Heroes and Legends

4
Posted by on in Assistance, collaborating, Community, Historical, Inspiration, Personal Values, Service Activities, Social, Striving, Travel

March 22, 2022, Vero Beach- The above title is also the first building one enters, at Kennedy Space Center’s Visitor Complex, in Merritt Island, FL. Heroic figures aplenty are presented, visually and audibly, at this intensely captivating and informative science center. To be sure, having grown up in the classic period of the Space Age’s inception, I have my share of those who I hold in very high regard: Alan Shepard, John Glenn, Walter Schirra, Gus Grissom, Deke Slayton, Neil Armstrong, Sally Ride, Krista McAuliffe, Ronald McNair, Eugene Cernan, even Yuri Gagarin and Gherman Titov. My heroes, in general, are both male and female, of all ethnicities and skin tones-and it does not matter that I, a heterosexual cisgender white male, hold this view. Heroism is about character and achievement.

Heroes and Legends Hall, Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex, Merritt Island, FL

My first hero, my father, would have turned 95 today. He worked in aeronautics his entire adult life, so to visit Kennedy Space Center on this particular day was a sublime blessing. He held the astronauts in high regard, as well, admitting to being a bit overwhelmed by all the science that the increasingly complex business of space was encapsulating. I do think he would have thoroughly enjoyed this place, though.

Several whooshes of cold air and descriptions of rocket launches later, I walked out to Rocket Garden, where those vessels that launched so many legends into space are exhibited, at least by type.

Rocket Garden, Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex
Buck Rodgers and Flash Gordon media, Heroes and Legends Hall

Suitable mention was made of the works of fiction that stimulated so many minds with thoughts of space travel, from the 1920s to the actual inception of successful space flight. These stimulated many young people to seek training and careers in the inchoate field of astronautics. Among them were all those we know today as astronauts-both men and women, and so many astronomers who foster and guide the space travelers.

There has been so much heartbreak and tragedy coming out of the Space program, as there is in any novel and complicated operation. Three jarring events stand out: The 1967 explosion which killed Apollo 1 astronauts Gus Grissom, Ed White and Roger Chaffee; the deaths of the seven crew members in the Challenger explosion of 1986; the launch time deaths of seven crew members in the atmospheric re-entry explosion of 2003. They underscore the fact that many failures take place, in all phases of research and implementation of aerospace work.

The crew of Apollo 1.
Model of Apollo module

Project Apollo was the stuff of the greatest sagas, even of conspiracy theories that say the moon landing never happened. It was Gemini, the intermediate step between earth orbit and the moon missions, that deserves equal billing. Eugene Cernan, the first person to walk in space, described his experience: His blood pressure hit as high as 170; He lost 13 pounds in 2 hours; the heat shield on the module reached 3,500 degrees Fahrenheit, making egress and return to the capsule a tortuous affair. The work of the Gemini pioneers has made all the difference going forward, from Apollo through the shuttles and Space Station era.

My last stop at the Space center was the Shuttle Hall, at which a hundred people at a time were treated to seeing the Shuttle Atlantis, retired in July, 2011, after logging in over a million miles.

Space Shuttle Atlantis, Shuttle Hall, Kennedy Space Center

There are many things that can unite people of all backgrounds and viewpoints. The exploration of space is a field with which anyone can identify. Space, like the Earth itself, belongs to all of us.

“Another Day In Paradise”

2
Posted by on in Assistance, collaborating, Community, Historical, impediments, Inspiration, Personal Values, Service Activities, Social, Striving, Travel, Uncategorized

March 21, 2022, West Melbourne, FL- The day began and ended with the above comment-from two different motel employees: A handyman in Brunswick and a desk clerk here in West Melbourne. Part of my whole reason for being here in the Southeast is to discern how ordinary people are faring, under the blend of libertarianism and laissez-faire economics that is taking deeper root in this part of the country.

I have no issue with any given practice of government when the average person, across ethnicities and genders, is not made to suffer or be left out of a climate of prosperity. So far, I have seen people in places like Brunswick, Amelia Island/Fernandina Beach and Daytona Beach doing fairly well. I have seen a few people in Cape Canaveral and here in the Melbourne area who are not. Much depends on the local economy, but state and Federal policies also impact us.

My first stop in Florida, this morning, was American Beach, on Amelia Island, Florida, once a vacation place for African-Americans, during the days before desegregation. The country’s first African-American millionaire, Abraham Lincoln Lewis, established the beach for just this purpose, in 1935. His work was carried on by his granddaughter, MaVynee Betsch, carried on his work of preserving the beach and its Historic District, until her death in 2005. American Beach remains a National Historic Site.

