My Neighborhood

My Neighborhood

 

It’s time for a giant ‘selfie’ of my neighborhood. The last time I covered this topic, Big-breasted Bertha and Bicycle Bill were the principal characters, but they are gone now, each having died within a few months of the other from liver disorders caused by their fondness for the frothy brew. Here is an update on the remaining characters and critters who call my neighborhood home.

In case you don’t recall, I live on a lonely road in the north woods. The road is ¾ of a mile long, paved most of the way to my house and in celebration of that fact, it has two names instead of one. The first name, Maple Valley Road, covers the straight portion of the road and then, just as the road makes a curve from its north/south direction to become an east/west road, its name changes. Isn’t that special! My part of the road has much less prestige than Maple Valley since it is less than a ¼ mile long and is paved only for the first 150 feet of its length. The end of the pavement occurs just before my driveway, thus I live on the coarser end of the two-name pathway. My part doesn’t even have the privilege of being called a road; it is a trail, named after a former physician who practiced in Roscommon, Dr. Curnalia, hence my address is Curnalia Trail.

Let’s start our inspection of my neighborhood at the tony end of Maple Valley where it intersects with the state highway, M 18. Here lives one of my coffee-drinking buddies, ol’ one-armed Marty. His house, a trailer really, is just now under siege as result of the recent rainstorm. The sharp point of a falling oak tree has perforated his front porch roof. The tree is now looks about his immaculate lawn from its upright position in his porch. Behind his trailer is another oak that is leaning precariously over his trailer roof. Marty called his insurance adjustor for a look. The insurance man told Marty that he, Marty, should pay for the porch repair and the removal of the leaning tree. “After that we can talk about how your insurance can help you.” I told Marty it would be risky to bend over while the insurance man was around.

Next to Marty is another coffee-drinking buddy, Jerry Boone, he who counts Daniel Boone as his ancestor. Jerry is a long-time north woods man devoted to fishing and all manner of do-it-yourself  projects. He lives alone, a self-sufficient man who is proud to shun computers, mobile phones, and most everything else invented in the last 40 years. Jerry says he does just fine without those irritations, thank you very much, and besides, they are no more than passing fads.

Moving south and across the street from Jerry is Butch and Kathy, an odd couple who are also products of the north woods. Kathy is the 70’s-something mom, Butch is her 50-something son and the pair seem to get on well in their small cottage that I walk by on most mornings. I suspect Kathy is hard of hearing; she doesn’t speak to me as I walk by, rather she shouts even if I am no more than a few steps distant. It was probably a result of all those years spent operating a chain saw along with her husband and sons who were wood-cutters. It shows. Kathy and Butch use firewood for heating and Kathy has her stove going much of the year. The pair use a small mountain of wood each year, and they have been accumulating their wood pile over the last several weeks for this winter’s use. Here it is.

South from Butch and Kathy on either side of the road are several cottages owned by trunk slammers – those absentee owners who arrive on the odd weekend to clean their guns or fire up their snowmobiles or whatever. We are always alerted when one of our trunk-slammer neighbors arrives because he spends most of the weekend firing an automatic weapon. Bam! Bam! Brrrrrretttt bam. Most times we don’t hear the bullets fly by so I assume he points his weapons towards the forests. I’ve been watching the woods between him and me to make sure that he doesn’t knock down so many trees that the bullets have a free flight in my direction. Of course, I can’t complain since firing a gun whose caliber is anything smaller than a tank is considered acceptable in our neck of the woods.

Some of our trunk slammers seem to be unaware of north woods mores. One new cottage owner’s weekend presence is announced on Monday mornings by a white bag of garbage that he leaves by the roadside before leaving for his downstate home. He assumes that the township will pick up his garbage intact. (He is lucky - the township on his side of the road provides garbage pick-up each Wednesday morning, while the township on the other side of the road doesn’t do garbage.) No one in their right mind in the north woods leaves garbage sitting in a plastic bag unless it is sitting in a container known to be bear-proof, raccoon-proof, crow-proof, squirrel … well, you get the idea. Several times, I have been forced to clean up his scattered garbage on my morning walk. To add insult to injury, last week I saw a car leave his driveway while a crow was attacking a white bag of garbage that some other critter had dragged to the road. It became another clean-up job for me. You can see how animosity between neighbors gets started. Over time, a proper north woods man can become a downright curmudgeon.

