Weather … HOT
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I’ve been watching old stories from the original Twilight Zone.
I sort of remember all of them so far (there are 36 in season 1) and I particularly remember a few of them … Where is everybody?, Walking Distance, The Lonely, and Time Enough at Last are just a few in the first few I’ve seen so far.
I’m waiting for the one where all the residents are embalmed bodies posed as what they wish they could have been when they were alive. None alive except for the caretaker who was probably in charge of keeping them dusted.
Do any of you remember the Twilight Zone and Rod Serling?
What were your favorite episodes?
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Last week one morning I awoke from my midday nap with a chill and did a Covid test which came out negative. So I decided it was just Summer punnies.
Still I wanted to make sure the house was cool so I got up about 8 to open windows for ventilation. I could feel the cool outdoors so went back to sleep without any covers.
The next time I woke up it was nearly 2 am and I felt very cool so I pulled up a sheet and went back to sleep.
Next time I woke up it was a few minutes before 5 when is the time I usually turn on the front porch light (more about that later) and watched the CBS morning show until a bit after 6, checked the neighbor’s front door light, settled in to watch the morning news until time to get up to make my morning cup of tea with some crackers.
Then it was time to get dressed and do my outdoor watering chores and it was already 94 degrees.
Now about the front door lights at my house and my neighbors. I am 93 and they are in their mid-80s, so we keep tabs on each other. The lights are just a way of making sure we are still okay.
When I had the chill and wanted to sleep in I called them the evening before I went to bed to tell them I was sleeping in and wouldn’t turn on my light but they shouldn’t worry.
Suzanne called about 10 just to make double sure.
The woman who lived between my house and the Abbott’s just died about a month ago but it wasn’t a surprise. She had a heart monitor, diabetes, and did overnight abdominal dialysis for her kidney failure.
Once her family was gathered, Diane had them turn off the dialysis. Until the snow last winter she used to make jam or jelly and shared it all around. They were small jars but the jam or jelly was always good.
I’m in pretty good condition for my age and walk with a cane. Suzanne had a stroke before I moved in here and uses a walker and David walks with a cane so we three don’t expect any surprises any time soon.
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My younger grandson Paul (his birth name) Francis (his Baptismal name chosen for the Saint) is preteen and interested in baseball and swimming.
Last year he played either right or left field on his TBall team.
He is also on the local swim team and won two medals in the multicounty meet last fall. Not bad for a kid who began being afraid to even jump into the kiddie pool a couple of years ago.
He participated in a meet in Redding last week. He got some individual firsts but their relay team didn’t do as well as last year. They’ll do better with a bit more practice.
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On Thursday the 20th it was already nearing 80 o but my screensaver was a field of snow diamonds and the Mountain was snow covered. Leftover photos from the days when we lived on the farm.
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And now back to Pandora’s Box…
Page 32 Notes from Alex Cole’s biography of the first President, George Washington’s farewell speech … (notes begin here – actual word are in quotes) Cole writes Washington (Washington) was concerned we would be dragged into battles with nations when we would do better to be trading with all of them … his greatest concern was the prospect of an authoritarian ruler … “Political factions incline the minds of men to seek security and repose in the absolute power of an individual.” … that leader would use “this disposition to the purposes of his own elevation, on the ruins of public liberty” … We must guard our inheritance. If we allow sectional differences to eclipse national interests the republic will be in peril.”
The entire address can be found at https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/GPO-CDOC-106sdoc21/pdf/GPO-CDOC-106sdoc21.pdf
And back to the Smithsonian …
Page 36 “The growing impression is of a place curiously ahead of its time.”
Starts with a face carved in a stone during the Paleolithic era more than 12,000 years ago which was recently found in Israel.
Page 66 “Magic in the Felt” … People staged a dance jumping on the wool to effect the transformation from fiber to felt.
Page 76 “We thought of the legend of Prometheus. Of that deep sense of guilt in man’s new powers. That reflects his recognition of evil, and his long knowledge of it” Quote – J Robert Oppenheimer
Page 92 “Larry West has found a number of connections between the photographers, abolitionists, and the Underground Railroad.”
I always lived too far west for the Underground Railroad, but once when I was visiting Mark and his then family in Rochester NY they took me to see one of the stops on the Underground RR. The hidey-hole was in the small attic space over the front porch.
Page 98 “In search of Willa Cather” Her hometown Red Cloud, Nebraska was named for the famous Oglala Lakota chief, a Sioux leader and a fierce fighter.
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For those of you who know I am an avid reader, here is a list of what I’m reading now in addition to the two magazines, Smithsonian and Archaeology …
Jeffery Archer’s “Next in Line”
365 Days of Walking the Red Road … The Native American Path to Leading a Spiritual Life Every Day
The Gnostic Gospels by Eaine Pagels
Finding Arthur by Adam Ardrey
If you choose to read any of them, read closely, there might be a quiz later.
And finally from the Smithsonian …
Now after months of scanning a month’s issue, I’ll be looking more closely at coming issues page by page in anticipation.
A short list from the April+May issue includes articles about the Canadian woman who wrote Anne of Green Gables and much about Westminster Abbey, probably because of the Coronation.
There is a picture of Reg Greenacre who is in charge of raising the flag of whatever festival, state visit, or other event is occurring in the Abbey.
The picture of him reminded me of Admiral Boom who lived next door to the Banks family in the Mary Poppins movie and who fired off a salvo at 8 am and again at 6 pm.
There is also a wall carving in the Abbey of a memorialization dedicated to Shakespeare and which guides often tell tourists he is buried there although he is actually buried with the family in the small local parish church in Stratford-on-Avon.
In the July+August issue there is a large article about a farm in New England which is turning the manure from 600 cows into enough methane gas using an anaerobic digester to create biogas which produces renewable energy as well as vehicle fuel, organic crop fertilizer, construction materials and other useful byproducts.
And information about how controlled burns help prevent large forest and range fires a practice known to indigenous peoples for at least centuries.
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If your reader’s brain isn’t on overload, the current issue for July+August has information about HipHop history;
and big gun bunkers at or above beaches along the southern California coast aimed out to sea like those at Cabrillo Beach. I used to go to the beach and look out through the aiming slits making up stories about the military men who were assigned to those posts during WWII watching for Japanese submarines.
Another was about the Los Alamos labs where atomic bombs were being developed. My brother-in-law, a Physicist, worked there. Los Alamos was much like being in solitary confinement in prison. He couldn’t come out easily and security was tight on family coming in.
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Switching to Archaeology magazine …
You can explore a sunken Roman city; a flushing toilet dated from 2400 to 2,200 years ago; a sphinx with dimples and a slight smirk circa AD 41-54; mid 19th century AD indigenous South Africans who stole cattle from colonizers to resist enslavement; a 6th century BC poet; and the defeat of invaders in ancient Chicksaw heartland in the Blackland Prairie.
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And in the July.August issue page 120 — Someone asked “Why do chickens have wings if they can’t use them to fly?”
The answer was Chickens can fly, just not very well. When humans started to breed chickens for meat they wanted heavier birds so wild chickens adapted to being ground birds who can stay aloft for less than 50 feet and some can do little more than jump.
And now you know the rest of the story …
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I’ll end with a quote from Rod Serling ..
“Being like everybody is the same as being nobody.”
And another quote …
“…the worst aspect of our time is prejudice… In almost everything I’ve written, there is a thread of this – man’s seemingly palpable need to dislike someone other than himself.”
So ‘til next week …