The Amazing Dabous Giraffes of Niger

 

Wow, things have been crazy around my house lately, not “bad” crazy more like really busy leaving me no energy when I get home after work. It's the heat and humidity, mostly but the weekends aren't much better. Here at my house the grass and weeds in my yard have already moved into the ultra fast growing season I don't usually see to the first of August.

Yeah, I have a riding lawnmower but there's a lot of smaller chores left over like weed whacking and using the blower to clean up the curb and driveway. Anyway here's a small post on a subject I find interesting.

I am continually amazed at what archaeologists find from human prehistory. Long before writing was created numerous vibrant and sophisticated cultures came into being only to fade away into oblivion leaving only mysterious stone relics.

One such remnant are the Dabous Giraffes, stone petroglyphs located in the Air Massif of Niger. Dated to around 8000 BCE they are the largest stone petroglyphs in the world and were created when the Sahara was a much wetter savanna that stretched for thousands of miles. This wetter period is called the Neolithic Subpluvial and lasted from around 12000 BCE to 7000 BCE.

No expert, but if I remember correctly once the Sahara went back to desert some of that regions inhabitants migrated to the Nile River and began the process of establishing Egyptian culture.

The giraffes were carved into a sandstone outcrop and depict a large male and smaller female. Long after the Sahara returned to a desert climate shifting sands covered the glyphs for thousands of years before they were rediscovered in 1987. That region of Niger has over 900 similar carvings of animals and humans.

I find myself profoundly sad that the artist or artists of these glyphs will forever remain unknown to us. The culture that produced the creators of those glyphs had to be advanced enough that they had advanced beyond the mere struggle for survival. That they had enough food and necessities that men and/or women could create such works of art.

The Eternal Refrigerator

 

It goes without saying that the selling and/or the purchase of a house is a time-consuming and exhausting endeavor. For my wife and I back in 2000 we were lucky enough to be the exception to the first half of that rule. However the purchase of our new home was not smooth and seamless. To put it bluntly, it was a huge cluster fuck unparalleled in scope and repercussions. We spent years cleaning up the mess and dealing with the items the previous owners left behind.

Boiling everything down to the basics my spouse and I were in the closing stages of adopting our daughter from China. One of the requirements to satisfy the adoption agency was that the baby had to have a room to itself. Our first home had three bedrooms, enough for us, one for our son, and one for the baby. But my wife felt we needed a fourth bedroom for family and friends who would visit.

So we painted and repaired our old house until it just about shined. Then we went about looking for a new house that had the right number of bedrooms and met my wife's other personal requirements like location, good school district, and distance from her work. The housing market at that time was on the side of the sellers and we immediately ran into some issues. Things got worse when the first family that looked at our home made and offer and we accepted. The clock began ticking for us to find a suitable replacement and get out before the deadline. We had less than two weeks left before we found a house that while meeting all the requirements had several issues.

Namely that the family selling the house we wanted to buy wasn't ready to move. Their replacement house they were building was livable but they wanted more time. It's been over twenty-years now and all I remember was that as far as they were concerned they wanted all the bells and whistles in their new home fully installed and connected. They wanted at least another two weeks before surrendering the house.

That was a no-go for us because the adoption agency had to evaluate our new residence and then send confirmation to the Chinese governmental agency so the adoption could go forward. If we weren't in the new house by the time of the evaluation we could lose the little girl picked for us who was still in a Chinese orphanage.

So the selling family blinked and moved out before their new place met their standards. It was either get out or we would have rescinded the offer leaving them with two mortgage payments. As a Plan B my wife and I had talked about looking at apartments and just staying there until the adoption was over where we would then have a new house built.

The old owners were not happy with the situation and in typical Lexington county passive-aggressive behavior they moved out leaving the house trashed. As we moved in my wife and I were shocked to see dozens of holes in the walls in every room that had been cleverly hid by the selling family. Most were from pictures but no attempt was made to repair any of them. During this bullshit the house inspector somehow didn't warn us about a multitude of issues that the sellers were supposed to fix. Off the top of my head the report that asshole gave us didn't mention a word about the broken burner on the stove; the interior doors that weren't square with the frames; and most of all the stains on the kitchen floor.

I honestly believe the selling family slipped the house inspector money to overlook these issues. I mentioned as much to a few of our new neighbors and I'm sure my suspicions were relayed to the selling family. I have another suspicion that the selling family was friends with many of those people and my accusations colored my relationship with those living around me.

But in true passive-aggressive style it was the refrigerator they conveniently forgot to load up that still makes me harbor ill feelings about those assholes.

Adding icing to the already difficult cake of moving I had National Guard duty on the weekend we took up residence in the new house. And for reasons I never understood both the CO of my unit and the First Sergeant refused to cut me some slack and allow me to slip out to help with the move.

By the time I arrived home late in the afternoon the majority of the moving was finished. My wife and in-laws were still dealing with the shock of the condition of the house. I, in turn was flaming pissed and wanted to kick some ass. Especially when I opened the doors of the refrigerator they left behind.

My dad-in-law knew something about kitchen appliances and guessed that it had to have been twenty-years old back in 2000. While still functioning properly the inside had obvious wear, to the point rust was showing through on some exposed metal parts. Shelves were bent and glass panels cracked making it look like a real backhanded insult to us demanding they move before they were ready.

But most worrisome was the brown sticky stuff at the bottom. Partially covered by the crisper section for vegetables, it looked like a Coke or Pepsi had leaked and they never cleaned it up. I wanted to move that refrigerator out the garage and bring in ours from the old house but by that time my wife was on the verge of a nervous breakdown while my in-laws compassion and love of family were exhausted.

So we assembled beds to sleep, the in-laws went home, and we order pizza from what I was now calling a glorified redneck trailer. Later that night as I lay in bed and fumed we then discovered the marooned refrigerator made some of the god-awful noises. The sounds it produced were like a combination of it about exploded and a plea to end its miserable existence.

Weeks rolled into months and we slowly made our new suburban trash heap a home. That included taking all the insides of the refrigerator out and cleaning them. And yes, I personally cleaned out the brown sticky stuff at the bottom.

The trouble was that a week or two later I noticed the brown sticky stuff had reappeared at the bottom and it was growing. I think the brown stuff reappeared after each cleaning for about a year. It never entirely went away but we learned to live with what little bit we couldn't kill off.

The adoption moved forward and the years came and went but we never pulled the trigger on getting rid of that nightmare refrigerator. We talked about it many times but with a new baby and other issues the fact that it still kept food and drinks cold always prevented us from really doing anything. I even learned to take comfort at night with its strange sounds.

That refrigerator lasted another fourteen years before it had its version of a stroke and died. So if my late dad-in-law was correct, and the old bastard was smart, that refrigerator lasted north of thirty-five years. Here's the real kick in the ass, its replacement died in less than five due to a lightning strike. And its replacement, an expensive Samsung with all the bells and whistles lasted two years before the ice maker on it utterly quit.

We called in the company-approved technician and he isolated the problem to the touch screen controller or the water filter assembly that had its own little micro-controller. He couldn't isolate the issue to a single cause and to fix both electronic components would cost over five-hundred dollars.

We instead bought six plastic ice trays for fifty-cents each from the Dollar Store and called it a day.

I still believe the selling family left the old refrigerator here as a form of insult. A small dig at the ungrateful family that wouldn't give them enough time to move out on their timetable. But I'll be damned as much as anyone can think fondly on a kitchen appliance that bad boy was tough.

