My second grade class and I watched the small black and white television in our classroom on the morning of February 20 of 1962 as John Glenn launched in his Friendship 7 capsule from what was then, and later became again, Cape Canaveral, Florida. We didn’t appreciate the enormous effort so many put into the moment, nor the risks he took to become the first American to orbit the earth. To us it came as a moment of success within the backdrop of the competitive space race with the Soviet Union that dominated the news each evening on the same small TVs we watched after dinner with our families.

Today we are so often disappointed by heroes’ faults and failings that we demythologize them before they fall and break our hearts once more. John Glenn was different. He was a fighter and test pilot in a time when jets were made of raw power and autopilots were science fiction. He wore a bow tie when in civies and married a shy girl who stuttered. He was made of perhaps the “Right Stuff,” as Tom Wolfe wrote, but he was and remained unique. John Glenn went on to become a US Senator for Ohio, serving with distinction not seen today. At 77, he flew into orbit again aboard the Space Shuttle to show that age need be no obstacle to, well, anything.

As we later learned, thanks to the film “Hidden Figures,” there was another, long unsung, hero that day that I learned about 54 years later after that second grade day. NASA called upon one who was seen, at the time, as least likely to be considered a rocket scientist, Katherine Johnson, a black woman in a time when both disqualified her from the NASA limelight, but one with both unparalleled mathematic skills and persistence of her own to match.

There were problems aboard Friendship 7, and NASA needed to cut the flight from seven orbits to three. As depicted in the film, the calculations needed for the capsule to reenter were too difficult to process using computers available in the time allowed. Johnson was called in to do the calculations manually and confirmed for Glenn and all that the planned reentry would work. Katherine Johnson too was different.

She went on to compute the trajectory of the Apollo 11 flight to the moon and the path for the first lunar module to rendezvous with its command module. Imagine being called on to figure those out – on paper – for the first time. She retired in 1986 and later received the Congressional Medal of Honor and the Presidential Medal of Freedom. Her career trajectory probably made it possible for a friend of mine, another woman, to train shuttle astronauts on the use of its robot arm. She was later called in to consult when the shuttle repaired the Hubble telescope.

Today we watch as the world is on the brink of war, while billionaire space cowboys take junkets in the sky. We need heroes for our times.

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Today, February 19, 2022, marks 80 years since the date FDR signed Executive order 9066, ordering the incarceration of 120,000 Japanese-Americans living on the West Coast. The Wikipedia entry above is chilling and painful to read, as it should be.

Nothing I could say would give back the time lost to those families during the 30 months that passed until the Supreme Court declared the internment unconstitutional. The wheels of justice, I suppose, spin even more slowly than time. George Takei, of Star Trek fame, was one of the children held in those camps. His story, also touched on in Wikipedia, says more than I could here of how terribly wrong this all was, so I’ll simply mark the date, lest we begin to forget.

The reminder of this loss to those also brought to mind the two years of time most of us have lost, to one degree or another, during this pandemic. The former, of course, was an intentional wrong and this period a mere tragedy, but one that has done more than putting so many lives on hold. It has taken two years of experiences, growth, and so much more from our lives – time we cannot get back.

Respect and grief is more than due to the numbers who have died from COVID, nearing six million according to Johns Hopkins and probably many more who died without being diagnosed. Still for all of us fortunate to have lived through it all, we have lost not just loved ones, but a part of ourselves, or at least lives we could have been living, which is worthy of considering.

I might have been working to mark things off my own bucket list, instead of marking time. Many even older than me have lost two years of their likely last few. Children have lost growth experiences usually afforded to the young, and with a moment’s reflection you can identify your own loss. None of us I suppose, like the Japanese-Americans above, will be able to simply pick up where we left off as if nothing happened. Their losses and ours were not their faults. The best we can do, I suppose, is to be kind and help each other carry on, which I ask and pray we will.

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Five years ago now, I wrote in my first post here, “When all is said, is life meant to be won or should it mean something more?” I’ve written 135 posts in that time to an audience of ether in the netherworld, but I suppose I’ve written for, if not to, myself.

I’ve covered historical anniversaries many times for the perspective that recalling events provides. I’ve occasionally called for compassion, or at least understanding, and to make some sense of why so many embrace lies and division as badges of identity. Occasionally, I’ve posted a poem or two as a moment of reflection.

