Unavoidable

In this world, for that matter, in this life, there are some things that you just can’t avoid. It is just the way life works. We run into things that we are unable to prevent from happening. We might try to thwart them by being safe, pre-thinking our activities or by being constantly on edge, but still, things happen, usually when we least expect them!

                For instance, I was going to work the other day and had stopped at a stop sign. Looking both ways I saw an approaching car starting a turn into the street I was sitting on. Cutting the corner wide the driver didn’t see me until she hit me.

                There was no way I could have known that was going to happen, no way to prepare for it. I did have my seat belt on and I had stopped at the stop sign but these things did nothing to prevent her from driving into me. Luckily, no one was hurt, other than our pocket books.

                Some things are just unavoidable and there is nothing we can do about it.

                How about the “Pandemic”? Real or not, we are still affected by it. Businesses have shut down, some for good, people have lost jobs and others have experienced pay cuts. We now live in a world of masks, social distancing and working from home. Some people are afraid to go outdoors, we couldn’t even fathom this a year ago. Sadly, it is unavoidable.

                People are effected by stress, fears and anxieties we never imagined. Who would have envisioned ever becoming sick of hearing about masks?

                The dog left me a present on the clean carpet, nicely centered in front of the TV. Unavoidable.

On a more serious note, death and the feelings of sorrow and depression after losing someone close.  We all know that life is a fatal condition but the feelings we encounter after the loss of someone is unavoidable.

The important thing to remember is, there are some things that are unavoidable which are good! Not everything unavoidable is bad!

Such as, picking up a random book and falling into its spell. Wanting to find out what happens, caring for the characters in it, knowing that this is a book you’ll read again!  This doesn’t happen all the time and because of that, the pleasure of it is that much more intense!

Love! Finding that special person that you just fit together with. When you least expect it, suddenly there they are. The happiness that comes from the relationship, we don’t plan these things, they just happen. Often if we are attempting to find them, we never do, it is when you aren’t thinking about it. Someone enters your life and you realize how wonderful your life has become! When you least expect it, it can’t be avoided!

Some other things are the wonders of chance encounters, things that cause your heart to flutter, such as coming around a bend in the road and seeing a breath-taking view in front of you.  Unavoidable. Seeing the sky painted with the colors of the rising or setting sun.  Walking down to a stream and seeing a heron waiting for its dinner to swim by, and watching it and its reflection flying away from you after he spots you. Gasping as the view in your telescope sharpens and you see something you’ve never seen before. Smiling as a person says a random nice comment to you. Feeling your heart beat as you listen to your grandson’s laughter. Our lives are filled with wonderful things which can’t be avoided.  Good and bad, our mission, (should we choose to accept it) is to concentrate on finding the good in our world and not stressing over the bad!

Granted, it is easier said than done. I am writing these things not only as a comment on today’s world, but also as a reminder to myself that there is good out there and no matter how we sometimes get depressed and under the weather, it will get better! The sun will rise again tomorrow and chances are it will be accompanied with a beautiful sky!        We can’t avoid it!

Walkin' Into The Past

                With the promise of a beautiful day, AMB and I decided to take a drive. We ended up on the border of Westmoreland and Fayette Counties, along a nice stream called Jacobs Creek.  We parked our car at a gate to the State Game Lands and followed the dirt road downhill to the stream.

                We arrived at the edge of the game lands, about 4-5 miles above the small community of Jacobs Creek around 10:30. The temperature was comfortable but I knew it would be rising as the sun got higher in the sky. We took our hiking poles and some snacks and something to drink along with us. It goes without saying, the camera came along also!

                We met a nice couple coming up the road who had been picking elderberries. We BS’d a bit and then continued on. The road into the valley is about a mile and a half long. DOWNHILL! There was plenty of shade as we strolled along. Butterflies flitted between the wildflowers and grasshoppers flew in front of us as we neared them. The wildflowers were rather scarce; Queen Ann’s Lace, Brown Eyed Susan and some Chicory were the most prevalent. The dried and browned remnants of other flowers showed how the summer was advancing.