Inconvenient Estranged Parent

 

Writing Prompt- Your main character is approached by their long-estranged parent who wants to reconnect. How do they react? This started out as fiction with only a little bit of real life thrown in. Unfortunately past history started seeping into the story creating a hybrid mix.  

 

 Early February at Fort Carson, Colorado isn't a good time to be stuck outside working in the motor pool. The only thing worse than the motor pool is being down range out in the field during a field training exercise. But then there were rare occasions when dealing with hardships out in the field were preferable than getting tangle up in old family issues.

“Specialist Vaughn,” my platoon sergeant called out while walking up from our company's motor pool repair bays. “Lieutenant Chase is on the phone, he wants to talk with you ASAP. Haul ass up to the office and find out what he wants.”

“Roger that, Sergeant Blackledge,” I said taking just enough time to put away a couple of pieces of equipment back into the platoon's storage container before double timing down the line. My seemingly responsible and prompt response still earned me a hateful glare from the man.

My platoon sergeant, SFC Blackledge, was a huge, African-American guy with a baked-in bad attitude when it came to anything I was involved. To this day I never really understood his dislike for me. I definitely wasn't the platoon fuck-up, we had three new privates fresh from Advanced Individual Training (AIT) who were all competing for that title. The general consensus among the other members of the platoon was that if you combined the intelligence of the three new guys a squirrel would probably still beat them at tic-tac-toe.

At the time my best guess for why Blackledge enjoyed hassling me was that I was the perfect average soldier. I was almost three years into my enlistment and my gung-ho mentality had long since died. It had been replaced with a new perspective of doing just enough to keep the NCOs and officers above me happy. I had one year and a couple of months or so left of active duty and my ass would be going home.

As most things go, the army during the late-1980s was pretty cut and dry. This is a gross simplification but as long as you shined your boots, performed basic hygiene, and could read a map most American males could be a success in the United States Army. But for me the glamour had long since died and whatever Rambo-esque dreams I might have entertained had long since been crushed by your basic standard issue reality.

Thinking on it now, my carefree attitude may have been the source of Blackledge's distaste for me. In all modesty if I had stayed motivated and played the dog and pony game by looking good and performing beyond basic standards, I'd probably could have made promotion way beyond just sergeant (E-5), which I would unexpectedly make the following month.

After arriving at the repair bays I stepped into the office and was handed a phone by one of the people working there. “Specialist Vaughn reporting, sir,” I said or something similar.

“Vaughn,” LT Chase said in a tone of voice that betrayed a touch of annoyance, “your dad called the company commander. He's in town and wants to see you.”

“Ah yes, sir, did someone die or something?” I ask back confused. At that moment I couldn't remember the last time I had talked with my father. My mom and dad's marriage and their final divorce back in 1977 had been Chernobyl-like in its messy, complicated nature. So bad that one of the few absolute certainties in this universe is the fact that those two fucked up individuals should have never been allowed to live on the same continent, much less marry and have children.

My mother had legitimate mental issues that in South Carolina went unrecognized and, of course, totally untreated. She was the child of hard working but poor parents whose education never went beyond a couple of years of high school. South Carolina was, or still is a backwater provincial land with a grossly under-educated population lacking any true idea of how mental health can affect individuals and society as a whole.

Mom's way of coping with her issues was to drink. She was a chain smoker as well, which brought on a whole other series of problems. Finally there was infidelity, something she would actually talk about to us kids once she had a few drinks in her system. Her other favorite subject of conversation was to tell her children how much farther she could have made it in life if she had never had us.

Dad's issues were a little more abstract but he was also a product of Southern society and culture. He was a hard worker but showed next to no emotion to his kids other than rage when they did something bad. Beatings with a belt were the usual punishment for infractions raging from not doing homework to breaking one of his possessions.

There was also more than a little resentment when he had to use his money for us kids. I clearly remember department store trips to buy new clothes for my siblings and I with him whining about how much money was being wasted. Adding more insult to these injuries, after mom and dad separated he got us for the weekends. Which most of time had us hanging out in his mobile home as he worked on cars outside. I vaguely remember catching him telling a neighbor, who had asked him to go on a fishing trip, that his damn kids were here so he couldn't do anything this weekend.

“Don't know Vaughn,” LT Chase answered bringing me back out of my memories. “But prepare to copy this phone number.”

LT Chase calls out the phone number to a local motel and the room number. I write it down on my notepad sort of figuring this meant no one was dead. My father had always seemed a few french fries short of a full happy meal when it came to common sense. But not even he would travel from deep in the bowels of bumfuck Texas and come to Colorado Springs just to tell me some member of his family was dead.

“Tell me something Vaughn,” LT Chase interjects without warning, “why haven't you talked to your father in several years?”

Whoa, that was the other thing about dear old dad which I had forgotten, he loved playing the victim. “It's a long messed up story, LT,” I respond wearily.

“Okay, I get it, Vaughn.” He says before hanging up.

The rest of the day plays out as usual with me wondering if I should contact my father. Got to admit I was more than slightly pissed with him playing the abandoned and forgotten father. Dad had promptly gotten remarried suspiciously fast after my parents' divorce was finalized. Can't really fault him for that with mom long experienced in blazing new trails in roadside motel exploration.

His new wife brought with her a couple of daughters and by all accounts he was a great step-dad to his new kids. My siblings had spent some time with them a few summers back while I was over in West Germany playing soldier. The reports I got from them about a happy, affectionate man was a truly alien concept considering the sullen individual I remember that only reluctantly took his own kids fishing.

After the company's final formation and being released for the day I found myself drifting towards the rack of payphones in the barrack's day room. With mixed emotions I dialed the motel number and asked for his room when the desk clerk answered.

“Hello,” a lady said in a sweet voice.

“Yeah, this is Eric. I got word that my father was staying there.” I replied figuring I was talking to his new wife, my step-mother by default.

“Oh Eric,” the lady said, “we've been hoping you would call. I'll get your father, hold on.”

A second or two later he picks up the phone. “Hey Eric, it's your father,” he says like there was some question who it might be. Remember, a few fries short of a full happy meal.

“Yeah...dad,” I say hesitantly not really comfortable labeling him as such. “You're in Colorado Springs, what's up?”

“Lisa has a band competition here tomorrow, and we decided to see if you wanted to have dinner with us tonight.”

Running this information through my brain, I had to figure that 'Lisa' was my step-sister, someone who I had not only never met but didn't have a clue what she looked liked. Full disclosure, I didn't know what his new wife looked like either because I had literally never been in the same location with the lady. When my parents officially divorced, dad stayed in Texas and my mom and siblings and myself went back to South Carolina. Dad's new family life began about three or four days after everything was finalized.

Being the oldest of my siblings, I knew neither of our parents were worth much in the way of consideration. Going with our mother back to South Carolina was the safest course since we had her family to fall back on for support. But I admit, I was considering his offer of dinner. Part of me thought it would be interesting to meet at least a couple of members of his new family.

“So how about it?”He asked in an upbeat tone that I found both curious and slightly irritating. Past experience had taught me that my father expected instant acceptance and that any hesitation on the part of me or my siblings was a personal insult to him. There was way too much baggage in our past for me to have any enthusiasm about this reunion. I wasn't a kid anymore, I was an adult in my twenties and the few times I remember talking to him in the previous years he clearly still thought of me as a child.

Out of nowhere a question popped into my head that I had to ask before giving him my decision. “How long was this trip up to Colorado Springs planned? I mean you guys didn't just receive news about the band competition the last couple of days.”