Continuing further south, six homes are scattered on either side of our road that contain full-time residents and several dogs. Only one house owned by an older lady is dogless, while three of other five have two dogs each and the other two have one dog. For some reason, our neighborhood is devoid of cute, little fuzzy dogs, tending instead to oversize monsters with exaggerated canines. All except one, that is. Here she is, my lady-friend pooch named Bailey, carrying a turkey feather that she found along the roadside during our morning amble.

Bailey is the only friendly dog in our neighborhood. The others are all large black dogs including two Great Danes and two other large black dogs of no particular pedigree. One of the large black dogs named “Blackie” acts as though he wants to eat me every morning what with his barking and running toward me with teeth barred and his hackles up. Fortunately, he is chained and I enjoy watching him get to the end at full speed. He never learns. “Zoie,” the other mean black dog, also acts out the biting scenario toward me but so far his owners have called him on it as I pass by. “Zoie’s” predecessor at the same house nipped me in the leg last summer before his owners sent him away. I think he gave instructions to Zoie before he left.

So, there you have it. My neighborhood seems a little less colorful today than during the former days of Bertha with the behemoths and Bill with the bike. In fact, you could say things have gone to the dogs.

 

 

 

   

  

A Cruel Hoax

Some of my old buddies at the cabin were already on their second cup of coffee when I walked in.

“Mornin, Booger,” I said. I also nodded to Jerry, the cabin’s owner. Shorty was studying a puzzle laid out on Jerry’s coffee-stained oak table so I decided not to bother him. As I poured my coffee from Jerry’s old pot, Stinky walked in the door, also ready for his free coffee.

“Did ya see the temperature this morning?” Stinky asked.

Jerry responded before any of the rest of us. Since it is his cabin, we sort of give him the first chance at things. “I didn’t look at my gage – how cold is it?” he said.

“I had + 40 on the gage outside my kitchen window.” Stinky said.

“The radio said Grayling had 38.” Booger said. Booger always tries to one up everyone. I had 36 on my thermometer but I kept quiet. The talk about the weather seemed to interrupt Shorty. He looked up from his puzzle.

“Ya know, I think that just proves it,” he said.  “All this talk about global warming ain’t nothin’ but a hoax. We ain’t gonna have a summer this year. That little warmup we had in the spring was just a short interruption from winter weather and now it’s getting back to it. I reckon we’ve had all the warm weather were gonna have for this year.” Shortly paused for a minute and then looked straight at me. “That sort of blows your theory about global warming, don’t it?” he said as his rheumy eyes challenged me for an answer answer.

I had just taken a sip of hot coffee and Shorty’s comment caused a frothy black liquid to spew from my open mouth. “Wha …” Stinky stepped to my rescue while I was wiping coffee from my chin and snot from my nose.

“Actually,” Stinky began, “the disruption of our normal weather cycle, either too hot or too cold, is one of the symptoms of excess carbon compounds in the atmosphere that people are calling global warming. Carbon, mostly carbon dioxide, has been building up in our atmosphere since people began driving cars, but the biggest polluter by far is the  burning of coal to generate electricity. That’s why the EPA wants to ban the use of coal in some old power plants that don’t control carbon emisions.”   (Stinky likes giving us lectures and he was about to continue but Shorty interrupted.)

“Here it is almost the 4^th of July and my furnace comes on to warm up the house. Ya mean to say this whole thing about global warming is a cruel hoax …it should be called global cooling?” I saw my chance and jumped in.

“The problem is that air pollution acts as kind of a blanket over the globe and it mostly keeps the heat in so that’s why it’s called global warming. But, it isn’t the same everywhere. It’s like bein’ in your bed at night – even with a blanket, some spots are too warm and some spots are cold. Here in Roscommon we’re in a cold spot right now, but in a little bit we’ll be back in a warm spot and you all will be complainin’ about being too hot.” I sat back convinced that I had won my point about global warming until I heard something that sounded like a growl. “What’s that?” I asked. It was Booger.