Birney Beach House, at American Beach, Amelia Island
Dunes at American Beach
White sand and incoming tide, American Beach

In between visits with family, my focus is on the broader society. Fernandina Beach, the main community on Amelia Island, is Florida’s northeasternmost town. It was the site of a brief battle between American revolutionaries and British troops, in 1777. The area was then controlled by Britain, as the Territory of East Florida. Although the British retained control of the town, there was significant damage done by the Revolutionaries.

Information on Revolutionary War battle on Amelia Island.

Today, Fernandina is a comfortable, bustling holiday place. It was helped, early, by the establishment of Florida’s first Atlantic to Gulf Railroad, from Fernandina to Cedar Key.

Information on Atlantic-to-Gulf Railroad
Centre Street, Fernandina Beach, FL

After a gyro (pronounced JY-ro, in these parts) on pita, at 4th Street Deli, it was time to see what was up at Daytona Beach International Raceway- as NASCAR is a good barometer of how mainstream America is faring. The Raceway was closed. It’s not racing season, and it is Monday, to boot. Mainstream America was at Buc-ee’s, though, buying scrumptious brisket and pulled pork sandwiches, and a mix of travel essentials/trinkets. I picked up a brisket sandwich-and some rub-on sunscreen, to compensate for the sunblock I left behind in Arizona.

Bucc-ee’s, at Daytona Beach
Daytona Beach International Raceway

My last stop of the day, before arriving at my lodging, was the city of Cape Canaveral-now primarily a shipping port. The slowness of the recent supply chain difficulties, themselves partly arising from the Coronavirus Pandemic, seems to have affected the town, though I saw commercial traffic somewhat steady this afternoon. The Kennedy Space Center, west of Cape Canaveral, may be an early morning stop, tomorrow, and may offer a better sense of how the community is faring, given that Canaveral has been intertwined with America’s efforts in the Cosmos.

It’ll certainly be another day in paradise.

“The Sound of Heaven Touching Earth”

2
Posted by on in collaborating, Community, Historical, impediments, Personal goals, Personal Values, Social, Striving, Travel, Uncategorized

March 20, 2022, Brunswick, GA- The feisty preacher had her congregation singing this refrain in unison, as a prelude to her energetic homily, as services proceeded in Mary Ross Waterfront Park, along East River. This is life in Brunswick, after the verdicts in the Ahmaud Arbery case.

Mary Ross Waterfront Park

The crew at Sunrise Diner is downhome and multiracial. They work tightly together as a team, with no daylight between them, in terms of pecking order or separation. The owner mans the host stand, his mother is floor manager and his son alternates between serving and bussing, with his daughter moving about, acting as both server and hostess. Men of colour are servers, bussers and cooks, but are treated as full members of the team. Regulars were being greeted warmly, as was this visitor-never treated as a stranger. The portions are not overbearing; they are just filling and delicious.

It was important to see this, on the heels of what could have been a good deal less than the move forward that came from the trial. Certainly, there is a lot that could yet be done, in terms of community growth, yet I got the sense that people here want the world to know that they, and much of the rest of the South, are moving forward in a positive way.

The area was settled by James Oglethorpe and his band of colonists in 1738, as Britain was seeking a buffer to Spanish Florida. Oglethorpe was a forward-looking egalitarian, who opposed slavery, well before the majority of colonists were ready to give up the system. For that, he would be ostracized and would leave Georgia for good, in 1743. From then on, Brunswick and Savannah, both platted out by Oglethorpe in an easily navigable manner with lots of green space, would follow the rest of the plantation-bounded communities, in maintaining a culture of black enslavement. A plain monument to him is found in Queen’s Square.

Monument to James Oglethorpe, Queen’s Square, Brunswick

Hanover Square is the largest of three parks designed by James Oglethorpe for Brunswick’s downtown core. It has several live oaks, symbiotic with Spanish moss, a salubrious fountain and a plain monument to Confederate soldiers. This last is the subject of ongoing debate, though it is easily overlooked. So far, there has been no lasting decision made about the small obelisk. Here is a view of the fountain.

Fountain, Hanover Square, Brunswick

Lastly, here are Old City Hall and a view of East River, which is Brunswick’s channel to the sea.

Old City Hall, Brunswick
American Star

It is important to me to visit and engage those communities at which many may look askance. There is a wellspring of hope rising in Brunswick, as there is in Minneapolis, and many other communities which have found their internal conflicts boiling over. I hope to see this happening in peninsular Florida, as well, in the coming days.