“Oh, its been in the works for the last couple of months.” Dad replied offhand not realizing what it meant for his own flesh and blood to be an afterthought. Such actions were typical for him, for some reason his own kids were never a priority. Truthfully, it bothered me a lot that he somehow expected me to drop everything and rush across town to see him. He served in the army himself and knew the end of the duty day didn't necessarily mean a soldier was free to leave the post. It was either that or his offer for dinner was never be meant to be accepted. That he would use my refusal as yet another example of him being the victim. Given that the trip to Colorado Springs had been months in the planning, the fact that he didn't call me until the day they arrived tended to support my conclusion.

I simply didn't feel like being played that day. “No,” I said to him, “had you called and arranged something in advance it could have happened. But no, I'm going to the mess hall and then hang out with a few friends.”

“Okay,” he said in a tone that I felt was indifferent. He started to say something else but I cut him off.

“Look, it was great hearing from you,” something I didn't really mean, “but your arrival was totally unexpected and, honestly more than a little inconvenient for me. How about we try this again sometime in the future.” After that I hung up and didn't think about him for the rest of the night.

Was I cruel? Probably. Should I have given the man the benefit of the doubt? Maybe, if the weight of too many disappointments wasn't bearing down on my shoulders at that moment. The one good thing out of this cluster fuck was that I learned to treat my own kids completely different.

The coming years would bring my father back into my life. Namely him showing up unexpectedly at my house a couple of weeks after the birth of my son. My wife made me play nice. But dad never really changed and my patience with him only got shorter. My brothers somehow developed a phone relationship with him over the years with nothing but silence between him and myself.

Recently, I got word from my brother, Wilson, that dad asked for my phone number. Thankfully, Wilson told him he would have to ask me first. As I talked with my brother I thought about it for a couple of minutes. My decision was ultimately no, curiously there is no bitterness on my part. I found myself indifferent to the man and his life. Whatever relationship we might have had has long since passed into nothingness.

MIddle Weekend Adventures

 

There was once a time when the serving in the Army National Guard was fun. But that was largely before my first enlistment in 1984 when the “old timers” would tell stories about massive weekends barbecues deep in the woods of Fort Jackson. Those parties were only topped by the ones that supposedly occurred during the two-week summer camps. Raging poker games in the barracks and quite illegal beer and food runs off post in army vehicles had become only whispered legends by the time I was a private (E-1) fresh out of basic training.

By 1984 the entire Army National Guard was entering another stage of its evolution. During the Vietnam era the National Guard was more of a joke being a much desired refuge for rich and well connected kids wanting to avoid the dangers of those distant jungles. After Vietnam the National Guard languished in a benign, apathetic limbo where the only thing worse than the insufficient training and discipline among the soldiers was the broken and out of date equipment they were issued.

When I finally joined in 1984, Ronny Raygun had already set in motion the changes that would totally remake the National Guard into the professional force it is today.

I stayed a weekend warrior for two years before going active duty in 1986 and during that time I caught an echo of the easy going style of the Old Guard. By that time weekend drills in the local armory were well organized with the required maintenance on equipment being performed as well as professional training classes being held. But still, there was an underlying understanding that we were not active duty troops and that at the end of the day our family and civilian jobs took first priority.

It was during the two-week annual training where the most hints of the Old Guard could be found during that time. Those two summer camps before I went active duty the first week would be spent in the field sleeping in leaky tents and vehicles along with playing at our various military occupational specialties. The second week had us in the barracks still largely playing soldier during the day but sleeping in hot and miserable barracks at night. Yeah, the hot and miserable barracks were an improvement from sleeping in the field. That is if you could sleep during the raging poker games that went on most the night and breathe the thick secondhand smoke from all the burning cigarettes.

Concerning those poker games, I have to mention that many of the wives of these guys had apparently been told that their husbands did not receive that much in pay for those two weeks. This was cover for many returning home almost broke after having lost it gambling. Now between the first week in the field and the second week in the barracks was the middle weekend. I remember it as a time when all discipline evaporated and the troops did what they wanted. Some just drank themselves into a weekend stupor with what money they had on hand. We're literally talking about whole mountains of empty beer cans at the start of the second week.

Not wanting to deal with clouds of cigarette smoke and Olympic-level drinking, I got in my car and hauled ass to a friends' house or went back home. Understand, I'm not passing judgment on those guys staying in the barracks. By the mid-1980s when I joined, all the rich and well connected Vietnam draft dodgers had returned to full civilian life. That just left the lower-middle class guys who worked rotating shifts during the rest of the year at Georgetown County's two major employers, the steel mill and the paper mill. The middle weekend of summer camp was in many ways their only vacation away from the demands of their jobs and families. I just didn't want to endure the smell of stale beer and breathe their second-hand smoke.

Of course, I went active duty army in 1986 and didn't have to deal with annual summer camps again until I returned to the National Guard in 1990.

When I returned to the National Guard in 1990 a great deal had changed. The Old Guard with its laid back attitude along with its lack of discipline was a bad memory. Even the more responsible but reasonable National Guard that existed when I joined in 1986 had evolved into an excessively gung-ho organization that was beginning to look upon its members civilian jobs as impediments to the mission. This was a situation that would only get worse over time.

What had also changed was the middle weekend. My first couple of summer camps back after leaving active duty had me traveling to some interesting posts with small groups, so I couldn't complain too much. The training was actually fun and I was still single and interested in having a good time. By the time of my first summer camp with the rest of my unit though, the whole basis of how things went had changed.

Not only did my unit still spend the first week out in the field playing soldier, but the second week as well. We would return to the rear area to stay in the barracks for the middle weekend. But even then the officers and NCO's weren't going to allow anything like the freewheeling antics that were once normal occurrences.

As a former active duty soldier I completely agreed with those changes. My problem came when the senior NCO's started making noises that they were going to no longer allow us to leave the post during the middle weekend. I'll put it to you frankly, there isn't any army base my National Guard unit frequented for summer camp that I would want to be stuck at for a weekend.

By 1996 I was married and had a son and as you might expect, the idea of being forced to hang around at the barracks during the middle weekend was supreme bullshit. That year my unit was doing summer camp at Fort Stewart, Georgia. Now understand, Stewart is amazingly close to beaches but as a new dad I wanted to be with my son.

It took a little persuasion, but my first sergeant decided to let me go leave Fort Stewart and go see my son. It was going to be an easy trip for me since all I had to do was hit I-95 and drive up to Manning, South Carolina where I would meet my son and wife at her parents' house. So that Friday afternoon at the beginning of the middle weekend, I got in my 1988 Ford Escort and hauled ass heading north.

I love my wife and kid by one of the sacrifices I had to make for them was selling my 1984 Chevrolet Camaro and getting the Escort. My Camaro had class and style, and been the reason I had scored as well as I did with the ladies back at Fort Carson. But as a family man, my Camaro pretty much sucked for driving your kid and wife around.

So we got a used four-door escort hatchback with four-cylinder engine and a crappy radio. It was dependable, it had cargo space, and I could fit a baby seat in the back. Surprisingly enough my Camaro turned out to have better gas mileage that the Escort but my wife didn't find that interesting.

About about two hours later I'm driving north on I-95 with the pedal to the floor doing about sixty miles and hour. The radio has lost all reception so I'm listening to the one cassette tape the player had destroyed and getting pretty tired Kenny Rodgers crone about his damn card game. Yes, I had a Kenny Rodgers tape in my car, it's a long story in its own right but understand I'm not a fan. The cassette player seemed to have its own idea of good music so I went along with its choices.

At some point after I passed the I-26 interchange the terrain around me opens up enough to allow me to see some sky. To the west I see clouds, some dark and heavy but nothing unusual for South Carolina. The weather that day for the entire state was sickeningly hot and soul-sucking humid but at least the AC on the Escort was a real winner.