“Wool,” he repeated. Ya need a wool blanket. That’s what I use on my bed and there ain’t no cold spots even when the temperature is 38 degrees in Grayling.”

No one had an answer. It seemed hopeless to me so I stood up and went to the coffee pot to replace that which had come streaming out my nose. ‘Maybe tomorrow we should take on world hunger,’ I said to myself.

 

 

 

Time for Gardening!

Some would say I am a slow learner. I dispute that. On the other hand, if measured solely by my dismal record in growing plants from seeds, I am forced to agree. This year was the eighth successive year that I failed in trying to create hardy vegetables and lovely flowers from seeds and then nurturing them to maturity. For some reason or other, my seeds don’t turn into healthy, growing plants despite having spent countless hours and dollars on grow lamps, germination benches, plastic trays and guaranteed seeds. Each year I have a seed germination rate lower than the tax rates paid by rich people.  I should have learned by now that success in this area is beyond me. MAYBE I AM A SLOW LEARNER.

As a cold, hard winter ended this year, once again, I dreamed of evening summer walks with a margarita in hand, strolling among bountiful gardens bursting with color and fragrance. In my reverie, the amble through my summer garden was always an enchanting pastime based on admiration for my own handiwork – working the soil, raising the plants, germinating the seeds – all done at little cost since I always imagined robust plants started from low-cost seeds. By late winter, my dreams reached a crescendo and I was salivating over seed catalogs that arrived at my door. As I poured over the glossy magazines, my lovely wife had the temerity to remind me that last year I swore an oath that I would never again try to coax seeds from their tiny hard shells into tender seedlings. Somehow, I managed to forget last year and I plunged forward into ordering new seeds.

In my defense, I should explain that this year I tried something different. No longer would I attempt to distribute tiny seeds the size of dust into plastic trays filled with soil that had clumps 1,000 times larger than the seeds. No longer would I fill the trays with water and float the seeds onto the floor. No longer would I cause tender plants to fall over when I missed watering them during a weekend trip. No longer would the cold nip those few that managed to survive when I sat them outside. None of that for me. This year, I said, I would only start seeds that are easy to grow; beans, peas, and zucchini, and maybe those free packets of mixed flowers the seed company gave me a couple years ago. Furthermore, I would start them outdoors in my new mini-greenhouse that I purchased at the hardware for a mere $30 - you know, the one with the clear plastic that had two zippers securing it over a thin metal frame. And, just to guarantee success, I would wait to plant them in my new little greenhouse until it was almost time for planting outdoors. “I can’t miss,” I chortled as I assembled the seeds, the plastic trays, the paper pots, the peat –filled soil, and then stuffed the whole mess into my new mini-green house and zipped the clear cover.

I found the perfect spot. My deck faces south and it has a stairway that shields the wind. I put the greenhouse against the wall of my house and against the stairwell. Full sun. Protection from wind. A new greenhouse. Easy to grow seeds. I couldn’t miss. As I planted the seeds, I almost tasted the fresh veggies and smelled the lovely flowers that would be sure to result.

Oh, did I watch over those seeds! Each day I checked their progress, unzipping the clear plastic cover to expose the trays that I carefully pulled forward for a minute observation. Every day or two I added more water. Nothing seemed to be happening even as I tingled with anticipation. The days stretched into weeks. And then, some ominous hints began to appear of things going wrong. First, the clear plastic separated from the zipper, leaving gaping voids. It wasn’t my fault. The manufacture of the greenhouse must have been faulty. I wondered if the wind could do some terrible damage to my seedlings, if they ever emerged. Next, the zipper failed. Now, the voids in the clear plastic were even bigger by the failure of zipper near the top where it refused to join its mate. Maybe it was a marital failure between the two sheets of plastic, I don’t know. I should have been tipped off by these problems. As the two week date passed, the seeds still hadn’t germinated despite the seed package’s confident statement to the contrary.  

I don’t know why the seeds didn’t germinate sooner. Maybe it was too hot: the sun warmed the greenhouse to something above a thousand degrees during the day. Maybe the seeds were too old (I had saved some of them from prior year’s). Maybe it was the unexpected cold that we had a few nights when the temperature dipped below freezing -- I don’t know. Several days after all the seeds should have germinated, I found that only the trays dedicated to lettuce had several tiny leaves emerging from the soil. They were so small to be barely visible. I waited two more days and then the weatherman gave a warning for a nighttime frost. Worried about those tiny leaves, I decided to move the entire assembly into my garage for warmth. It was heavy.

