talking about me, but I'm not. Musical ability is an untapped undercurrent in our family. My paternal grandfather was a professional musician back in the Italian immigrant heyday of the early 1900s. To say he was a professional does not mean he made his living at it, rather, he toiled in a steel mill by day in order to support his passion. I don't really know much about the man; he died at age 42 when my father was a tender age 4...in 1928. What I do know is that he was a talented musician, and he played the accordion. I have photos. This talent was evident in my oldest brother who took accordion lessons and was able to play quite well on an instrument which was dying with the immigrant culture it rode in on.
I, too, have a talent for creating music, but it was a talent I discovered late. When I was a kid we had this cheap chord organ, basically a toy, but it was my first access to a musical keyboard. My older brother introduced me to "Chopsticks," and a love was born. In the 36 years hence I have dabbled with keyboards - the chord organ; pianos at schools, churches, community theatre auditoriums; and, yes, my oldest brother's old accordion - never creating anything terribly sophisticated, yet still creating. I never learned to write, so the things I created were committed to, and played back from, memory. Most have also been lost. Music has never been my number one passion, and with no training and no sophisticated outlet, the talent I possess has remained nascent. My love has remained the keyboard, and I purchased an expensive cheap one about ten years ago. It's a Casio I purchased as a demo model from some electronics and appliance store. It came with no instruction manual, no box, not even a power supply. It features an array of buttons that can create a bazillion sounds and rhythms. With it I have created my most sophisticated tunes, but, don't be mistaken, they are far from sophisticated.
As possessor of a new iMac G5, I discovered a little program that comes installed on it called "Garage Band." I haven't yet delved deeply into the program, but basically it enables anyone from an accomplished musician to someone like, say, ME to compose music. Shortly after I discovered "Garage Band," I discovered a Mac compatible, Plug-N-Play USB MIDI Controller musical keyboard. I won't go into the laundry list of its features, but I will simply say that its purchase rendered my old Casio obsolete.
My older brother, the one who taught me how to play "Chopsticks," now has two boys of his own, ages 12 and 9. Among their endless sponsored sports and activities they are each studying music, the older trumpet, the younger clarinet. With my recently obsoleted keyboard I thought maybe the boys' musical training would benefit if they had another instument at their disposal. My brother was receptive to the idea, and since I was giving it away there was no obstacle to block the idea.
The boys were typical kids at a keyboard: they simply banged on the keys with open hands just to hear it make noise. As I showed them the features I understand, their interest became more focused. I played a few of the tunes I made up, and I played "Heart and Soul," recording the left-hand, chord progression part, then played it back as accompaniment so I could play the right-hand part. Now the boys were hooked! The older boy was interested in how the keyboard worked, how to access each different sound and rhythm. I spent a long time showing him these things while he repeatedly slapped away the hand of his younger brother who really wanted to get at the keys himself. Their mother retrieved one of their musical instrument lesson books and we tried to show the older boy where the notes on the scale were located on the keyboard...the blind leading the blind!
After a while my brother told his older son that it was his brother's turn on the keyboard. They traded places and, after a few minutes of exploring the more annoying sounds the instrument can make, the boy started poking at individual keys. Suddenly I heard the melody of "Heart and Soul" being plunked out slowly! While the older boy had focused on the mechanics of getting the instrument to make sounds, the younger had focused on how to use it to make music. He had studied his inept uncle's pathetic rendition of "Heart and Soul," and he was able to play it back almost perfectly (as his uncles example!) the first time! He is the more expressive boy, as enthusiastic about doing plays and singing in choir as he is about playing baseball and basketball and soccer and volleyball, so I guess I shouldn't be surprised. But I am fascinated by how quickly he seized upon a melody, how he studied what he had seen and heard, and then duplicated it. I didn't bestow upon him the talent to play music, I just simply gave an old electronic keyboard. But I gave him a new outlet. I gave him a true gift of music.
His parents have the money and the circumstance to provide the boys with the music and instrument lessons that our parents could not afford. I wish now that I could have had lessons then, even if they had to force me to do them. I hope my brother and his wife will keep their boys on the path to music. I'd like to know that I had something to do with that.
dassall
Wednesday, October 05, 2005
Is It Treason?
I’m not the world’s greatest baseball fan. But, since I live in Chicago, and I am SOMEWHAT a baseball fan, I have to choose sides.