                We encountered a set of Railroad tracks and followed them for a ways until we could go under them. A huge iron bridge carried the tracks over the stream below. At the far side of the valley the tracks entered a short tunnel. The hill is appropriately named Tunnel Hill. On the far side of the tunnel is another, even taller iron RR bridge which crosses the Youghiogheny River. We had driven under it on our way up to the Game Lands. It would have been nice if a train had crossed it as we were near-by but none came along. I have yet to see any trains on this section of track in all the times I’ve been here. The tracks are shiny so they are used!

                Underneath the bridge, we passed a portion of road that had fallen away into the valley below. This is probably why the gate remains closed. The first time I had come here I was able to drive all the way down to the stream. Now, we need to use foot power rather than horsepower.

                The road increases its slant for the final section into the valley, luckily it isn’t far. Near the bottom we took a path off to our right which led us to an old road. This might have been made back in the late 1700’s when the valley had been used to make iron. Following the dirt path (I hesitate to call it a road) brought us to an old stone wall. It was the remnants of a charcoal house, a place to store fuel for an iron furnace situated in the valley below it. The wall was over two foot thick, in fact closer to three!  Two walls were still standing,  the back wall was a cliff and the fourth wall was just a pile of stones. The front of the wall was over 15 feet high and surprisingly in quite good shape, considering that the wall had been built over 200 years ago

                Across the path from the charcoal house ruins was a retaining wall built out of the same type of stone. It couldn’t be seen from where we were, it was only after we continued into the valley that it could be seen and appreciated.

                We returned to the dirt road and continued down into the valley bottom. Underneath the stone retention wall, which could just barely be seen through the foliage, was a triangular pile of dirt. Coming around to the stream side of the pile, some of the rectangular stones used to build the furnace came into view. If we hadn’t known the furnace was here, we would have walked right past it!

                This is what was left of the Alliance Furnace. Built on the Fayette County side of the stream, the furnace was first fired up in November of 1789. It was also named The Jacobs Creek Furnace and Turnbull’s Iron Works and Colonel Holker’s Iron Works, depending on who owned it at the time. It was the first iron furnace erected west of the Allegheny Mountains.

(Unknown date)

                Scrambling up to the top, the glazed inner stack is still visible. I find it fascinating to see these structures still standing so many years since they were last used. It was last fired in 1802, thirteen years after its first use. These rocks have been standing here for over two hundred and thirty years!

                While poking around I found a geocache hidden near-by. This was a pleasant surprise. The log had a lot of family names in it and a lot of the loggings mentioned the pandemic and how this was such a nice way of getting their minds onto more positive things! I know that AMB and I enjoyed the hike down to it, we haven’t been out as much as we used to in the pre-covid days.

                The climb back to the car took us a bit longer. The sun was high in the sky and the shade we had walked down in had disappeared. We took our breaks in whatever shade we could find. One foot in front of the other, break, repeat… Eventually we looked up and saw the gate above us. We had cold drinks waiting for us in a cooler, Gatorade never tasted so good!

                We took a different way home, enjoying the beauty of the back roads of Pennsylvania. Before we knew it we had found Rt.79 and were speeding towards home. Surprisingly enough, my knee wasn’t as sore as I thought it would be. It is the power of Peas! I put a bag of frozen peas on it when I got home, that and I took a Tylenol.

                The day was made for a drive and our hike made it even better! Blue skies with puffy white clouds hanging above the beautiful scenery of Western PA! Does it get any better than that?

Circles

 

Watching as the lunar orb

Slowly drifts through

My circular window to the sky.

 

I look on as craters,

Mares and mountains

Seem to pass beneath me.

 

The half lit disc shows

Mountains sitting

In darkness,

 

Peaks illuminated by

The sun, their bases

Waiting for the sunrise.

 

The bright area slips away, darkness appears.

A darkened disc against

An even darker sky.

 

 

Observing the surface shows

A faint star sitting

A short distance from the sphere.

