Building Something New From the Rubble of the Past

Ultra Deep Field Image from the Hubble Space Telescope

NASA/JPL 2014

Copyright © 2017

by Ralph F. Couey

I often find myself in idle contemplation of the universe.  Looking up on a clear night, I can see about 10,000 stars, each one demonstrating to me the finite and the infinite that lies beyond our tiny planet.  I think this is one of the common experiences of all humans, to look and wonder.

My interest has inspired an ongoing quest for knowledge about what lies Out There, and that knowledge has continually fed my imagination.  But in the contemplation of that universe, I have also been able to frame answers to some of my more earth-bound concerns.

The universe has no fixed reference point.  Everything is in motion, and the only accurate thing we can measure is how far we are from a certain object, and how fast we are approaching or receding.  For people whose life is a constant measure of movement to or from a point in space or time, this is truly a difficult thing to understand.  For example, in the time it takes for earth to complete one orbit of the sun, the solar system, which is also in motion, has traveled about 24 billion miles through space.  When we take two weeks off from work and do the "stay-cation," we actually have traveled some 910 million miles.  Too bad we can't get frequent flyer credits for that.

But the universe, and all the objects within, is not in a static condition.  It's not just that stars and galaxies are in motion, they are constantly changing.  With an inexpensive telescope, one can point it at the constellation of Orion the Hunter and see in the "sword" portion of that group a place that glows in molecular gases.  

Within the dark cloud of the well-known Horsehead Nebula, gas and dust is being compressed and heated.  Eventually, stars will form here.  If you had the patience, and the lifespan, to watch this cloud, you would be witness to stellar creation.

Hiking, Part 43

Copyright © 2017

by Ralph F. Couey

Words and pictures

Today, in our fifth week as Coloradans, we took to the trails to take our first hike since moving here in January.  For the last three weeks, I had been industriously walking the concrete paths (I won't call it a trail unless it consists of dirt, rocks, and roots) around the southern part of Aurora.  I have been working my way up in distance, and am now doing 8 miles at a stretch.  The point of that being to get my lungs and legs ready to tackle the trails that course through the front range foothills, and eventually, the Rockies themselves.

The biggest challenge has been adjusting to the altitude.  I have to keep reminding myself that the tallest peaks I climbed in Virginia are still 2,000 feet lower than the feet of the mountains we see here.  We have been asking people how long it takes to get acclimated, and get answers ranging from three months to three years.  And I believe that.  Even the simple act of climbing stairs still leaves us a bit breathless.  Where the strain shows is in tackling inclines.  Walking on flat ground is not terribly taxing, but let that path start to ascend, and immediately the lungs begin to work desperately hard to pull what little breathable oxygen exists in this huge sky.

Today was Cheryl's day off, and we decided to attempt our first dirt hike.  Our daughter recommended the William F. Hayden Green Mountain Park, a 2,400 acre expanse on the western edge of the Denver 'burb of Lakewood.  When you get out of the car, you're standing at about 6,050 feet altitude.  The summit at the top of the park is 6,800 feet.  On the Appalachian Trail in Virginia, a 750-foot ascent is just part of the hike.  The highest peak I attempted there was Hogback Mountain at just under 3,500 feet.  I remember that day, and how tired and sore I was at the end of that particular trek.  So, by that measure, a mere 750 feet should pose no problems, right?

The Mess of Role Reversal

Chicken Parmesan....

...and Italian-Style Meat Loaf

Picture credits?  Not sure, but 

they're all better at cooking than I am.

Why is it mine never look this good?

Copyright © 2017

by Ralph F. Couey

Written content only.

It's called "role reversal," that part of human interaction where two people (usually married) at some point trade jobs.  In our case, my retirement freed up a lot of time that normally would have spent working productively at a job.  Cheryl, because of the economics of her retirement, still works, something she reminds of each and every day.  Because of that, it became necessary for me to undertake a new set of expectational chores.