I can’t say I’ve made a difference here, other than in grounding myself enough to carry on in a world that is sometimes hostile, often indifferent, but still breathtakingly beautiful. Today, as disease and death continue to threaten all, it is good to welcome the morning, to be alive and able to mark the passage of time with a few more words here from my meta soapbox.

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On this day, December 26, in i991, the Soviet flag was replaced atop the Kremlin with the Russian flag, symbolizing the dissolution of the USSR. The night before, Mikhail Gorbachev had resigned as leader of the Union, leaving it to crumble into Russia and a host of new states that most of us still can’t name, other than to note that some end in “stan.”

If you are under thirty, the Soviet Union probably seems vaguely like another Ottoman Empire from the later chapters of European history books, and like them all, it too faded into history. It was, however, for half a century, a genuine threat to the West, because of its centralized control of its nuclear weapons, too many of which still exist in Russian hands. The USSR was never Communist in anything but name, but the risks from its ideology to democracy or capitalism, or whatever name you give to the Western way of life, were considered a serious existential threat.

Francis Fukuyama published a book entitled “The End of History and the Last Man” suggesting that in some Hegelian sense that liberalism might have finally triumphed, instead of Marxism. In order to maintain a society however, a common enemy seems to be necessary as a uniting threat, and soon enough we found the threat of terrorism to replace the once Red enemy. The COVID 19 virus should be a real enough enemy to bring us all together, but it seems to have been subsumed in the rush to divide our nation into warring factions, turning masks, or their lack, into symbolic flags.

Russian troops now sit on its border with Ukraine, one of the former Soviet states, testing perhaps whether history merely took a much needed rest, only to return and perhaps repeat itself with its own form of vengeance. We should certainly hope as one that it does not.

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No one knows precisely, or at least has told, when the first case of COVID 19 occurred, but we do know that it was right about this date, December 9, two years ago. Odds are, the experts say, that some version of the disease will be with us forever, though it could already be less front of mind if vaccines were more readily available where they are not and if those where vaccines are had the sense to get them.

I’ve posted before about pandemics, and this post is not intended to look back, but rather to take stock of where we are. Mask wearing has long been common in Japan and in some other Asian countries, as protection and as a gesture of courtesy and respect. It, or rather the lack of a mask, has become an inane political statement here, and seems likely, as a result, to make mask wearing for the rest of us a fairly permanent necessity here.

Travel is apt to become less common for the forseeable future, as will be many things we once took for granted, like eating out and shopping in person. Seeing packed stadiums runs counter to that prediction, but I know there are many who would not venture into such settings for now. In my mind, such mass insanity seems to be one of the side-effects of the disease.

Some once thought that herd immunity might cause COVID 19 to retreat into hiding, but variants and vaccine hesitancy make that a distant dream. Indeed, the beginnings of a fourth wave of infections, on the back of the Delta variant and with the onset of the yet-to-be understood Omicron variant, has put hope on life support for now.

We don’t know precisely who the first case of COVID 19 was and, if we don’t work together as one, we will never see the last. I would like to end this post on a note of optimism, but that seems as endangered as hope for now.

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On December 6, 1941 – eighty years ago today, Japanese fighter planes attacked Pearl Harbor in Hawaii. My father was thirteen at the time and was affected by the day enough to soon apply for the Army, only to be sent home.

The attack was technically a surprise, though tensions with Japan and also Germany had been increasing for some time as America was drawn toward war to defend its allies. Fewer Americans were killed that day than on September 11, 2001, but its impact was even more devastating to the psyche of the nation, steeling it for war in ways that Japan could not have expected.

The attack has been memorialized in film multiple times, but actual memories have faded as Tom Brokaw’s Greatest Generation have slowly passed way. The eldest son of my father’s family was accepted into the Marine’s and fought in the battle of Iwo Jima. He died not too long ago, but I wrote a short poem about him and his experience. I share it here in his honor.

Nearly ninety now

and still it is hard to speak

of Iwo Jima

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It was on this day, November 14, 1971, that the still-unsolved “DB Cooper” hijacking happened in the Pacific Northwest. It took place in the period before current airplane security existed and during the myriad of “Take me to Cuba” and similar hijackings took place. To this day, no one knows who Dan Cooper (the actual name he used) was, whether he survived his parachute escape somewhere in the area around Mount St. Helens, and what happened to most of the $200,000 he took as ransom.