 

 Slowly it nears, not rushing,

Taking Natures’ time,

Towards its’ inevitable disappearance.

 

It isn’t the star that moves.

The moon orbits the earth,

Earth spins round the sun.

 

Together they pass in front

Of the lone star,

Located light-years away.

 

It is a wonder from a higher power,

One of the many wonders

Circling around us, nightly!

Bitchin' About Lights

 

 I haven’t bitched about lights for awhile. Maybe it’s time once again.

I went outside last night and the sky was pretty clear. The seeing was OK, I could see a fair amount of stars and the moon wasn’t due to rise until nearly 11. Being ¾ illuminated, it would be hiding the stars as it got higher. (The moon is one of the world’s largest light polluters!)

Looking around the neighborhood I realized that it would be fruitless to take the telescope outside. Two neighbors on the right of my house had their porch lights on, shining right where I would set up my scope. To the left, the neighbor a house away from me has a light that is never off, sitting in their front yard, illuminating houses all around it. Luckily there is a row of RoseASharon which hides it from my front yard. But if I need to move the scope onto the street, I’m right in its glow. To make matters worse, across the street from me, the dining room light was on, this also shined right onto my observing spot.

I recently cut my hedges down a bit, they were getting a little out of hand. When I did this, it exposed myself to more lights.  I took the dog for a walk around the street and enjoyed what I could see. Everywhere I went, I ran into someone’s porch or walk light. Being a Friday night, there were 3 or 4 parties going on, bonfires were burning and laughter was heard. It reminded me of summers in the past, back in the care free days. I tripped a few light sensors during my walk and cursed under my breath.

If you know me at all, you’ve heard me talk about the problem of light pollution, or an even better term, light trespassing! Simply said, lights hide the stars with their glare. Lights also make our pupils shrink and because of that we can’t see the fainter stars in the sky. Exposed to a light, such as a car headlight or a porch light, it can take up to 20 minutes before our pupils open up again. To an astronomer, these are 20 LONG minutes!

 

            We as a population rarely see the wonders in the sky above us. The lights on the highways, parking lots, shopping centers and the cities hide these tiny gems from us. Most people have never seen the Milky Way! They don’t know what they are missing! It is important that our children see the stars above them!

 

I remember a time I was in West Virginia, camping near Seneca Rocks with the Explorers Club of Pittsburgh. A huge fire had been built and everyone was surrounding it with beers in hand. Meanwhile, I was about 25-30 yards away gazing at the sky. I could see Messier Objects by eye! The Milky Way was spread across the sky in all its glory. Try as I might, I couldn’t drag them away from the fire…their loss! The next time I went down the telescope went with me.

Another time, in the 80’s, we had gone to Lewes Delaware for a week. One night we went to a small bridge crossing a back waterway to fish for crabs. What a great way to get a cheap dinner! Tie a piece of chicken on a string and drop it off the bridge, a crab will grab it and not let go. All you do is pull it up and drop it in a bucket! Anyway…the sky there was fantastic, stars went from horizon to horizon. It was easy to get lost in them, the familiar stars we all (?) know were hidden by all the fainter stars that we usually don’t see from our light polluted skies. I doubt if this darkness could be experienced there now.

There was one other time which sticks in my mind. I was heading back home after visiting friends in New Hampshire. The Space Shuttle was due to cross the sky about 10 minutes after I left. I pulled over on the side of a small two lane road and got out to watch for it. The morning sky was filled with stars. I was in shock, I nearly forgot about the shuttle pass.  The absence of lights shows us so much! Even though this happened a decade or two ago, I remember it like it was yesterday! Wonder has a way of engraving things in our minds!

The astronomy club I belong to has two observatories, the closest one to me is in Deer Lakes Park. It is a twenty minute drive from my house. It is amazing to me how many more stars are visible from a site that close to where I live.  Sadly the darkness at the observatories is slowly disappearing, people just feel the need for light.