The drone of the road and Kenny's whining about some woman leaving her family with a crop in the field caused me to zone out for a few minutes. What suddenly pulled me back to consciousness was a totally unexpected flash of lightning and the corresponding boom of thunder after that. Once I gathered my meager wits and wiggled my butt in the seat a little to make sure I hadn't shit my pants I looked over to my left and saw what was happening.

In the space of a few minutes that party cloudy day had completely changed. To the west of me a huge chunk of the sky had gone completely black, with the lightning flashing it looked like someone had opened the gates of Hell. Instinctively, I switched over to the radio and almost immediately heard the blaring noise of a weather alert.

At first all I heard was the Weather Service's robotic voice saying that a tornado warning was in effect for numerous counties along I-95. Yeah, no shit I thought to myself as the wind began trying to push my car off the road.

Mr. Robot was soon replaced with a panicked human voice saying this storm was throwing softball-sized hail and that if you were between certain mile markers on I-95 that you should seek shelter absolutely right now. Now I've never been good with math but right after I heard his words I saw a mile marker sign and realized I was smack in the middle of where he said all shit was about to fly.

Low and behold that was when the funnel cloud became visible on the left side of I-95. After a momentary scan of surroundings, I realized I was the only car on the road. Yeah, all the other smart people had probably heard the weather report on their dependable car radios and found shelter. I had somehow hit the one bleak and undeveloped section of I-95 in the whole damn state.

So, I said fuck it, gripped the steering wheel harder and ignored the funnel cloud and the growing sound of a train. No, I didn't look back on the funnel cloud so I don't know for certain if it had touched down and became a full tornado.

The rain went from a few drops to torrential and the booming of thunder made me feel like I was driving through an artillery barrage. Luckily, I somehow stayed on the road and didn't hit any fool who decided to stop in the middle of the interstate.

The sound of the train faded away but the rain never really letup. I did find the exit for Manning and successfully navigated the county roads to my in-laws house. These roads are seriously in the boonies to the point visitors traveling in that area might want to stay alert for any banjo playing.

Much to the chagrin of my dad-in-law, I pulled into his driveway before nightfall and was greeted by my smiling wife and young son. Weather reports did say that a tornado had touched down near that area but it was impossible for me to know for sure if the funnel cloud I saw was it.

The rest of the weekend was great with me having lots of time with my family. When I returned to Fort Stewart Sunday evening I found out that commanding officer had restricted everyone to the barracks just minutes after I left. His stated reasoning was to keep accountability and prevent needless accidents during annual training.

This decision by the CO pissed off the first sergeant and with me walking around with a huge shit-eating grin because I got laid and saw my kid over the weekend didn't help with his disposition. So much that I caught a bunch of crappy duties during that second week in the field.

I didn't care, outrunning a tornado was probably one of the funnest things I ever did during summer camp.

On The Lonely Road

 One of the things I told my daughter when she began attending Clemson University was that daddy would fly up there whenever she wanted to come home for the weekend. That she didn't need any real reason for wanting to come home. I would go get her and take her back up when she was ready. I truly meant it and when my daughter and her friend with a car who she usually rides with back down to Columbia, had conflicting schedules last weekend, I had to put my promise into action. 

So last Friday I returned home from work just long enough to pick up my wife and then we hauled tail to the Upstate region of South Carolina. I was pretty tired from the stuff that occurred at work that day but the drive was easy and we made it to Clemson with no issues.

I'm still don't know the details of the traffic patterns going to Clemson but I've heard nightmarish horror stories about how badly those roads can become overwhelmed. Yes, that mostly occurs during football season, and during non-pandemic years, but given my luck I figure I'm bound to get tied up on those roads sooner or later. That being said, my daughter was waiting for us as we pulled into her dorm parking lot and we immediately hit the road for home.

The drive back to Columbia wasn't as easy. Fatigue was really setting in and neither my wife nor my daughter wanted to drive. My daughter does have her driver's license but is unsure of herself driving on the interstate while my wife was nursing allergies. Something that also made her unwilling to listen to either Jimmy Buffett, my old but true musical friend for long drives, or the various horror podcasts I have come to enjoy. As far as my wife was concerned, Lovecraftian audio melodrama just wasn't going to work for her.

Being the “captain” of the road ship, I could have pulled rank but I didn't feel the need to poke a semi-sleeping bear dealing with excessive sinus pressure. Whatever the case, we got home safely and ordered pizza after my daughter dumped what turned out to be all her dirty laundry next the washer and dryer. Yeah, my daughter primarily wanted to come home because of her dirty clothes. Yes, they have plenty of washer and dryers at Clemson but she doesn't like to use those machines. My daughter claims they do not get her clothe clean.

Sunday afternoon came all too soon and it was just me taking my daughter back up to Clemson. Given that I'm usually in bed around 7:00pm on Sundays, I carried my daughter's stuff up to her dorm room, gave her a hug and hit the road for home.

One of the National Guard units I served is in the neighboring town of Easley so I have a certain route that I'm use to taking on the drives going into the Upstate region and back home. The addition of the segment going to Clemson being the one I'm uncertain about. Truthfully, going to Clemson by way of Easley it's not the most logical route, but after driving it for years I know it by heart.

Last Sunday I decided to take a different road, Interstate-185, going back down to Columbia, in fact it's one of the only two toll roads I know about in South Carolina. The benefit of taking I-185 was that it bypassed all of Greenville, South Carolina, which cut off a nice chunk of mileage.

After a few miles on I-185, I was struck at how empty both sets of lanes were. Simply put, that Sunday afternoon I didn't see another car my entire time on I-185. My usual Greenville/Easley route the traffic could always be called moderate at least, with some days being worse.

I-185 though was deserted that afternoon and when you throw in the lack of development on the land it runs through you could almost say I was a little lonely. Then came the first of the two toll booths I had to pass through.

As toll plazas good the good state of South Carolina didn't think out of the box. On my side of I-185 was three different toll booths. One was automated where you either flash a prepaid pass at a sensor or throw two bucks worth of quarters into a big funnel mounted on the side of a rectangular box. The other two were the type where some poor soul sits inside and takes the driver's money and makes change.

Except last Sunday only one of the manned booths was open on the south bound lanes. The other was blocked off and dark inside. A quick glance over at the north bound lane showed a similar situation.

I naturally pulled up to the open booth and handed the attendant a ten dollar bill. The guy was an older gentleman who moved slowly, almost like he was new to the job and still wasn't sure how it went.

“How you doing young fella?” The attendant asked in a pleasant almost jovial voice.

First of all, I'm 56 and someone calling me “young” either has vision issues or is trying to shit me. But instead the impression I got was that the attendant wanted someone to talk to, even for a short time. I had noticed pulling up to the toll plaza that there was only one car in the parking lot next the small building where the attendants almost certainly used for breaks. Again, my first impression was that this poor guy was manning the south bound lanes all by his lonesome.

“Not to badly,” I answered as I watched him organize the smaller bills in his hand. “How's things on your end, sir?”

“Quiet,” he replied. “You're the first person I've seen since the start of my shift.”

I actually shivered a little at the idea of being stuck out in the middle of nowhere, essentially alone. But to make matters worse, that cold Sunday afternoon, the sky was dark and gray with clouds suggesting rain or even snow was possible. My overactive imagination being its usual a-hole self, I thought about one of the horror podcasts I had recently listened. The story had a deserted highway with a single individual driving alone in his car in similar weather conditions.