The next morning, since the weather forecast was positive, I picked up the heavy greenhouse in the garage and carried it a few steps from the garage into the sun, foregoing its former distant location on the deck. “It might be cold again,” I reasoned, requiring another carry to the garage. It was the kiss of death. While I was away that day, the wind came up. I came home that afternoon to find my new greenhouse lying on the ground, my precious seed trays upside down, the plastic trays and soil and invisible seeds now scattered in the grass. I prayed aloud for several minutes. Finally, I cleaned up the mess. I threw the soil and paper pots on my compost pile and folded the torn, clear plastic and cheap metal greenhouse for storage in my barn. It was a total loss, another failure that stretched my record to nine consecutive failed attempts at growing plants from seeds.

That night I must have dreamed about germinating seeds. I awoke with a new plan. I still had a few bean and pea seeds remaining in unopened packages and I sorely wanted fresh garden peas this year. I decided to forego the greenhouse route and plant the seeds in my garden. “Why not get a head start on seed germination?” I asked myself, since it was still a few days before June 1, the traditional day for planting in the north woods. I took the remaining peas and beans and a few other seeds, put them into a plastic cup, filled the cup with water, and set it upon my picnic table to warm in the sun, hoping to foreshorten the germination date and salvage what little pride remained in my abilities as a gardener.

The next day was close enough to June 1 for me and I decided to plant my peas and beans. I spent an two hours of hard work using my hoe and rake to prepare the soil. I went to the picnic table for my seeds. They were gone. The plastic cups were empty. I looked everywhere. It finally dawned on me - a foul and nasty chipmunk or squirrel had climbed onto my table and devoured every seed. None remained for me except a few beet seeds that were too small and hard too eat. Another loss. Another blow to my fragile ego. That night, the wind came up and tipped over the last cup with the beet seeds. They are now hidden in my lawn.   

 So, here is a request and the reason for this blog. Could you please send me an e-mail sometime next February and tell me that under no circumstances should I attempt to grow plants from seeds. Maybe I will learn.

 

New Technology

 New Technology Gremlins Can Hide Anywhere

During my engineering career at General Motors, I dealt with new technology all the time. Working with latest available developments and assisting with new part designs were a routine part of my job. Further, I was never reluctant to take on new assignments and I learned them about as quickly as any other Tom, Dick or Harry during my 37-year engineering career. You can see that I am not afraid of new technology since I spent most of my career dealing with it.

When cell phones became fashionable for an aging, but cultivated soul like me, I delayed buying one because I didn’t think I would use it. I thought there were few people who would want to call me and even fewer that I want to call while I was away from my telephone at home. It never occurred to me that I should make a phone call or answer one while mowing the lawn, riding a bicycle, watching a movie, standing in line, or doing any of the other thousand things that people do while talking on their cell phones. I suppose it would come as a complete surprise to some of the younger generation, but never once have I had the urge to call someone or answer a call while sitting on a toilet in a public restroom.

Meantime, my wife, children, and friends all became addicted to their mobile phones. On the rare occasion that I needed to communicate with someone while away from home, it was easy for me to hint as much and some obliging soul would invariably make a call for me. There the matter rested for several years, as I became outdated while others adopted the new technology and began talking at a moment’s notice without my limitation of needing wires for communications.

 This past Christmas I decided to become a part of this century by purchasing a cell phone for myself. Not just a cell phone, however. I bought a smart phone after telling myself that smart phones were another matter altogether since they provided so many capabilities beyond making telephone calls. I purchased my new phone in December and began the process of learning its basic operations. Now, some four months later, I’m still learning how to operate the danged thing. At the rate I’m going, it will be 2022 before I master it, if then.