No. You don’t understand. I have to choose sides.
As a White Sox fan, I would have to say that the White Sox are the best team ever. As a White Sox fan, I would have to say that I’ve died 40 deaths waiting for them to get to the World Series. As a White Sox fan, I would have to say that this has been the season of a lifetime and I was pulling for them all the way.
…
But I won’t say it. I can’t.
I am a Cubs fan.
I am not ashamed to say it. The 40 deaths I’ve died have been for the Cubs. When you’ve grown up in Chicago you learn that there really is no “fan of both teams.” Those who say they are haven’t spent their entire lives in this metropolitan area, or they’re just trying to get along in mixed company. Anyone who says he or she is a fan of both teams, when he is surrounded by true fans of either team, will be deafened by the shouts of, “The HELL you are!”
There’s no discernable reason one becomes a fan of the White Sox or of the Cubs. Neither team has been a dynastic powerhouse in my lifetime. Unlike a team such as the perennial NL East champion Atlanta Braves, the Cubs have had what can be best described as fortunate hiccups in 1969, ’84, ’98, and 2003. The same goes for the White Sox in 1959, ’83, ’93, 2000, and even ’05. If it were down to a decision to pick one team to which to devote your loyalty, there would be no objective standards to follow. It must come down to childhood influences. Maybe something really nice happened to you when you were age two-and-a-half, and the first color scheme you saw in that moment was black-and-white. Maybe when you were four you thought that little baby bear on their shirtsleeves was cute. Or maybe you just like deep emotional pain. And it was all fun until you encountered someone for the other team and the topic of team loyalty came up, and within a minute you were fighting the urge to strangle this guy!
So it’s not a decision to make. It’s in the blood. But it’s not hereditary. My mother was a White Sox fan, as I learned when I was a teenager. But, she said, she loved me all the same. I never fully trusted her again. My oldest brother, age fifty-something, is a White Sox fan, though he says he is a fan of both teams. He also happened to move away from Chicago at age 20, so he just doesn’t get it.
And so I watch with mixed feelings as the White Sox and the Red Sox battle it out in the American League Division Series. Last year I so desperately wanted the Red Sox to beat the Yankees, and then the St. Louis Cardinals, because if the Red Sox could win the World Series after 87 years of tears, then surely it means that my beloved Cubs could win the World Series after 97 years of hard, hard deaths. Oh, wait. Make that 98, now.
This year I find myself staring at my TV, staring at the team I’ve spent a lifetime despising as they play against my favorite American League team for the privilege of advancing to the next round. But I am a loyal fan of Chicago, so I must root for the White Sox. Boston, you finally had that long-awaited moment in the sun. Now go away.
It’s right, but it feels so wrong.
Go White Sox! (RRRRRETCH!)
dassall
No. You don’t understand. I have to choose sides.
As a White Sox fan, I would have to say that the White Sox are the best team ever. As a White Sox fan, I would have to say that I’ve died 40 deaths waiting for them to get to the World Series. As a White Sox fan, I would have to say that this has been the season of a lifetime and I was pulling for them all the way.
…
But I won’t say it. I can’t.
I am a Cubs fan.
I am not ashamed to say it. The 40 deaths I’ve died have been for the Cubs. When you’ve grown up in Chicago you learn that there really is no “fan of both teams.” Those who say they are haven’t spent their entire lives in this metropolitan area, or they’re just trying to get along in mixed company. Anyone who says he or she is a fan of both teams, when he is surrounded by true fans of either team, will be deafened by the shouts of, “The HELL you are!”
There’s no discernable reason one becomes a fan of the White Sox or of the Cubs. Neither team has been a dynastic powerhouse in my lifetime. Unlike a team such as the perennial NL East champion Atlanta Braves, the Cubs have had what can be best described as fortunate hiccups in 1969, ’84, ’98, and 2003. The same goes for the White Sox in 1959, ’83, ’93, 2000, and even ’05. If it were down to a decision to pick one team to which to devote your loyalty, there would be no objective standards to follow. It must come down to childhood influences. Maybe something really nice happened to you when you were age two-and-a-half, and the first color scheme you saw in that moment was black-and-white. Maybe when you were four you thought that little baby bear on their shirtsleeves was cute. Or maybe you just like deep emotional pain. And it was all fun until you encountered someone for the other team and the topic of team loyalty came up, and within a minute you were fighting the urge to strangle this guy!