“Yeah, had to take my daughter back up to Clemson.” I said still watching him play with the money.

“They grow up in a flash,” he replied while finally handing me my change. “Mine are long married and have their own teenagers in high school,” he added leading me to believe I might actually look “young” to him.

As the attendant talked about his grand kids, I felt a strange need to ask him why he took the toll booth job. Was it strictly monetary, or did did he just want something to do? It was almost a certainty the guy was retired from his primary career. But to end up alone in a shelter in the middle of the road not much bigger than an old fashioned but now extinct telephone booth couldn't have been an improvement.

I don't exactly remember what the guy said about his grand kids, but it was usual lightweight stuff all people say about their offspring.

“Well, sir, take it easy,” I said laying my change in the seat next me.

“You too young man,” he replied with a big smile as I drove away.

Got to admit, I felt better after that short but friendly exchange. I think the toll attendant felt the same.

During that short conversation no other car passed me heading south and I saw no car heading north. About seven miles down I-185, I hit the second toll with that attendant not needing anything in the way of conversation. I paid my money and sped off without saying two words to the guy.

Working Around Hurry Up and Wait

 

Anyone associated with the United States Armed Forces should be intimately familiar with the concept of “Hurry up and Wait.” For those who don't have a clue, that phrase is used to signify a screwed up situation in which a person or group is forced to quickly complete a task, or reach a destination by a certain time, only for nothing to happen at that scheduled moment. In the military this usually occurs when other required tasks have not been completed.

Although in my experience it was dumbass officers and their inability to plan or outright fear of making a decision that triggered most Hurry up and Wait scenarios. Either way, back in 1999 I was forced into a Hurry up and Wait/no-win situation between my wife and the South Carolina National Guard that I so successfully navigated by changing the rules Captain James T. Kirk would have approved.

It started on Saturday morning on a typical drill weekend with my squad and I performing our usual duties. That involved our preventive maintenance checks on both our communication equipment and the military vehicles and took most of the morning. Nothing exciting and my squad went about the duties efficiently but still having a good time catching up with each other.

After chow, the rest of that day was spent on various soldier's training classes with neither the officers nor senior NCOs saying anything about important tasks that were supposed to be accomplished. And when we had the final formation later that afternoon, everyone in the unit went home thinking the Sunday drill would be a breeze.

The next morning though something had radically changed. The First Sergeant's demeanor at roll call that morning was icy at best and when the company CO (Commanding Officer) appeared, the entire unit knew something bad was up.

The company CO was at best a mediocre officer with little imagination and less personality who rarely left his office during drill weekends. Past experience had shown when he did walk out on the armory drill hall floor among the troops, something quite bad was about to happen.

The CO told everyone that the battalion commander, his boss, wasn't happy with our performance and that no one would be going home that day until he had a happy smile on his face. That to make the battalion commander happy would require a visual inventory of all our equipment. Something that probably should have started bright and early the previous morning to have a chance of being accomplished in a reasonable time.

Once the CO said his piece the First Sergeant took over and instructed the cooks to begin planning an evening meal, which meant we'd still be at the armory well past eighteen hundred hours. (6:00pm)

Here's where this situation was really going to screw me over. My son, who was four years-old at the time, was supposed to have his first soccer game around 2:30pm that day. Throwing more troubling gasoline on the fire, my wife and I were supposed to supply the after game snacks for the entire team. These snacks, consisting of twenty juice boxes and twenty packs of cookies, were being stored inside my car which was in the armory parking lot.

My wife's attitude about the National Guard was in no way going to get her invited to the wives' support group. Simply put the Guard had a really bad habit of fraking up any family plans. If something important or fun was going to happen in our area that month, you can bet a large sum of money that it would occur the same weekend as drill.

Naturally, after formation everyone was assholes and elbows to try and get everything done so we wouldn't have to stay so late. Remember National Guard troops are “citizen soldiers” who have civilian jobs and didn't want to be dead tired the next morning at the start of a normal work week. Even worse, some people work nightshift and would be going to work around eleven o'clock that night.

Contrary to what can only be called propaganda put out by the National Guard, most civilian employers hate having workers who also play weekend warrior. Having an employee in the Guard screws up work schedules and has a habit of pissing off coworkers who end up covering for the individual who is playing Guard soldier. Patriotism in America may be a mile wide but its depth can often be measured in inches.

My main issue was my son's soccer game. Missing that game was going to get me in big trouble with my wife and the rest of the team because of the snacks. But all during that morning I had absolutely no idea how I could break away in time or even get the snacks to my wife since she wouldn't be allowed on armory property.

Despite what the CO said about needing to make his boss happy, the rest of the morning turned into a Hurry up and Wait nightmare. All the unit officers got rounded up for an important meeting which somehow brought a stop to all activity. None of the NCOs wanted to proceed without assurances that their decisions were the right ones.

By chow that early afternoon I was getting pissed. I would have accepted the circumstances and continued to play the good soldier had the inventory continued like it was supposed. But when you had about one-hundred seventy or so troops just sitting around doing nothing it was time for me to think out of the box.

That outside the box thinking took the form of an old fashioned telephone booth inside the armory drill hall. Remember this was 1999 when cell phones hadn't yet become totally widespread. Yes, the phone booth was a relic even back then, but a nicely convenient one.

The drill hall floor was a buzz of activity, so no one really paid attention to me as I stepped inside and closed the door. Plus this phone booth was on the far end of where the company offices were located, so there was little chance anyone high up in the leadership would see me and later figure out my plan.

My plan revolved around calling one of my brothers and having him phone my unit and say he was involved in a car accident in Columbia and would need a ride back up to Easley, South Carolina where he lived. Which is more or less a two-hour drive from my location.

Thankfully my brother answered the phone and over the course of fifteen minutes we quickly ironed out the various details required to make my scheme work. Yes, it is better to tell the truth but in this instance the means did justify the end.

After hanging up I did my best to sneak away from the phone booth hoping no one would remember seeing me there. All that remained from then on was hoping my brother, who was nursing a nice beer buzz would remember to call my unit and give me a solid excuse to get the frak out of Dodge.

A nervous thirty-five minutes later the loudspeakers mounted on the drill hall floor and outside in the motor pool call for Sergeant Johnson to report to the office. I tried to play extra casual with everyone as I reported but no one will ever say I could be an actor.

Some seriously young Second Lieutenant I had never seen before handed me a note saying my brother was stranded up around north Columbia after being in a car accident. That he was okay but needed a way back home since his car was banged up pretty bad.

Success!!!!

The Lieutenant was going to cut me loose right then but the First Sergeant, a grizzled veteran who knew all the bullshit tricks stopped me as I was walking out. I handed him the note and repeated what the Second Lieutenant told me but I knew he wouldn't buy the story. The First Sergeant, took a deep breath then looked at me with an expression that confirmed what I feared. He clearly knew the whole story was a heaping pile of bullshit.

But instead of chewing on my ass and kicking me out of the office he said go get your brother and we'll see you next month. I have no idea why he went along with my scheme. I wasn't on his shit list but then again I wasn't in the group of soldiers he tended to favor. Whatever the case, the time was coming up on two o'clock and if I hurried across town I would make the start of my son's game.

I arrived at the game five minutes before it started and only earned a stern look from my wife. My son's team had their asses stomped but me being in my army BDU's serving juice boxes and cookies was a hit with the kids.

The following month, I learned that the rest of the unit wasn't dismissed until nine o'clock that night. No one ever made a comment about me skipping out the previous month but I sure as hell did my best to stay under the First Sergeant's radar from that moment on.