Last week, for example, while I was raking leaves I received an unexpected phone call from a square dance friend. I managed to answer the call as I laid down the rake to avoid distracted raking. “Hello,” I said. The caller said she was returning my call and asked what the emergency was since I had called her three times that morning in quick succession. What? I hadn’t called her at all, but the dumb phone in my pocket had seen fit to dial her for some reason. The two of us finally decided that since her name, Alberta, was first on my phone list and since my phone didn’t enjoy being bounced around in my pocket, it decided to call her of its own volition. I talked to the lady in person some days later and she told me that the following day she received another call from me that she wisely ignored. My home phone would never do such a thing, but of course, my home phone doesn’t take selfies, either.

The phantom phone call is but one example of hundreds of miscues that I have made while trying to learn basic smart phone 101. It hasn’t been easy. For instance, I spent dozens of hours over several weeks trying to copy and then load music to my phone so that I could boogie during my morning walk. I had to learn about ripping, downloading, MP3 transfers and other things to convince the midget computer hiding in my cell phone to play my music. Of course, the glowing rectangle came with no instructions that were the least helpful. Apparently, makers of smart phones think younger people are able to sense the mystical steps needed to accomplish a simple task. I have a message for them -- some of us have lost our sensing capabilities when it comes to electronics with icons that make no sense at all.

After numerous difficulties in using my gadget, I think the problem is more than a lack of instructions and unexpected phone responses to my best efforts. Instead, I have come to believe my smart phone has a mischievous gremlin hidden within, one that is diabolically unwilling to bend to my commands. Either that, or there is the remote possibility that my smart phone is smarter than I am.

Last week I bought a new car, another Chevrolet Impala, just like my old one. As a faithful GM retiree, I didn’t bother to shop for a new car, I just stopped at the dealership and made a deal with the salesman while Marjorie chose the options and colors. There was no need for investigation or study of any sort because of my car background and the several Impalas that I have previously owned. ‘It will be a piece of cake', I thought. That was before I climbed behind the wheel and a computer touch screen flashed on in the center of the instrument panel. I opened the owner’s manual and looked for a section on computer screens in cars. Sure enough, there were several pages all about it. The section began with the precaution about avoiding distracted driving.

“Then why did you put a computer screen in my car?” I asked aloud.

When I tuned the ignition on, the screen came to life and several icons that seemed vaguely familiar began flashing. And then I knew: Smart phone technology had invaded my new car and was demanding my attention. Oh noooo! Arrrrrrgh!!!       

Genealogy - a Pox

Over the last few years, I have discovered that studying one’s genealogy can be an addictive sort of hobby, almost like a pox. This is a recent understanding: as a child growing up, I had little interest in family history. What interest I had in family matters extended only to my grandparents and a few cousins who lived nearby. I knew all other family members as ‘relatives,’ connected to my family in some mysterious fashion that provoked their attendance at the occasional family picnic. These were invariably held at a nearby park where old people sat talking for hours while I and my cousins got into mischief. I never knew precisely who Uncle Fred was or why Helen Hearn was a relative when her name was unlike any in my immediate family. Strangely, none of the relationships was ever explained to me and I never inquired, content to treat unfamiliar family members like a mysterious odor at a party – better not to know. Now, as my age is beginning to exceed my grandparent’s age when I was a youngster attending those family picnics, I am intensely curious to learn about those whose blood is mixed with mine.

After a few aborted attempts to learn about my Indiana forebears, I finally took a class in genealogy at our local library. I learned how to track down relatives using data from wide variety of sources, many available via the internet. It was like opening doors to the past as I found names, places and pictures of those who came before. In several instances, the data was like a storybook, detailing lives rich in joy and success while others were punctuated by the sorrows of early deaths due to illness or accident.

The stories formed a tapestry of life that was remarkably different from mine as the sands of time played out and technology changed us in ways unimaginable to our grandparents. Discovering the past in this fashion was like a treasure hunt and each finding was an inducement for more searching.

About a year ago, I decided to investigate wife Marjorie’s family history from her father’s side, a man named Leon Seaman. I soon found the Seaman family had a remarkable past with a long history in America. As I searched through the online data, provocative stories of interesting people filled my computer screen and urged further study.

One of the most interesting characters was a man who was an early leader of the Mormon Church before it began its long trek to Utah and Ill fame as a sect harboring polygamists. (The Seaman relative wasn’t one) The same Seaman Mormon and his wife also became known as the first white settlers of Michigan’s Drummond Island. Interestingly, after he passed at age 52, his former wife and family discontinued practicing the Mormon religion.