Thunder, Lightning and Patience

2
Posted by on in Assistance, collaborating, Family, impediments, Personal Values, Social, Striving, Travel

March 19, 2022, Brunswick, GA- The young lady looked at the stuck register and tried, several times, to process my modest dinner transaction. When a teenager has trouble with technology-the struggle is definitely real. The manager came and got the machine back on track, while simultaneously dealing with what looked like a HUGE order that had somehow been messed up by the kitchen staff. Such was Saturday night at the Zaxby’s, in Dublin, GA, a place that first won my heart a few years back. It’s nothing special, in the wider scheme of things, but the kids took good care of me in 2018, the last time I was down this way, flustered and looking for a place to spend the night.. There’s a different crew now, of course, but some of the same people, who were having dinner there then, were there tonight. A boy who must have been no more than five, the last time, somehow remembered me and waved hello.

Patience was definitely the order of the day, once I got to Budget Rent-a-Car’s facility, near Hartsfield. Airport car rentals are almost always swamped, but today every rental company’s staff was telling their customers the same thing: “Plan on one or two hours of waiting, folks. Our vehicle turnaround staff is shorthanded.” I was long ago gifted with the ability to see what other people are enduring, thanks to Mom, who instilled that in us. So, sitting calmly on the floor by a support beam and passing the time by watching and listening to people, who were in the same boat as I was, was not a huge deal.

Ninety minutes after I was let off by the Uber driver from Newnan, I was in my own vehicle- a black Hyundai Sonata, replete with push button starter, touch gears and a cruise control system that slows down automatically, when the vehicle is getting close to the one in front. There is also the safety tone that goes off when another vehicle is in one’s blind spot and a screen warning, if one drifts a bit and the car hits the lane bumps: “It may be time to take a break.”

When I neared Savannah, some 70 miles north of here, the rain started in earnest. Once in Brunswick, the thunder and lightning joined in the festivities. Fortunately, my time outside in the fracas was limited, as both of my bags could be carried in at once. Yes, this time, Mr. Bring-the-Household Along has managed to confine himself to a modicum of items. Gone are the days when I will be seen trudging along, underneath three or four bags, trying to find the door to the night’s lodging.

I will be here in Brunswick until Monday morning, with a possible jaunt up to Savannah tomorrow afternoon, weather-permitting. It was a supremely lovely visit with my Atlanta area family, and I look forward to equally enjoyable, if briefer, time with family and friends around the periphery of peninsular Florida, over the next twelve days or so.

Spring is about to get sprung!

Red Sky at Morning…..

4
Posted by on in Community, Historical, impediments, Inner Struggles, Personal Values, Striving, Travel

March 18, 2022, Newnan, GA- The scene this morning, over Lake Redwine was beautiful, if a bit ominous.

Sunrise at Lake Redwine, Newnan, GA

My brother, Dave, and I headed out early towards Andersonville, the site of the largest Confederate prisoner-of-war camp (1864-65) and of the modern National Prisoner-of-War Museum. We drove down, past the central Georgia cities of Columbus and Macon, through the smaller communities of Buena Vista and Ellaville, getting gas at the former. Once we got to the village of Andersonville, a kind lady gave us directions to the park itself.

We found ourselves blessed with cloudy, but not rainy, skies for most of the time we were in the outdoor Prison Site. Andersonville was established when smaller prisoner-of-war camps in Virginia and Alabama became overcrowded. Union soldiers, suspected spies and captured free Blacks were housed here, under increasingly fraught conditions. The facility was originally intended to house a maximum of 10,000 prisoners; at war’s end, 32,000 were incarcerated there. It was minimally-funded, and at various times during the Civil War’s late phase, prisoners were either housed in tents or were told to fashion their own accommodations, from whatever materials they could find.

Prisoners’ tents, Andersonville Prison for Captured Union soldiers

Monuments exist, in honour of captured soldiers from several states. Here is the memorial to Wisconsin’s captives.

Monument to Wisconsin soldiers, who were incarcerated at Andersonville.

The North Gate of the tightly-built stockade, in which newly-arrived prisoners were oriented to the prison camp, has been restored.

Entrance to North Gate of Stockade, Andersonville POW Camp
View of North Gate of stockade, Andersonville POW Camp

The facility’s main water source was Stockade Branch, a low-flowing, fetid creek. Dysentery and vermin were rife, and 13,000 people died at the camp, in only 14 months. Food supplies were meager. One miraculous event relieved the misery, somewhat. In August, 1864, a sudden downpour, accompanied by a lightning strike, resulted in a spring being opened. Grateful prisoners dubbed this water source Providence Spring.