So it’s not a decision to make. It’s in the blood. But it’s not hereditary. My mother was a White Sox fan, as I learned when I was a teenager. But, she said, she loved me all the same. I never fully trusted her again. My oldest brother, age fifty-something, is a White Sox fan, though he says he is a fan of both teams. He also happened to move away from Chicago at age 20, so he just doesn’t get it.
And so I watch with mixed feelings as the White Sox and the Red Sox battle it out in the American League Division Series. Last year I so desperately wanted the Red Sox to beat the Yankees, and then the St. Louis Cardinals, because if the Red Sox could win the World Series after 87 years of tears, then surely it means that my beloved Cubs could win the World Series after 97 years of hard, hard deaths. Oh, wait. Make that 98, now.
This year I find myself staring at my TV, staring at the team I’ve spent a lifetime despising as they play against my favorite American League team for the privilege of advancing to the next round. But I am a loyal fan of Chicago, so I must root for the White Sox. Boston, you finally had that long-awaited moment in the sun. Now go away.
It’s right, but it feels so wrong.
Go White Sox! (RRRRRETCH!)
dassall
Monday, October 03, 2005
A Distant Planet
I was watching PBS last night, and there was a show on about meteor impacts on Earth. The discussions among the scientists came around to the supposed discovery of proof that there at least WAS life on Mars, brough to the attention of science by the discovery of a rock, proved to be a small chunk of Mars that arrived here as part of a meteor shower some time ago, and which had attached to it what appeared to be a fossilized, microscopic, single-celled organism.
This discovery had touched off a flurry of discussions and arguments among scientists regarding the existence -- past or present -- of life on Mars and how some say it's not possible, never was possible, never will be possible, ad nauseum.
But, non-scientist that I am -- I can't even digest food properly -- I came up with a theory of the existence many centuries ago of life on Mars that I have not yet heard anyone else echo, nor have I heard anyone refute...okay, any renown GEOPHYSICISTS refute...or address....
One of the many bits of miscellany that I needlessly remember from my youth is that the universe is forever expanding, and that Earth and all of the other planets of our solar system are moving away from the sun at the blinding speed of approximately 3 inches a year...or something like that. How they're able to measure to the inch is way beyond me, but there it is.
Okay, so I'm a Big Bang evolutionist...swear to god I am...so I belive this theory. I also believe that the earth, as well as the universe, is hundreds of millions of years old. And I believe that, somewhere out there is a life form of a far superior, more advanced intelligence than the inhabitants of this planet. Okay, so, let's just keep it easy and say Earth finally formed a discernible planet with a solid crust exactly 100-million years ago. Spinning happily through space and testing the sun's gravitational limits at three inches a year for 100-million years to this day... comes out to... 300-million inches...divided by twelve, which equals... 25-million feet...divided by 5,280 (feet in a mile), which equals...4,734.85 miles.
Okay, so let's say it's BILLIONS of years old and, without slowing things down with all that pesky math, let's say that in those billions of years of moving three inches away from the sun each year, Earth arrived about 100-million years ago at an orbital "temperate zone," a distance from this particular sun -- not too hot, not too cold -- that allows carbon-based life forms like us and everything else that consumes or produces oxygen to thrive. Okay, accept that into your head as absolute truth, just for this little moment.
So, if Earth slowly traveled out to the temperate zone, and Mars is the next planet out from ours, on average approximately 48-million miles further out and traveling at approximately the same three inches per year, doesn't it seem logical that Mars was once in this temperate zone that we so thoroughly enjoy today?
Okay, so here's where you'll most likely dismiss me as a wack-job, but, let's assume that in roughly 100-million years Earth will be at the outer reaches of the temperate zone. The human species will have advanced quite far by then, provided we haven't discovered an easier way to atomically snuff ourselves out sooner. And with a perpetual winter of deep-space proportions looming quite literally on the horizon, the most advanced minds of our highly advanced species will be working feverishly on getting as many of us as possible and whatever other beings we need to support us off our beloved planet and back sunward to Venus, which will have just about cooled off enough to sustain life after entering the temperate zone a few million years earlier.