Yeah, I have no regrets and put into a similar situation I'd do it again.

A Smooth Criminal

 

 There is a long sordid history of why I hate the subdivision I find myself living. Yes, it was a mistake to purchase a home among the collection of arrogant and stuck up individuals my family and I do our best to ignore but you know the deal with hindsight.

Now the issues with the neighbors are all my fault. And they revolve around my attitude and practices dealing with lawn care and maintenance on the house. I do not obsess over the greenness of my grass, nor really the composition of the chlorophyll-using plant species that live within my territory. In other words my yard has a multitude of weeds and I am fine with that. Making matters worse, it was only at the beginning of last spring that I had my irrigation pump replaced after it burned up two-years ago.

The first year it was down we had a decent level of rain that kept it within bounds. But the following year I know my neighbors were cussing me up a storm. Because while all their yards were a heavily chemically-induced emerald green, mine had that post-apocalyptic brown, black, and gray color from lack of water. See, in 2019 I was coming off my near death experiences with my heart and lawn care for me and my family just wasn't on the radar.

And honestly another reason my neighbors don't like me is because I simply do not fit into their expectations of being a proper southern suburban gentlemen. My first and most radical thought crime is my politics, since I'm an Obama-loving, Hillary voting, tree-hugging liberal. From that standpoint alone, it's a wonder my kids had any friends at all during their school years. From my observations, the natives here get so extreme Ronald Reagan wouldn't pass the current Republican acceptance test.

The vehicle I drive is also and issue because all manly men here are required own a truck along the Ford F-150-class are larger. Smaller trucks like a Ford Ranger are passable but are snickered at by the big boys. My only transportation is a mid-sized sedan so I'm already suspect even if the natives don't see my “Riding with Biden” bumper sticker.

Understand, my wife does believe I generally overreact and regularly tells me I'm the problem but a couple of nights ago she had to side with me. Strangely enough, on this particular incident, I wasn't the asshole, it was my cat. But first a little background on suburban geopolitical situation.

While good fences make good neighbors, having a row of Leyland cypress trees lining the entirety of the section between my backyard and that of my neighbors was pretty much heaven. With the those trees, the neighbors could have their pools parties and I could sit out on my deck and read without either of us knowing of the others existence.

But the Leyland got old and started dying and a couple of tropical storms later several had fallen over while others were leaning threatening to smash the fence or either of the storage houses in the backyards. So I'm forced to have the trees removed and now both that neighboring family and mine do our best not look like we're gawking at the other when outside.

Here's the general scenario from my point of view; say I have a fantastic book that I can't put down and decide to go outside and read so I can enjoy the sunlight and fresh air. As I open up my book to delve back into a universe with starships, ancient alien civilizations, and rogue AI's, I discover the neighbors are having a pool party. Something one of the previous owners installed a few years ago.

Since my deck is about two feet above ground level those neighbors can easily see me. Given the locals suspicious nature, they assume I'm outside trying to catch a glimpse of the moms sunbathing while their kids play in the water. Sound easily echos off the houses so I catch more than half of their conversation with one mom asking about the tall, weird looking guy sitting on his deck.

I stay outside on the deck just long enough to act like I didn't hear that. Not long later, I excuse myself by acting like my cell phone vibrated and go back inside to take the call.

Since that awkward spring afternoon right after we had the Leylands removed, I am quite circumspect about when I go sit on my deck. I harbor no hard feelings to the neighbors, I did go outside while they were hanging out in the pool and honestly, my sudden appearance was probably unsettling. See, over the years many people have commented that my natural, neutral resting expression looks a lot like a pissed off Clint Eastwood about to ask some street punk if he feels lucky. This mainly comes from the fact that I find most people ridiculous idiots but that statement expands the scope of this essay far beyond what I intend.

So now that were brought up to the present a couple of night ago my furry buddy, Knox the Cat, was throwing a fit to get outside. It was a work night for me, I was tired, and didn't want to spend the last thirty minutes or so before I went to bed dealing with feline whining. I open the door leading to the deck and let him slip outside. During that brief moment, I catch a glimpse of the neighbors sitting on their own deck. I really couldn't tell what they were doing, and as you might be able to surmise I didn't really care.

I return to my nightly routine of making lunch for the next day as well as loading the dishwasher and sweeping the kitchen floor. Several minutes later I hear Knox making strange sounds at the same door I let him out. Without thinking I let him back inside only to see he had something large in his mouth.

Now it is quite common for Knox to bring home a live bird or the occasional baby rabbit. Almost always this will then mean I have to make a twenty-minute drive to the nearest wild animal rescue center to drop off the hapless animal.

With Knox running around with something in his mouth the usual household panic erupts. My wife runs off to the bedroom, slamming the door to avoid the predatory horror. I in turn chase the cat in a desperate attempt to save his prey. When I finally catch the damn cat, I find his prize is not a live bird but one that had been deep fried, probably twelve herds and spices.

Knox somehow has a fried chicken drumstick, and after I take it away I discover its still warm and fresh. Naturally, I have no idea where Knox obtained a piece of Colonel Sander's finest, and he sure as Hell wouldn't tell me even if he could. At that moment, I had one pissed off cat who didn't understand why I was taking away his prize. The answer to that question came to the front door about ten minutes later.

Before the knock at the door, I toss the drumstick and return to prepping for the next work day. My wife emerges from the bedroom and takes a seat in front of the television. I'm in the bedroom when I hear the knock from the front door. I let my wife deal with the person and whatever their business might be.

Being on the other end of the house, I didn't catch the conversation between my wife and the visitor. But since there wasn't any yelling or screams for my help , I didn't think much of it. That is until my wife comes into the bedroom to tell me the visitor was the backyard neighbor come to complain that Knox the Cat had crashed their dinner.

From what my wife told me that group's attention was diverted just enough for Knox to jump onto the picnic table and grab the drumstick he brought home. In the process of Knox's escape, he apparently made a mess of the table items and, if I understood correctly, knocked over a pitcher of tea and the gravy for the mashed potatoes.

I asked my wife if the neighbors wanted some sort of apology or payment for the feline damages. She said no, and made like the neighbor weren't “too upset.” Of course, given my biases, the neighbor was being diplomatic and was probably highly pissed.

So now Knox the Cat is essentially permanently grounded, or at least until the sore butts have a chance to cool down. Since the weather is getting colder in a week or so I'll let my smooth criminal slip back outside. There will be far less of a chance that he could crash any outside dinner parties.

Darth Wiggles Goes to Clemson

 

Well my wife and I reached another milestone in life last Saturday. Our daughter, Darth Wiggles, is now a full time student at Clemson University and living on campus. You would think being a full time student would naturally mean living on campus, but with the Covid pandemic throwing everything into chaos, she was doing online courses for three weeks here at home before it was her time to move up there.

The actual move to campus wasn't that bad compared to stories I have heard from other people. We did have to drive two cars because of all the stuff my daughter needed, but only barely. And the campus police and other Clemson staff had most everything dealing with the incoming students expertly planned out and carefully managed.

In fact, I only made a fool of myself twice that day, the first was unknowingly driving off the actual street and onto a pedestrian walkway. The second example was somehow getting lost LEAVING the campus. Once my wife and I had Darth Wiggles settled into her dorm room, we said goodbye and drove away in our respective cars. My wife pulled out of the parking lot immediately but I wanted to find an interesting podcast on my phone, so I didn't started driving for about fifteen minutes. Long story short, I missed a turn going out somewhere and was heading towards the South Carolina/Georgia/North Carolina border area for twenty minutes.