Spring House at Providence Spring, Andersonville POW Camp

The camp’s commandant, Captain Henry Wirz, was a Swiss immigrant who had settled in Virginia and was sympathetic to the Confederate cause. He was alternately regarded as a fair-minded man, in over his head and an uncompromising brute. Wirz was singled out, after the war, tried for war crimes and executed by a tribunal.

Andersonville has a sizable National Military Cemetery, still in use for contemporary veterans’ burials. A freed prisoner, Dorence Atwater, worked with Clara Barton after the war, to identify those buried at the cemetery, from prison records, which Atwater himself copied and smuggled out of the facility, upon his release at war’s end.

Andersonville National Cemetery

The Prisoner-of-War Museum honours all American Prisoners-of-War, from the Revoutionary War through the Afghanistan Conflict. Exhibitions also contain information about Confederate soldiers held at Elmira, New York-a facility which was no better than Andersonville; Axis soldiers held at camps in the United States, during World War II and British prisoners of war held both during the War for Independence and the War of 1812. A display on Native Americans from the various “Indian Wars”, is included in the museum, as well.

There are spoken presentations by the late John McCain and Admiral James Stockdale, mirroring the overall message: “War is hell!”.

May the departed prisoners rest in peace, and may we soon learn the meaning of universal brotherhood.

Entrance to National Prisoners-of-War Museum and Visitors’ Center, Andersonville, GA

A Picasso Immersion

2
Posted by on in children, Entertainment, Family, Inner Struggles, Personal Values, Social, Striving

March 17, 2022, Newnan, GA- The conflict in Ukraine brings up images of Pablo Picasso’s Guernica, at least for me. Thus today’s visit to the Picasso Immersion, at the Pullman Warehouse Exhibition Hall, in Atlanta’s Five Points area, was particularly poignant. Guernica, for the unitiated, is the large painting in the center of this montage of Picasso’s cubist works.

Picasso’s works, from 1890-1960,were largely his reaction to the horrific World Wars, Spanish Civil War and what he saw as the rise of materialism. Pablo Picasso had his own mind about the political reality of the day and would depict those he regarded as corrupt and decadent, in a monstrous manner-representing Francisco Franco, for example, as a pile of inedible food, in Guernica, itself named for a village in northern Spain that had been bombed by Franco’s forces during the Spanish Civil War.

Picasso was a varied artist, though, and was able to represent people beloved to him, in a more conventional manner. He wrote poetry as well, such as the autobiographical “A Lonely Road Is That I Walked”:

“I walk a lonely road, the one and only one I’ve ever known.
I don’t know where it goes, but I keep walking on and on.
I walked the lonely and un trodden road for I was walking on the bridge
of the broken dreams.
I don’t know what the world is fighting for or why I am being instigated.
It’s for this that I walk this lonely road for I wish to be
ALONE!
So I am breaking up, breaking up.
It is the lack of self control that I feared as there is something
Inside me that pulls the need to surface, consuming, confusing.
Being called Weird, I walk this lonely road for on the verge of broken dreams.
And so I walk this lonely road and so just keep walking still” – pablo picasso

Like e.e. cummings after him, Picasso created in a self-deprecating fashion. He was somewhat devoted to his children, who were the only people allowed in his studio, while he worked. From the 1920s until the end of World War II, he hobnobbed with the avant-garde, in the south of France, only occasionally returning to Spain, for short periods of time. He reacted to what he saw as crass materialism, by becoming a Communist after World War II and continuing to depict members of the economic and social elite, in unflattering ways.

Picasso has always been a source of fascination to me, although admittedly an acquired taste, and requiring of considerable pondering and rumination, as to the meaning of his surrealist work. This immersion event has whetted my appetite for exploration of other great artists of our time and of earlier eras.

There was no corned beef and cabbage for us, today. The crew gathered for St. Patrick’s Day dinner, at a Taco Max in Dunwoody, north of Atlanta, and enjoyed fairly copious amounts of guacamole-along with rather good Mexican dishes. The children have their own take on everything, much like Senor Picasso. I hope to see them reach for the stars and not suffer undue hardship. It was a rare, but most enjoyable visit with our Dunwoody family.

May art, and creativity, ever be honoured and encouraged.