After walking the dog, I sat in a chair in the glow of the neighbor’s lights and looked at the stars I could still see. I have a light shield I built for this very reason but to set it up would take time and it wouldn’t hide all the lights anyway. I settled for the chair in the darkest spot I could find and enjoyed the stars I could see. Maybe I’ll try again on Saturday night I thought. Perhaps they will forget to flick their switches!

On Saturday night, I returned to the front yard around 10 and surprisingly, most of the neighbor’s lights were off. There were still a few problems though. Across the street, the front porch light was on along with two garage lights. They shined on my house and her neighbor’s house. The people beside me had their porch light off but they have a light on the side of their house. It illuminated the house beside them which in turn, shined on my observation site.

Light pollution along with Saturn & Jupiter and some of the stars of Sagittarius to the right

My light shield is to the left

I brought up my light shield and set it up, hiding the glow of the house on my side of the street. My hedges and my car helped block the light from across the street. Jupiter and Saturn were in a perfect spot for observing. I brought the 8” Newtonian out to allow for some closer views. After it became acclimated, the views were spectacular, even with the lights below the pair.

One of Jupiter’s moons was getting closer to the planet as I watched. It took over an hour for Europa to disappear behind the disc of Jupiter. It was sort of like watching paint dry…slowly it got closer and closer. I would observe Saturn for awhile and then go back to see how it was progressing.

I feel as if it took about three minutes from when it appeared to touch the planet’s surface till I couldn’t see it anymore. Watching the four bright moons move gave me a good perspective of what their orbits were like.

Saturn was as wonderful as always. By spending time watching the planet you can see things that a quick glance would miss. The seeing was rock steady! As I watched every so often it appeared to sharpen even more. I saw marking (though faint) on the planets disc and could see individual rings and a nice dark shadow on them from the planet. The planet had a definite 3 dimensional look to it!

I had an early call for church the next day so I started tearing the set-up down after watching Europa disappear. As I was writing down a couple notes, using my red flashlight to protect my night vision, a truck pulled into a parking spot down the street. His high beams caught me right in the eyes. Some very bad things drifted through my mind…a couple minutes later the lights went off and I heard his door close. I took another look through the scope before I put it in the house and DAMNED if his headlights didn’t come on again.

I had a good couple hours. Even with the lights surrounding me I still spent some time with the two large planets. I didn’t realize it then, but I was looking in the same area that the dwarf planet Pluto was in. Hmm, how did I miss that? I saw an occultation of one of Jupiter’s moons and I saw some great views of the ringed planet Saturn. Looking back, it almost makes me forget about the lights.

Mars and the Moon on Mateo’s first birthday

I took the telescope in and then watched the Moon and Mars rise up out of the trees. It made me think of my grandson Mateo. I was out observing the moon the day he was born, one year ago today! I will always have that mental connection of him and the Moon!  Happy Birthday Mateo!

Nocturnal Conjunction

The lights are off

Curtains drawn

Except one window,

Five stories up.

 

Silhouetted in it

A man, hands in pockets.

The hotel room behind

Exposed by the light.

 

Watching cars below

On the overpass.

Post-midnight traffic

Rushing home to roost.

 

Contemplating his past

Or his future, perhaps

His children, or

Missing his wife.

 

I’m tempted to toot my horn

Or flash my lights

But he’s gone…passed by

Now, only a memory.

 

 

                                                     Phil Breidenbach

 

Skater

Here is a little something to take our minds off of the present times. Forget the heat and the humidity and all those other things weighing us down. Soak up a little cool air and enjoy the ability some people have of superbly putting words together to take us to other places!

The Skater

by Ted Kooser

 

 

She was all in black but for a yellow pony tail
that trailed from her cap, and bright blue gloves
that she held out wide, the feathery fingers spread,
as surely she stepped, click-clack, onto the frozen
top of the world. And there, with a clatter of blades,
she began to braid a loose path that broadened
into a meadow of curls. Across the ice she swooped
and then turned back and, halfway, bent her legs
and leapt into the air the way a crane leaps, blue gloves
lifting her lightly, and turned a snappy half-turn
there in the wind before coming down, arms wide,
skating backward right out of that moment, smiling back
at the woman she'd been just an instant before.