Other Seaman men were patriots and some became war heroes; one a Medal of Honor pilot during WW II, who subsequently ferried President Eisenhower in a Marine helicopter. Another Seaman became Canada’s most storied ace in WW I, credited with more kills than any other Allied Pilot. He became Air Marshall for Canada during WW II. Other Seaman men fought in the War of 1812 and the Revolutionary War including one Caleb Seaman, known for his undercover exploits with the British– a reputation that earned him a trip to Canada.

The father of the Seaman family in America came to our shores in 1630, succeeding those on the Mayflower by a mere ten years. He was fruitful – his 16 children became the source of many Seamans that settled throughout the US and Canada. The family members attributed to him numbered over 3,000 at the turn of this century.

It was an exhilarating study, so mesmerizing that I had to put it into words. The result is a new book, a labor of love now available at Amazon.com. Here it is:

Cold Walking

It has been a cold winter – about as cold as last year, according to the weatherman. Wife Marjorie and I didn’t let the cold weather change our regular routine of a daily walk. You may know that we are inveterate walkers from long practice. She took up the practice before me, completing a regular afternoon traipse with two or three ladies while I was at work. I always thought their fascination with exercise was enhanced by a corresponding fascination of a daily chit-chat. My walking routine devolved as a means of escaping my engineering office during lunch hour to relax from its constant burden. After retiring and moving to our retirement home, Marjorie and I adopted the practice of a morning walk that has become constitutional regardless of weather. This year we walked in bitter cold more often than most years, several times at temperatures below -10 °F and two or three times below   -20 °F. (No one has accused us of being overly bright).

The cold has been bearable during our walks; we have learned to layer our clothes and protect exposed skin, and most mornings we remain comfortable even during the coldest weather. In fact, we have learned that snow and wind seem to be more problematical than cold as the snow requires more energy – it becomes a trudge rather than a walk, and any wind above ten miles per hour at temperatures below freezing makes our skin vulnerable to damage. Since we already have our share of wrinkles, we are attempting to avoid more. We have also become more careful over time about slips and falls, equipping our winter boots with steel wires and/or cleats to prevent slips. Even with these precautions, this year’s cold weather has taught me few things about cold walking.

I have learned that walking in the cold changes things: you need to get used to frozen eyelashes, white-frosted eyebrows and silence. Silence prevails. Snow covered roads absorb sounds including those from oncoming vehicles. Bitter cold inhibits conversation: words come out but they instantly freeze and fall upon the ground before reaching a listener. I assume those frozen words will regain their activity when they melt in the spring and add to the general cacophony provided by birds and bugs. Of course, not all words freeze instantly; Larger words have more energy and are thus more durable, requiring more cold to freeze them. Sadly, I don’t know many words bigger than two syllables so I am unable to converse normally during our morning walk.

It surprised me to learn there is an exception to the freezing word business. Swear words seem to be immune to the freezing phenomena, perhaps because they arise with such a vile, thick coating and are thrust forward with an energy that prevents freezing. At least, that is how it seems since even a few mild curses from my lips provokes an immediate response from my spouse while my other, normally learned discourse goes mostly unnoticed and under-appreciated.

Lest you think the cold in the North Woods during the past two years invalidates global warming, you should know that on a worldwide basis, the last two years have continued the long trend of steadily increasing temperatures as our atmosphere gains in carbon gases. The North Woods has been an anomaly with our bitter cold this winter and last as we have been regularly colder than Alaska and other northern regions. In fact, the Iditarod was moved further north this year to find colder weather.

We humans continue to flirt with a catastrophe for our children and grandchildren as we ignore global warming and race toward disaster. Our government in Washington, D.C. offers little hope for combating the problem. A news item titled “The dumbest thing that happened in the US Senate today” shows the Chairman of the Committee for the Environment and Public Works, Sen. James Inhofe, R -Oklahoma, throwing a snowball during his speech on the Senate floor. The conservative Senator was trying to prove that global warming isn't really happening. “It’s unseasonably cold out,” he said, as if his snowball was proof that global warming is a mirage and the carbon based energy industry doesn’t donate to politicians. He must think we are dumber than he is.

