Category: 65 Years in 65 Days

Looking back

DAY 26 – IT’S ALL GREEK TO ME

April 4, 2013

26 of 65

It’s All Greek to Me

Three months after we were married, Cathy and I embarked on a “trip of a lifetime” to Greece.  It did not begin well.

We flew from Denver to New York and then took a long overnight flight from JFK to Athens. From the airport we took a bus to the Syntagma Square area and our hotel. The bus driver appeared to be a homicidal maniac, weaving through traffic at high speeds with seemingly no concern for pedestrians, other vehicles or his passengers. We felt lucky to reach our destination alive. Had we known – as we soon learned – that everyone in Athens drove like that, we could have sat back and enjoyed the ride.

Tired and feeling the effects of jet lag, we did some brief sight-seeing and retired to the hotel for a good night’s rest. My internal clock had not adjusted to the new time zone, so I awoke shortly after 2:00 a.m. and could not go back to sleep. At about 4:00, I quit trying and decided to go jogging. Moving as quietly as I could so as not to wake Cathy, I turned on a desk lamp, opened a map of Athens, and mentally created my running route. I refolded the map and slipped out the door, leaving the map on the desk – I had memorized where I would go and my mind is like a steel trap.

I jogged at an easy pace to a hilltop that was perhaps two miles away. I paused for a few moments to enjoy the first rays of dawn over the city before starting back down the hill. Nothing looked the same as I returned. I might as well have been in a foreign country. Oh yeah, I was. I missed a turn and within minutes was completely lost. Continue reading “DAY 26 – IT’S ALL GREEK TO ME”

DAY 25 – ROCKY FLATS

April 3, 2013

25 of 65

Rocky Flats

I’m gonna preach you a sermon about Old Man Atom,
And I don’t mean the Adam in the Bible datum,
I don’t mean the Adam that Mother Eve mated,
I mean the thing that Science liberated . . .
              -Talking Atomic Blues

We have all seen horror films in which something evil and sinister is lurking in the shadows, in the night.  A poor unsuspecting woman opens her door to let the cat out; or an elderly gentleman returns from visiting grandchildren, and we know we will never see that person again.  How do we know?  The ominous background music gives it away, but the actors can never hear the music.

All the time I was growing up there was danger right in front of me, but I didn’t really see it, and neither did anyone around me.  It was the Rocky Flats Nuclear Weapons Plant – we called it simply “Rocky Flats.”  People would say, “What do they do out there at Rocky Flats?”  And someone would answer, “Oh, that’s Dow Chemical.  They make oven cleaner and stuff.”  We should have been listening to the songs in the background, like “Talking Atomic Blues.”

Dow Chemical did, in fact, make oven cleaner and stuff; they just didn’t do that at Rocky Flats. Rocky Flats was owned and operated by the United States Atomic Energy Commission and managed by Dow.  The product manufactured was plutonium triggers for atomic bombs.

The year after the plant opened, our family moved to a location just five miles away from it, as the crow flies – or the plutonium particles blow.  There was no thought that there could be any problem.  Perhaps we should have wondered why surface to air missiles were deployed to protect the oven cleaner. Continue reading “DAY 25 – ROCKY FLATS”

DAY 24 – THAT’S RIGHT

April 2, 2013

24 of 65

That’s Right

When Suzanne was perhaps 4 years old, we were driving together and I noticed something odd along the way. I don’t remember what it was. I called her attention to the oddity by saying, “Whoa, I don’t think we’re in Kansas anymore.” (The implied reference being to The Wizard of Oz)

Suzanne replied without hesitation, “Of course we’re not in Kansas. We’re in color.”

“That’s right.”

I try to remember those words when I get too bogged down in the seemingly mundane exercise of day to day living. We are in color – with all the wonderful details and reverie of that state of being.

Another time, when Michael was 5 or 6, we were visiting Cathy’s family in Ohio. While driving from Tiffin to Columbus, we passed through the town of Marion, Ohio, which was the home of President Warren Gamaliel Harding. Michael was becoming interested in our country’s presidents – I remember how excited he was when he learned that one of them had been named after Garfield the Cat – so I mentioned, “You know, some people think that Harding was the worst president we ever had.”

Michael replied without hesitation, “But it was really Richard Nixon, wasn’t it?”

“That’s right.”

We taught him well.

Today, I am sure that Michael knows about the Teapot Dome Affair and other scandals from Harding’s administration that would have been meaningless to him then. Still, to those of us coming of age in the Vietnam Era – and to some of our children – President Nixon solidly holds down that lowest ranking.

DAY 23 – WHEN PLUTO WAS A PLANET

April 1, 2013

23 of 65

When Pluto Was a Planet

Science marches on. Some think our educational system may be falling behind, but often it is far out in front.

Here I am thinking of an incident that occurred when our son Michael was in 2nd Grade. He was attending Martensen Elementary School in Wheat Ridge, Colorado. The Jefferson County School District, of which Martensen was part, was one of the best in the country. One evening Michael approached me and asked, “Mercury’s larger than Pluto, isn’t it?” I told him, “Yes. I’m pretty sure it is.” He had been interested in astronomy for several years, so I felt safe in agreeing with him.

He showed me the textbook his class was using to study the solar system, which stated that Mercury was the smallest planet. I saw an opportunity to provide a real learning experience, so the next evening I took him to the library Continue reading “DAY 23 – WHEN PLUTO WAS A PLANET”

DAY 22 – ST. PATRICK’S DAY 2003

March 31, 2013

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St. Patrick’s Day 2003

They say that if you don’t like the weather in Colorado, just wait an hour and it will change. How could anyone not like our weather?