 

 

from Delights & Shadows, Copper Canyon Press 

Seven and Eight Letter Words

                Quality has seven letters. So does Quinces, Quickly and Quasars. Hmm, how about Require and Quantify, no that has eight. But that would be even better if you could use it. I’m thinking about the game of Scrabble.

                I have been playing Scrabble on my Kindle and on the weekends with Ann Marie. It gets me thinking which I suppose is a good thing! While walking the dog the other day, seven letter words kept popping into my head. Most had the letter “Q” in them. One would lead to another and then that, to another. I was thinking seven letter words because in the game, if you use all the tiles in your holder, you earn another 50 points!

                When the game starts, if you would be lucky enough to get a seven letter word, with a Q or a Z in it and you could put either of those on a double letter space, that letter now becomes 20 points instead of 10.  Then the total gets doubled, so your 20 points now becomes 40! Then you add the extra 50 for using all your tiles. This gets your game off to a great start.

                To hit the double letter space you only need a five letter word. Q’s & Z’s, those are the big letters. Zithers, Azaleas, Zippers and Zoology. Request, Quarter, Quieter and Quietly. Oh there are so many of them, why can’t I think of them when I’m playing?

                What I’d really like to do is hit two of the triple word spaces in one turn. They are in the center and ends of the edges of the board. They are eight spaces apart so one letter (at least) would have to be already in-between the bonus spaces. Just imagine getting the letter score times three and then times another three since you hit both triple spaces. Then another 50 points on top of that since you used up all the letters in your holder. Oh it makes me drool just to think of it

                The problem is, I usually get seven vowels or seven consonants sitting in my holder. Four or five letter words are my average starting pick. A lot of this game is luck of the draw. Knowing some weird, odd words helps also. OK, a little strategy helps too.

                I walked a bit further, waiting for Red to do his business. I watched the sky above and thought about words…Quixotic, Barbeque or how about Zwieback, now that would be a good one! Or how about this seven letter word, Removal, which brings me to another topic.

 

                One of the conditions I have to abide by at work is the wearing of a mask. While working at our machine we can remove it but we have to put it on every time we are talking to someone or if anyone is close by. I’m not going to get into the pros and cons or the reasons why or why not we should wear them. During this pandemic, our employers have decided it is what we have to do. Since they are the ones paying me to come in and enjoy eight hours of fun and excitement, I’ll go along with their requirements. (Just a small bit of sarcasm there…)

Yesterday, after eight hours of work, covered in a fine layer of cast iron dust, I was more than ready to head home. The building is air conditioned but the mask I was wearing causes sweat to gather underneath it and with the moving it on and off, the hair of my goatee was getting pulled and tangled.  This caused the skin of my chin to get sore. Every time I pulled it back over my mouth and chin the hairs pulled again.

When I got home I went into the bathroom and took a pair of scissors and started chopping. I was just going to thin it a bit but before I knew it, I was going for it all. Hairs fell into the wastepaper basket, on the sink and all over the floor.

I am guessing that it has been about 30 years since I last shaved my chin. Back then it was black hair, not all this white and grey stuff. For some reason I seem to think it might have been Halloween when I did it. I do remember that my daughter Chelsey was not impressed. I believe a bit of crying might have happened, she didn’t recognize me and it scared her.

So, there I was, looking at a stranger looking back at me in the mirror. This wasn’t how I imagined I’d look. I’d like to think there was a bit of my dad looking back at me but mostly, it was a person I didn’t know.

Today, I was much more comfortable at work. The mask is still a pain in the ass… (yeah, I know what that implies…) but it feels a lot better than the day before! I’ll keep shaving it for awhile, but I miss it already and it has only been one day. Meanwhile, I have to make friends with that stranger in my mirror! That and think of a couple more seven and eight letter words! Success, Victory or Champion!