I think we pay our Congressmen too much and I plan to expand on that topic during tomorrow’s morning walk . . . if it is a bit warmer.

Mark me down . . .

 

Mark me down in the category of the easily amused. Last night, for example, the weatherman on the evening news said that the space shuttle flyover would be spectacular, presumably due to the clear skies. “The spectacular flyover view will be from 7:46 to 7:50 PM tonight in the northwest skies,” he said. It was like pouring kerosene on a hot fire for me. Not that I am a celestial enthusiast, it’s more along the lines of my being easily enthused about practically any outdoor phenomena and I had a large unfilled hole in my evening schedule with no hope of being amused by television. Accordingly, I spoke to my better half and she cleverly observed that the flyover would follow-up nicely to an evening devoted to a Mexican dinner at the nearby Los Ranchos restaurant.

I was hooked. We made the 40 minute drive to West Branch, (cleverly named after the west branch of the Rifle River) to the aforementioned Mexican establishment. I ordered Chile Poblano (some kind of beef in some kind of pepper) and my clever bride ordered Pollo Mexicano (chicken with some kind of hot sauce.) The dinner was great.

We left the restaurant on time according to my schedule of arriving home just prior to 7:46 PM. Things seemed to be progressing nicely toward an interesting evening. The only possible hitch to my impromptu evening entertainment was the weatherman; the selfsame weather predictor who promised the spectacular view had also predicted a cold evening – Ummm. It had been cold all day. The mercury had hovered just under 0° F all day long despite the bright sunshine for much of the day. Could my inspired plan be derailed due to cold? Of course not, I said to myself, cleverly keeping such thoughts from my betrothed who sometimes fails to follow my inspired suggestions.

The drive home became ominous when I pulled from the restaurant parking lot with the last rays of the departing sun falling captive to the enveloping blackness of night. The subdued light of the instrument panel was in stark contrast to the temperature gage that flashed brightly, -5° F. I crept through the town to the north- bound expressway and the gage went to -7° F then -10°F. The temperature seemed to be falling faster than a turd in a swimming pool.

I pulled into my garage at 7:40 PM and -17° F on my new outdoor thermometer that some idiot had decorated with cardinals sitting on flowered tree branches. Surely only a fool would stand outdoors in the dark of night at -17° F to watch a tiny light speed across the sky amidst several thousand other tiny lights. “Here we are,” I said to my spouse as we marched outdoors in the darkness to await the space capsule’s reflected sunlight.

Despite being bundled up, by 7:42 PM the cold was beginning to penetrate my coat and stretch it’s lengthy tentacles past my socks, beneath my long underwear and northward toward my sensitive parts. By 7:44 PM, I was cold. I scanned the horizon and searched the northwest sky just above the row of spruce trees at the edge of my property. Nothing, other than a few thousand stars.

I waited another minute before checking the clock in my warm kitchen for the 4^th time. It was now 7:47 PM – the space shuttle must be late. My shivering made it hard to see as my eyeballs jostled around in their sockets, but I was sure nothing had come past my field of view. I stomped my feet, adjusted my collar and decided to look at the kitchen clock again: 7:51 PM.

“Have you see, see, seen anything?” I managed to stutter through my balky lips.

“Only one little light that zoomed just above the horizon a couple minutes ago,” she replied.

“That’s it, then. I’m going in.”

We re-lived our nighttime viewing in the warmth of the kitchen. She said the light she saw was a medium intensity light that appeared to be only a few inches above the horizon as it passed to the southeast. “I didn’t think it was anything at first, and then it was gone. But it must have been the space shuttle, since nothing else came into view.”

I missed the shuttle altogether since I was searching straight up and the shuttle was sneaking along on the horizon. I thought it strange that the shuttle would take the long way instead of zipping straight over, maybe the Russians were driving and they wanted to fly over their home. I also decided to blame the weatherman. I suspected he was a blowhard – it wasn’t a spectacular view at all. As I thawed out in front of the wood stove and straightened my fingers from the clenched balls they had become, I decided that the evening hadn’t been a total loss: the dinner was good, my new thermometer was working properly, and despite the awful cold, it had been a mildly amusing evening, at least for someone like me.