Darth Wiggles appears to be settling nicely into her new surroundings while for her parents the house to just too damn quiet. Right now the plan is for her to spend four to five weeks up there before coming home for a visit. No matter how much she was looking forward to getting on campus, there will be a period of homesickness to overcome.

It still sucks though, for my wife and I.

John Laurens--A True American Ahead of His Time

Anyone who has read any of my posts involving South Carolina understands I do not give this state much slack. My overall view of South Carolina is of a banana republic, corrupt, backwards, with a general population mired in a gleeful ignorance and a dog pack mentality. Yes, there are exceptionally brilliant and honest individuals from South Carolina who work hard to make the world a better place but, lets be realistic, they are quite rare.

Yes, by holding this opinion I am guilty of a similar intolerant and narrow-minded view I believe most of the general population of South Carolina has about anyone outside their worldview. Having spent most of my life in the state dealing with the people here, I am quite comfortable with my judgment.

As I wrote though, there are glorious exceptions and I just learned of such an individual. The trouble though is that he died at the tail end of the American Revolution.

John Laurens was born in Charleston, South Carolina in 1754, the son of Henry Laurens, American merchant, rice planter, slave trader, and fifth President of the Continental Congress. While Henry was typical of his times and place in society, his son was wildly progressive. John Laurens was an abolitionist, who had a plan to recruit slaves to fight for their freedom in the American Revolution as United States soldiers.

John Laurens wrote:

"We Americans at least in the Southern Colonies, cannot contend with a good Grace, for Liberty, until we shall have enfranchised our Slaves."

Gregory Massey, history professor at Freed-Hardeman University in Tennessee, wrote that what set John Laurens apart from others of his era what that black and white people shared a similar nature and could struggle for freedom together in a republican society. Quite frankly, I was blown away learning that someone in eighteenth century America held the extremely radical notion that black people shared the same humanity as us uppity white folks.

Of course you should realize that the current individual occupying the White House and many of his followers still do not truly believe that all men (and women) are created equal. Hell, the great thinker of Virginia, Tommy Jefferson, with all his eloquent and enlighten words falls hugely short compared to my boy, John Laurens, from South Carolina.

John Laurens wasn't just some desk-bound REMF- Rear Echelon Mother F*cker- during the American Revolution. He participated in the battles at the Coosawhatchie River and Savannah and Charleston. John Laurens was even taken prisoner in 1780 after the fall of Charleston.

Unfortunately for the new American Republic, John Laurens died in 1782 at the Combahee River in a skirmish with British soldiers who simply didn't know the war was over. Nothing substantial ever came of Laurens' desire to turn slaves into soldiers, simply put it was too extreme for southern society. Armed slaves, even in the cause of American independence from Britain, was a nightmare for the rich aristocratic planters whose money and power came from human bondage.

Professor Massey goes on to explain in his biography of John Laurens:

“Whereas other men considered property the basis of liberty, Laurens believed liberty that rested on the sweat of slaves was not deserving of the name.”

It's sad to say that John Laurens is by all rights no only a man ahead of his own time. But that even now in the twenty-first century his vision and understanding of our shared basic humanity is beyond the scope of many who live today.

On a side note, I cannot help but wonder what extraordinary enlightened individuals live today espousing views rejected by the mass of humanity as dangerous or ridiculous. But that in time will be accepted as being part of the natural rights of all free people.

Hoag's Object- A Special Place in the Universe

One of the cruelest jokes ever performed on humanity is its shared delusion of significance. Human cultures are filled with lies of how we occupy some special place in the cosmos symbolizing our importance. The truth being that we are part of an infinite universe that gets steadily more complicated from our discoveries and observations. The best that can be said about our species is that we are momentary sparks of awareness inhabiting a microscopic sliver of eternity.

One of the discoveries that remind me of our true place in the universe is Hoag's Object. It is a rare, nearly symmetrical ring galaxy six-hundred million lightyears away from our planet. Discovered in 1950 by astronomer, Arthur Hoag, he at first believed it to be a planetary nebula- a shroud of gas expelled from a star in the last stage of its life. The truth being that it's a galaxy with a diameter of 120,000 lightyears and consisting of 700 billion stars.

As you can see from the picture, the weirdness of Hoag's Object comes from its shape with young blue stars and plenty of interstellar gas making up the outer ring. The inner core in turn consists of older stars with little to no interstellar gas that would create new stars. There are other ring galaxies we can see from our telescopes but none as clearly defined as Hoag's.

If you paid any attention to science classes while in school, you would remember that there are multitudes of spiral galaxies like our own in the universe, as well as elliptical galaxies that look similar to the center of Hoag's. The big question of course, is what caused Hoag's Object to develop this highly unusual structure. Most reasonable theories appear to involve a collision between two or more galaxies with the aftermath producing what we see from Earth. And yes, what we see of Hoag's Object today existed 600-hundred million years ago since the light from all those stars took that long to reach our planet.

For me the truly bizarre nature of Hoag's Object is the idea that in the outer ring star formation will continue producing more planets as well and hopefully intelligent life. And unless there is a sudden influx of interstellar hydrogen from some source, the stars in the center will eventually die and not be replaced.

How would humanity have reacted if we learned our own galaxy had such a peculiar nature? Think about it, for centuries we burned people to death who dared to question the accepted idea that our planet occupied the center of the universe. That the moon, planets, our sun, and all the stars in the sky revolved around Earth.

Going beyond my idle hypothetical alien speculations, here's some real, factual strangeness to think about. Hoag's Object is so are away that its apparent width is only one quarter of an arcminute. That's about the same width when we look at the planet Mercury from Earth. Looking at the picture of Hoag's Object above you will see another ring galaxy, much further away in distance, in the space between the outer ring and the core. Given the truly rare nature of ring galaxies, the chances of that happening are astronomical. No pun intended!

A Tough Road for the Kids

 Last Monday started out as a fairly normal day at my work. I'm part of the Engineering crew at a local hospital that normally maintains HVAC systems and other assorted mechanical equipment. I clocked in that morning at my usual time and went about my normal duties. It's all pretty mundane stuff, so much that it's not huge exaggeration to say a technician could set a clock on when a piece of equipment will go bad again after being fixed.

That day was a little different in that I was part of a crew that had to work on a stuck heat valve above the ceiling in the Labor and Delivery department. In fact that valve was located in the ceiling above the new born nursery where four babies were being carefully watched over by a couple of attentive nurses. It goes without saying those two nurses weren't happy that three guys from Engineering were in their work area. But the nursery was too hot and we had traced the problem to that stuck valve.

Having the valve in the ceiling above the nursery was simply a case of poor design but all that was decided years ago. For the Engineering crew I was part, we had to work swiftly and as quietly as possible to drain the water line, clear out or replace the valve, then leave the area without disturbing the babies.

Luckily all we had to do was drain that particular water line, which flushed out a nice chunk of trash allowing the valve to open and close properly. We were out of the nursery in about forty-five minutes with the area now cooling as it should. That still left the matter of gathering up our equipment and putting the ceiling tiles back in place. That last part fell to me as the other two guys began heading back to our shop.

Once done, I glanced over to the sleeping babies and became thoughtful about the future for a moment.

“Hang tight, kids” I said to the babies without really thinking. “It's going to be a rough century.”

One of the L&D nurses heard my words and looked at me like I was crazy before walking off. The other nurse also looked at me, smiled and nodding in agreement as I left the room.

Sapiens: The Long Climb

The archaeological site of Jebel Irhoud in Morocco.

