Forget The Hourglass

Contents:
Forget The Hourglass
Winter Question Answers
Spring Question
The Ball Game, a story, part 1

Live your life and forget your age.

Jean Paul
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I just turned 72. That means I lived 36 years twice. I like that idea. It also means I lived to be 24 three times. I like that even better.

"Old rockin' chair's got me, my cane by my side" wrote Hoagy Carmichael.
"You're too old for that" says someone else. "Act your age" says another.

Ask President George Bush if he was too old to go sky diving. Ask John Glenn if he was to old to go into orbit again. A few years ago I understudied Douglas Campbell in a large and difficult role. He was 83. I never played it. He played every performance. Who gave George Burns permission to live to 100? Who told Irving Berlin to sign out at 101?

"They try to tell us we're too young
Too young to really be in love"
(Nat King Cole)

I know a young man whose girl friend is 15 years older than he is. She has no problem with it, neither does he. A person has to be at least 35 years old to be President of the United States. But Lafayette entered the American Revolutionary War as a Major General at the age of 19. The first human cannonball was a 14 year old girl called Zazel. Mozart was playing his own music on the harpsichord in public at the age of 5,

Life is about living, not about counting ages.

I can't do some of the things old folks do any more. I'm not as old as I used to be.

DB - The Vagabond
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WINTER QUESTION ANSWERS

What was the most significant event of 2010?
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BP Oil Spill
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my answer: The Chilean miners were rescued.
A you tube video depicting the incident:
http://youtu.be/XGecqHnN2gQ
entitled:
Chile Miners Rescue Video: Joy as capsule raises trapped men to surface
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I remember the big oil spill
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The most significant event of 2010 for me was penning my third book (which sadly I'm still in revision with). (Hugs)Indigo
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2010, most significant event... I would say the Haiti earthquake, followed closely by the BP Oil Spill and November elections.
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The most significant event of 2010 for me, was the dawning of Jan. 1, 2011.
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Most significant event of 2010? My actually getting on a plane at John McNamara airport with a destination for Omaha...
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So many significant events happened last year, but my vote for the most significant is going to FIFA World Cup South Africa. The whole world focuses its eyes on soccer supremacy. Borders, barriers, language, culture, politics, religion wealth, age ------ all disappear in the name of sport. No game in the world has as much significance as soccer, or football if you prefer. Just for a few weeks every four years, people put aside their differences and focus on the game. It always amazes me that sport has a way of uniting the world far better than any politicians.


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Most significant events of 2010: Globally, I think it was the Haitian earthquake and the world's response to it, and for the U.S., Wikileaks.
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I think, after this country woke from a decade of international belligerence, and began to feel the future again, that was the year we realized how much we'd been hobbled and how far we had to go. 1st step on a long road.
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Thank you all.
DB
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SPRING QUESTION

NASA has planned to send a two man mission on an 18 month trip to the planet Mars. It would take 6 months for the astronauts to get there and after 6 months of exploration another 6 months to return.

Should they do it and why, and if not, why not?

dbdacoba@aol.com

I eagerly await your answer.

DB
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The Ball Game,
a story in 7 parts

Part 1

The first time Jimmy Login saw his father was at a stick ball game on a Brooklyn street. His father died when Jimmy was only 3. Jimmy doesn't remember him and only knows him from a photograph his mother has of a handsome, smiling man with glasses His mother said Jimmy's father was a physicist who was working on a top secret project when he died.

Billy Ferguson threw the ball with great force and it hit the step with a loud wallop. Jimmy held the stick firmly ready to hit the ball if he could. At that moment he heard a man's voice call his name: "Jimmy." He looked up and just for a flash saw his father's smiling face, just like in the picture. Then he saw the ball coming toward him gradually and gracefully, like a bubble on the wind, as if the whole game was suddenly in slow motion.

When it drifted right in front of him he swung hard and hit the ball squarely on. It flew up fast, bounced off the side of the building, went tumbling down the street and rolled under a parked car.

"Wow" someone said.

That was the first time Jimmy saw his father. But not the last.

(Part 2 tomorrow.)
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Inner Space

Life would be so wonderful if we only knew what to do with it.

Greta Garbo
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Why does it take decades fro most of us to really understand ourselves and know what we want to do with our lives. We may have a clear enough idea once, but then things come along to cloud it, jobs, making a living, raising a family. And when we get to our senior years maybe we rediscover what it was we wanted to live for, and maybe not. I sometimes query myself about some of the things I wanted during my childhood, trying to remember.

Some people never do discover themselves, but they probably don't know it since their lives have been occupied doing something, and maybe it was important and fulfilling to them in a way.

Then there are some lucky people who got started when they were young on exactly the right highway to take them to the lives they wanted. Listening to the astronauts being interviews I note that most of them were inspired to work somehow in the space industry when they were quite young. They were intrigued by such things as the flight of Yuri Gagarin, or John Glenn, and later by Neil Armstrong stepping on the moon. The activities of the astronauts and cosmonauts are still inspiring kids today.

I wanted to be an astronaut when I was 12. Only there were no such things in those days. No one had been to the moon, no one had even been into outer space, in fact nothing had been there. The sputnik hadn't been launched yet. That wasn't going to happen for another 6 years. But I knew we would travel into outer space and I wanted to do that.

I was soon completely talked out of any venture into space by those who thought they were authorities on the subject. So I did the next best thing, I went into show business.

Like Greta Garbo I retired from my acting career. That was about 10 years ago. I was never a star like Garbo, but as she I was peppered with questions about it. I don't know what she did with her life after her retirement, she was a solitary figure who could occasionally be seen out for a stroll in Manhattan, but rarely spoke to anyone.

I enjoy watching NASA TV, seeing the launches and the work being done on the space station. I no longer think about going into space (though wouldn't that be fun?) but my life's adventure now is into a different universe. It's a mental space I lift off into now. Just as vast and unexplored. And one of these days I hope to achieve orbit.

DB - The Vagabond
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WINTER QUESTION
(This is not a contest)

What was the most significant event that happened in 2010?

dbdacoba@aol.com

Only 6 responses so far

I await your answer.
DB
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