The Wikipedia article on him and the event is one of the better reads you’ll find on the site, detailing the event and the numerous suspects identified in the 50 years since the hijacking.

Many have speculated that he died after parachuting from the plane at night and during a rainstorm in business dress into the remote area, but Boeing 727 jets had been used for CIA drops in that era, and an experienced, or lucky, skydiver could have successfully made the jump, according to some. No sign of his parachutes (one was a reserve chute that has been disabled and was only for demonstration) was ever found. Three packets of the money (matching serial numbers saved by the FBI) were found in 1980 on the banks of the Columbia river, but the fact that several bills were missing and that they might have somehow washed ashore together only deepened the mystery.

If “Cooper” had died, one would think someone would have later reported him missing, which helped fuel the many conspiracy theories that he did survive and returned to normal life after the holidays weekend. Purveyors of these theories have tried to pedal books, films and such over these now 50 years and theories, no doubt, will continue to surface. Just as an unrelated example, just this week the New York Times printed a new report on where Jimmy Hoffa was buried after his 1975 disappearance.

One thing is certain, as long as such mysteries remain unsolved, someone is apt to try to make money off them.

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October 26, 2021

To lovers of baseball the two best days of the year are Opening Day in April and today, the first day of the World Series. Both are filled with anticipation and hope, so much like a child’s Christmas.

This evening, my home team, The Atlanta Braves, take on the much-hated Astros in Houston. The joke making the rounds is that the Braves may not be able to find Minute Maid Field because the Astros stole the signs. If you don’t get the joke, you can’t be among the true lovers of baseball.

The pundits of sports have plenty to say about the teams, their stars – those likely and not, and even the state of the game, but I have just a few lines of my own to share.

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As it happens (or happened), the iPod was introduced twenty years ago today, which modern historians (if there are such things) are apt to declaim as the beginning of the end of social interaction for civilized society (which I suppose begs a question).

But such talk pales in the face of the fact (well, assertion) that today marks 6025 years since the creation of the world, or at least as Bishop James Usher concluded in 1650. Specifically, by interpreting the Bible and other works, he wrote that time began on the nightfall of October 22, 4004 B.C. (or as now preferred, B.C.E.). The first day, therefore, was October 23, from which he marked the start of creation.

Some rightfully compare his effort to counting the number of angels who could stand on the head of a pin, but Usher was, in fact, a serious scholar and put equally serious effort into his calculation, going so far as to determine that time must have been created before the Creation began, thus the evening before the Beginning.

Stephen Jay Gould, the modern writer and evolutionary biologist, credited Usher’s effort as sincere for its time and a worthy effort, which is more than faint praise from the famous religious skeptic. The fact that Usher’s now ancient work is still claimed as support by modern Creationists, however, is sad at best. Even Usher, in what amounts to a forward to his work, tinkered with the timing, ultimately concluding the Beginning as beginning at 6:00 P.M. on October 22, 4004 B.C., which I presume was Greenwich Mean Time (or U.T.C.), though that was not created (if you will) until 1884.

Perhaps someday when computers replace us, they might date the dawn of their creation to twenty years ago today, in honor of the iPod.

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It is October and the League Championship Series are in (yes) full swing. The Astros took the Red Sox 5 to 4 in Game 1 of the ALCS and meet again today. The Braves meet the Dodgers this evening. If you’ve followed the game for 50 some-odd years like me, as you enjoy today’s games, you will surely note that it was today, October 16, that the Mets won the 1969 World Series.

The expansion Mets had never previously had a winning season and became the Amazin’ Mets by simply making it to the World Series. They were up agains the world-class Orioles and the likes of Frank and Brooks Robinson, and pitchers like Jim Palmer and Jerry Koosman. The Mets, managed by the great Gil Hodges, had future greats with now familiar names like Tom Seaver and Nolan Ryan, whose appearance in Game 3 was his only World Series game in 27 years pitching.

When the season started in April, the Mets had a 100 to 1 chance of winning the World Series. Tom Hanks may have said there’s no crying in baseball, but now and then there are miracles. Looking back on my life not that long ago, that serendipity inspired this little piece, that seems appropriate to share today.

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