Proving that I spent way too much time interested in all the things normal teenagers ignored, I remember being fascinated by a science article on human origins published in the early 1980's. This article was new research that dated the emergence of our species to a little under two-hundred thousand years ago. A remarkably distant time for a South Carolina teenager who regularly heard revival pastors come to my grandparents' church to report the world was at best six-thousand years old.

The two-hundred thousand year human origin article was real science, as opposed to material that purposed horny space aliens mated with our ape-like ancestors to create humans. One of many utterly ridiculous ideas that had been floating around in popular culture/New Age circles since the early 1970's. These preeminent bullshit theories can all be traced back to Swiss wacko, Erich von Daniken who had extraterrestrials inhabiting every attic and basement on prehistoric Earth and onward into the present.

The real science that tickled the fascination centers of my brain had our ancestors evolving in eastern Africa with early Homo sapiens popping up in southern Africa. At that time, H. sapien appearance was considered “sudden” with them weathering tough climate times in caves on what is now the South African coast. Once the climate situation improved, our people then moved out of Africa to spread across the globe. The general assumption after that being H. sapiens quickly eliminated the “brutish” and primitive Neanderthals while conquering the rest of the planet.

A nice tidy theory that has been turned on its ear.

Back in 2017 the fossils of five Homo sapien individuals dating to nearly three-hundred thousand years ago were found in a cave in Morocco. Needless to say, this fossil find overthrows the idea that our species popped up in eastern Africa before moving down to the South African coast to hang out eating tubers and shellfish. That our species originated throughout the entire continent of Africa.

Northern Africa was probably quite different three-hundred thousand years ago with the Sahara going through a green and wet period allowing those five individuals to hunt plentiful game. There was an important difference between those early humans and those of us alive today. The individuals discovered in the Moroccan cave had smaller versions of the cerebellum. Additionally their braincases were elongated resembling archaic human lineages instead of modern humans.

Despite these internal differences, numerous computer studies and 3D x-ray measurements of the fossils reveal that these people were almost indistinguishable from those of us living today. Whether or not these folks could have been taught complex abstract ideas is questionable, but they did make stone tools to aid in their daily survival.

The book Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind by Yuval Noah Harari purposes that Homo sapiens were pretty lowly creatures up until seventy-thousand years ago when we went through a “cognitive revolution.” This allowed our species develop abstract, imaginary ideas like gods, nations, money, and human rights among many other concepts. Armed with this ability to imagine new things humans acquired the ability to cooperate in larger numbers as compared to our hairier primate kinfolk.

Like my younger teenage self, it fascinates me how our ancestors navigated those long, dark millennia before some unknown spark pushed us over the edge into true sentience. Contrary to Mr. von Daniken and his confused followers, no advance aliens helped our ancestors. Through centuries of monstrous trial and horrific error our species scratched its way up from living in caves and working with stone to the technological civilization we have today.

Ultimately, my thoughts lead me to the opposite end of where we came from to where we are going. Will Homo sapiens exist three-hundred thousand years from now and if we do, what will the lives of our descendants be like.

Of course, my hope is that our species will have spread out to the solar system and beyond. That our far-flung children might one day look back upon our time and feel a similar fascination at how we eventually moved beyond the primitive and destructive desires that hold us back now. 

Source Material: Oldest Fossils of Our Species Push Back Origin of Modern Humans. 

An Update From Betelgeuse

Just because I do not want to write about the ongoing crimes of the Orange Buffoon, climate change and Australia being on fire, or the really scary Corona virus, here's another disaster that could be upon us soon. Well, that “soon” part is strictly speaking a bit of a misnomer on human terms, but on the cosmological timescale it could happen any minute. The disaster I am referring to is the “imminent” supernova explosion of the star Betelgeuse.

Betelgeuse is a red supergiant star located in the Orion constellation about 700 light-years away from Earth. That red supergiant description isn't just words, if Betelgeuse took the place of our sun its boiling plasma surface would reach beyond the asteroid belt. Of course, such a size means the planets Mercury, Venus, Earth, and Mars would be inside the star being cooked like cheap turkeys. 

Wanting to avoid all the stellar techo-babble about Betelgeuse, that huge size means its lifespan is considerably shorter than our long-lived sun. The best estimate of Betelgeuse age is a little over ten million years, thankfully, there hasn't been enough time for intelligent life to evolve on any planets that might orbit it. Although when Betelgeuse does go BOOM, any inhabited star system within a few dozen lightyears are in serious trouble.

When Betelgeuse does go supernova the best estimates is that it will shine as bright as a half-moon for about three months. Bright enough to cast shadows at night and be seen in the daytime. Even as it dims, the supernova will be visible during the day for about a year and several years afterward at night.

The reason why the science journalists have been mentioning Betelgeuse recently is because back in October of 2019 it started to dim noticeably. By January of 2020 its brightness had continued to drop appreciably prompting speculation by less than accurate science sources that the star was going supernova on a time frame on par with our society's short attention span. Realistically, Betelgeuse could go supernova anytime in the next 100,000 years. Meaning our current human civilization will either be dead and gone or changed beyond all recognition by the time it lights up Earth's sky.

Now the universe has a tendency to overturn human expectations, so while I fully understand it will be thousands of years before Betelgeuse explodes, there's a part of me that wouldn't be surprised if it does happen soon. Even though our civilization has embraced rationality and scientific inquiry, at least in name for the last five-hundred years, I can only imagine the ridiculous and possibly dangerous reactions that various people and groups might have to a visible supernova. Just a few years back a total eclipse of the sun tracking through the United States had people proclaiming it was a sign of God like ignorant medieval peasants.

Yeah, if you want to get technical someone could say the orbital mechanics of planets and moons was set in motion by God billions of years ago. But a solar eclipse isn't something that happens suddenly or miraculously, humans have an expert-level grasp on when and where these events occur. Have a wormhole to the Alpha Centauri star system open up suddenly just beyond lunar orbit and that's when I'll start considering the inexplicable. Even then one of Arthur C. Clarke's laws comes to mind that any sufficiently advances technology is indistinguishable from magic.

It would be nice if a Betelgeuse supernova caused humans to realize they are comparable to viruses living on a speck of dust floating in the air and begin to clean up their act. But despite countless religious-based admonishments that humans are insignificant creatures, a number of us not only believe we can guess the mind of God but that the Almighty engages in direct conversations with a select few. The former taking the shape of bizarre indicts condemning certain people for no justifiable reason. As for the latter example, numerous politicians will get on television and say with a straight face that God picked them to be President of the United States. The only thing more glaringly stupid would be for the unwashed masses to believe such claims of divine preference in human political affairs.

So you should be able to guess that my worries about a Betelgeuse supernova would be for the various usual suspects to claim it was a sign of godly displeasure or approval on some subject. Even worse would be for some narcissistic, delusional personality to say it was a sign to launch a crusade or Jihad against evil heathens. Only a few centuries ago some societies freaked out over the sudden appearance of a comet in the nighttime sky. Which is nothing but a large dirty snowball doing a gravity-directed loop around the sun.

When all is said and done Betelgeuse will do its thing when it's ready without any regard to the hairless primates here on Earth. I guess the one certifiably good thing in all this is that we're over 700 lightyears away from the explosion so that when it goes supernova, it will just be a light show for us or our descendants. For any possible alien civilization within a couple of dozen lightyears of Betelgeuse, it will truly seem like a biblical event.

Yes, I should have mentioned the little tidbit about how Betelgeuse could have in fact already gone supernova but we wouldn't know it until the light of the explosion reaches Earth. But I guess if you want to view time from our end of space it hasn't happened yet until we see it.