Naturally, not everyone will be able to go to Venus; actually very few. But those few who do will arrive at a planet with virtually no facilities. People will have to live in completely primitive conditions, perhaps for eons as they struggle just to survive. Differences will split the groups. Rifts will cause wars, and wars will scatter the people in all directions to form their own civilizations and adapt their own languages. Over the passage of the subsequent eons, our forms will evolve to adapt to the ever-changing terrain of the living planet, as will the forms of the animals we brought with us from Earth, and in that process, we will have forgotten all about Earth and what she was for us until, hundreds and hundreds of millions of years later someone of advanced, evolved intelligence discovers an odd little rock and determines that it's from that distant, withered third planet from the sun and, lo! There's a little microscopic bit on the rock that he insists is proof that the barren third planet which theories suggest may have held oceans, and may perhaps still have water in its ice caps, once supported life.
And, of course, his narrow-minded peers will tell him he's full of shit.
dassall
This discovery had touched off a flurry of discussions and arguments among scientists regarding the existence -- past or present -- of life on Mars and how some say it's not possible, never was possible, never will be possible, ad nauseum.
But, non-scientist that I am -- I can't even digest food properly -- I came up with a theory of the existence many centuries ago of life on Mars that I have not yet heard anyone else echo, nor have I heard anyone refute...okay, any renown GEOPHYSICISTS refute...or address....
One of the many bits of miscellany that I needlessly remember from my youth is that the universe is forever expanding, and that Earth and all of the other planets of our solar system are moving away from the sun at the blinding speed of approximately 3 inches a year...or something like that. How they're able to measure to the inch is way beyond me, but there it is.
Okay, so I'm a Big Bang evolutionist...swear to god I am...so I belive this theory. I also believe that the earth, as well as the universe, is hundreds of millions of years old. And I believe that, somewhere out there is a life form of a far superior, more advanced intelligence than the inhabitants of this planet. Okay, so, let's just keep it easy and say Earth finally formed a discernible planet with a solid crust exactly 100-million years ago. Spinning happily through space and testing the sun's gravitational limits at three inches a year for 100-million years to this day... comes out to... 300-million inches...divided by twelve, which equals... 25-million feet...divided by 5,280 (feet in a mile), which equals...4,734.85 miles.
Okay, so let's say it's BILLIONS of years old and, without slowing things down with all that pesky math, let's say that in those billions of years of moving three inches away from the sun each year, Earth arrived about 100-million years ago at an orbital "temperate zone," a distance from this particular sun -- not too hot, not too cold -- that allows carbon-based life forms like us and everything else that consumes or produces oxygen to thrive. Okay, accept that into your head as absolute truth, just for this little moment.
So, if Earth slowly traveled out to the temperate zone, and Mars is the next planet out from ours, on average approximately 48-million miles further out and traveling at approximately the same three inches per year, doesn't it seem logical that Mars was once in this temperate zone that we so thoroughly enjoy today?
Okay, so here's where you'll most likely dismiss me as a wack-job, but, let's assume that in roughly 100-million years Earth will be at the outer reaches of the temperate zone. The human species will have advanced quite far by then, provided we haven't discovered an easier way to atomically snuff ourselves out sooner. And with a perpetual winter of deep-space proportions looming quite literally on the horizon, the most advanced minds of our highly advanced species will be working feverishly on getting as many of us as possible and whatever other beings we need to support us off our beloved planet and back sunward to Venus, which will have just about cooled off enough to sustain life after entering the temperate zone a few million years earlier.
Naturally, not everyone will be able to go to Venus; actually very few. But those few who do will arrive at a planet with virtually no facilities. People will have to live in completely primitive conditions, perhaps for eons as they struggle just to survive. Differences will split the groups. Rifts will cause wars, and wars will scatter the people in all directions to form their own civilizations and adapt their own languages. Over the passage of the subsequent eons, our forms will evolve to adapt to the ever-changing terrain of the living planet, as will the forms of the animals we brought with us from Earth, and in that process, we will have forgotten all about Earth and what she was for us until, hundreds and hundreds of millions of years later someone of advanced, evolved intelligence discovers an odd little rock and determines that it's from that distant, withered third planet from the sun and, lo! There's a little microscopic bit on the rock that he insists is proof that the barren third planet which theories suggest may have held oceans, and may perhaps still have water in its ice caps, once supported life.
And, of course, his narrow-minded peers will tell him he's full of shit.
dassall
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