The Trumpeters

2
Posted by on in Assistance, collaborating, Community, Family, Hiking and Nature, Inner Struggles, Personal Values, Social, Spiritual, Striving

March 16, 2022, Newnan, GA- Three trumpeter swans, mother, father and son, make the rounds of Lake Redwine, an artificial lake around which many new homes on the west side of this relatively serene town in west Georgia have sprung up in recent years. I am here, for three days, visiting my middle brother and his wife.

The swans, for years, kept other water fowl, particularly ducks, from settling in around the lake. An attack on the mother swan, by a snapping turtle, three years ago, resulted in her losing her lower beak. This seems to have mellowed out the trio. They have turned inward, reverting to the cygnine behaviour of parents bullying their cygnet into leaving the nest, once it comes of age. So far, it has not worked. Dutiful son still looks after his mother, even if it seems she may want him to move on.

How close to human are these opposing behaviours? The difference is that the birds are acting on instinct. Humans, with the powers of reason and utterance, still manage to hold grudges and thrive on half-truths. I will not give any specific examples, out of respect to those involved, but I keep learning of families in which parents and children push each other away, and not always out of a desire to see the other become self-sufficient.

With the swans, there are winners: The offspring get to start their own family and the parents can hatch a new set of cygnets. With humans, the hits often just keep on coming.

Humility and forgiveness-are these so impossible?

For The Hostages, on the Ides

2
Posted by on in Community, impediments, Personal Values, Social, Spiritual

March 15, 2022- It has been reported that some 500 people are being held by Russian troops at a hospital in Mariupol, Ukraine. 400 of these are residents of the area near the facility and 100 are a mix of medical staff and patients. The situation is a breach of all that is humane, but that ship sailed several days ago. For all the posturing about Ukrainian neo-fascists in the Azov Brigade, most, if not all, of the brutality that is quantifiable is coming from the invaders-not from the defenders.

This is a short post, as I have a very early wake-up, tomorrow. It is no less important, though, that the world is kept abreast of matters like this. The true horror of war is largely the stuff of how innocents are treated. So far, there is no sign of any adherence, on the part of the invaders, to those provisions of the Geneva Convention that pertain to the treatment of civilians, of noncombatants.

I say goodnight, with prayers for their safety on my lips and in my heart.

Pi in the Sky

0
Posted by on in Assistance, distraction issues, Education, Historical, impediments, Inspiration, Personal Values, Social, Striving

March 14, 2022- It is noteworthy that the ancient Greeks recognized pi, the number that is the basis for determining the ratio of the diameter to the circumference of a circle and pie, the normally circular pastry shell that has been used as a container for honey, nuts, chopped meat and fruits, since the Neolithic Period in Egypt. Pi, which is 3.14 when rounded to the nearest hundredth, was first defined by the mathematician Archimedes, though the civilizations of India, Babylon, Egypt and China each made use of the concept. Welshman William Jones clarified its usefulness to circular measurement, in 1706.

Today, 3/14, is recognized unofficially, as Pi Day. That it is enthusiastically embraced by bakers and sweet-toothed people around the globe does not detract from the mathematical awareness brought about through this light-hearted embrace of a key geometric construct. Pizzerias have gotten into the act, with even the makers of rectangular pizzas claiming to have finally “squared the circle”. Along with chess, fun events like this have helped math-phobes get a grip on their aversion to numerical sciences.

I used to be one of those who hated math, mainly because of the overly serious way in which the subject was broached by so many teachers. I was fortunate to have been flashcarded to distraction by my mother and one of my father’s aunts who would come by almost every week. In time, the cosmic jokesters had me serving as a mathematics teacher, to the dubious benefit of three years’ worth of middle and high school students.

Over time, pi has ceased to be a concept lost in the ether and math has found its way into my treasury of skills. Happy Pi Day, sweet-tooth or not!

No Stigma

0
Posted by on in Education, impediments, Inner Struggles, Personal Values, Social, Striving

March 13, 2022-

The workers in a Russian restaurant, in a large American city, found their place vandalized. There should be no stigma attached to their ethnicity or culture.

A Sikh family still mourns the slaying of their father and brother, twenty-one years after he was “mistaken for an Arab”. There should have been no stigma, even if he were an Arab, or just Muslim.

A well-groomed, well-mannered man, sporting a cowboy hat, enters a funky restaurant-bar, in a trendy West Coast town. The minute he speaks, “open-minded” people at a nearby table begin to snicker and offer ridicule. There should be no stigma, for a person’s life path and the persona that results from where one grows up.

Acceptance of others is a mirror of how each of us views self. Stigma is a mind trap.