From 1993 until 2005, our family lived in the mountains Northwest of Idaho Springs. On Sunday evening, March 16, 2003, we watched the TV weather report. Dave Fraser, the weatherman on Channel 2, said a storm was approaching and the mountains could expect 3-4 feet of snow, with more in some areas. I scoffed at the forecast and remarked that the sensationalism of television journalism had even affected the weatherman. Before we went to bed that night, I checked outside and found it cloudy, but there was no precipitation. Nevertheless, we moved one of our cars to the top of the driveway in case our road became blocked.

When we awoke there was more than a foot of snow on our deck and it was still falling. Continue reading “DAY 22 – ST. PATRICK’S DAY 2003”

DAY 21 – A SPECIAL KIND OF LUCK

March 30, 2013

21 of 65

A Special Kind of Luck

“March Madness” usually returns to normalcy long before the NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament is finished. During the first few days of the tournament, productivity declines in offices across the country as employees fill in their brackets and follow the opening games on the internet. It does not take long, though, for an upset or two to “bust” most of the brackets, damping the interest in the remaining games and bringing the business world back toward normalcy.

The odds against predicting even the majority of the games correctly are daunting. Still, I always feel a twinge of regret when the team I chose to win it all is eliminated in the Sweet Sixteen or Elite Eight round. Although I do not follow college basketball, it seems that I should nevertheless be lucky. Simply because I am “special” (everyone thinks he or she is “special”), the Universe should conspire to have the games played according to my predictions.

So far, the Universe has not cooperated. After the twinge of regret passes, I lose interest in the tournament – and I remember that there have been lucky times throughout my life. Continue reading “DAY 21 – A SPECIAL KIND OF LUCK”

DAY 20 – MEETINGS

March 29, 2013

20 of 65

Meetings

How much of a person’s life is wasted at meetings?

Many meetings are productive and result in ideas or resolutions to problems coming from a collective mind that is more creative and knowledgeable than could be expected of any one of its participants.  Other meetings consist of excessive discussion to reach what was a foregone conclusion.  Sometimes you can tell in advance how productive a meeting is going to be; often you can’t.

It would be depressing to actually try to figure how much of my life has been spent in meetings – which would be the first step toward answering the question of how much time was wasted.  Let me simply say that I accept meetings as an inevitable part of life.

I won’t discuss meetings that have been required of me at work.  However, even my free time, after work or before work, is filled with meetings, and I will mention a very few of those.

For several years, I was a member of the board of directors of KBDI-TV, Channel 12, a public television station in the Denver area.  There were some great people on that board with me, and much of what we did during our meetings was productive.  If they were only a bit shorter and less frequent . . . . . Continue reading “DAY 20 – MEETINGS”

DAY 19 – PRESCHOOL CONFERENCES

March 28, 2013

19 of 65

Preschool Conferences

When Suzanne was three years old and had only recently begun preschool, Cathy and I attended a parent-teacher conference at which the teacher told us what a wonderful child Suzanne was and how quickly she learned things.  The teacher showed us a paper in Suzanne’s folder which contained answers she had given to questions asked by the teacher.  The teacher had transcribed the answers, of course, because Suzanne had not learned to write.

She was asked what her parents did and on the paper was written, “Mommy does dishes and Daddy plays bells.”  The teacher looked at me as if I might want to explain that. Continue reading “DAY 19 – PRESCHOOL CONFERENCES”

DAY 18 – LEONARD COHEN

March 27, 2013

18 of 65

 Leonard Cohen

I first heard the music of Leonard Cohen on Judy Collins’ incredible album In My Life, which was released in 1967.  She sang wonderful versions of “Dress Rehearsal Rag” and especially “Suzanne.”  I did not know at the time that Cohen was an award winning Canadian poet and novelist, though  I recognized that his songs showed a maturity and perspective that was missing from the popular music of the time.  When his first album, Songs of Leonard Cohen, came out the following year, I bought a copy and played it over and over, memorizing the words and sharing it with all my friends.

Cohen’s second album, Songs from a Room, was released in the Fall of 1969.  Continue reading “DAY 18 – LEONARD COHEN”

DAY 17 – RUBBING SHOULDERS WITH GIANTS

March 26, 2013

17 of 65

Rubbing Shoulders with Giants

“If I have seen further than others, it is by standing on the shoulders of giants” is a quotation usually attributed to Isaac Newton.  Newton did write something like that in a letter to fellow scientist Robert Hooke, but the phrase and the concept were very old and well known, even by the 17th Century.  Similar language is found, for instance, in a 12th Century manuscript by a philosopher known as John of Salisbury, and he attributed the saying to an even earlier time.

It is fitting that Newton should have borrowed the phrase for he was stating that the advances he made in the scientific world were possible only because he could build on the many hundreds of years of thoughts and writings of great men who had preceded him.  That is true for all of us, though our accomplishments may not be as illustrious as Newton’s.

The recognition that Newton was “standing on the shoulders of giants” does not imply that he was merely a dwarf seeing the world from a good vantage point.  Isaac Newton was certainly one of the towering giants of human intellect, and most of the scientific advances of the past 300 years have been made by someone “standing on his shoulders.”

Giant and creative intellects remain among us today, and I feel privileged to have known some of them.  Continue reading “DAY 17 – RUBBING SHOULDERS WITH GIANTS”