I'm not a Neanderthal, by the way.  I do laundry, fold n' iron, make the bed, and attend to various other household chores, and have been doing this for most of my adult life.  Most of the time, without being told...er...reminded.  Now I have been asked to undertake the task of providing sustenance for the evening meal.

Cooking, for me, has always been a mystery.  When the kids were smaller, I did my duty on the nights when Cheryl was stuck at the hospital, which usually involved some form of hamburger helper, or something frozen from Sam's Club.  Attempting creativity was, shall we say, not greeted with anything approaching enthusiasm.  In fact, once our oldest got his driver's license, Chef Dad nights became for them Chez McDonald's.

As the years rolled on, it became apparent that cooking was just something beyond my ken.  I stuck to those things I knew I could execute, french toast, eggs over easy, omelettes, and anything microwavable.  Some of the manufacturers, in a stroke of genius, came out with those "meal in a bag" items.  I loved this.  Didn't have to add, mix, measure, or guess.  Just unbag it, put it in the oven or pot of boiling water, and within 20 minutes -- Voila! -- a tasty, (mostly) nutritious meal.  More importantly, the end product actually looked like the picture on the bag.  As long as you didn't look to closely.  

They STILL Say the Darndest Things

Ian Couey

Photo © 2017 by Yukyung Couey

Copyright © 2017

by Ralph F. Couey

Written content only.

"We can waste a lifetime 

of study and contemplation

 pursuing the truth of life, 

when all we really ever had to do 

was ask our five-year-old."

--R. F. Couey

Last month, in my farewell address to my colleagues, I encouraged them that while they were navigating the maelstrom that spins through their lives, to be alert for those marvelous moments of the now.  It can be too easy that while we are fully focused on the "have-to-do's" and "gotta-be-there's" that crowd our schedules that we can become unaware of those moments when they occur.  Those magical snippets can become golden memories.

Art Linkletter had a television show in the 1960's called, "Kids Say the Darndest Things."  The format was delightfully simple.  Art sat down with some kids, what today would be called a panel, and asked them questions.  The wonderful attraction to the program was the delightful and incredible things that came out of the mouths of those babes.  Young children are very prone to saying what is exactly on their mind, lacking, or perhaps ignoring, the social filters that keep such utterances from adults locked firmly inside.  As they grow older, they become, in a way, more cynical and less frank, and of course, much less entertaining.

Our grandson Ian just turned six years old, and has always been a reliably hilarious source of such gems.  He is very intelligent (yeah, yeah, I know.  ALL grandparents say that.), but in the last couple years has revealed a real sense of humor.  And a very contagious laugh.

Ian's Mom and Dad began writing these things down for posterity, something we have come to call "Ian-isms."  While this is the kind of thing parents normally save for when they meet the boy's first girlfriend, they are truly amazing, and reflect his active mind.

Getting in Rythm

Copyright © 2017

by Ralph F. Couey

Words and Pictures

We humans are creatures of habit.  A regular routine helps keep us sane, giving each day a slightly different cast, but still managing to help us march through the calendar.  We look at our weeks and know that certain things happen on certain days and times.  For most of us, our jobs and those related activities occupy Mondays through Fridays.  Weekends, for parents, are driven by the schedules of the kids, i.e. baseball, football, basketball, gymnastics, and the seemingly never-ending soccer season.  For some, Sunday means church followed by an afternoon either watching or playing sports, or just taking a snooze on the couch.  This makes our days fairly predictable, if frenetic.  As I have discovered, there is safety in that routine.

Schedules, whether we like them or not, run our lives, and when there is a major change to that routine, we are left adrift; confused and gasping for air.

One of the things I have had to get used to, now in my third week of retirement, is learning how to live a life mostly bereft of scheduled obligations.  I used to work Wednesdays through Saturdays, and upon waking up on these three Wednesdays, my first thought was if I had ironed a shirt for work. Then realizing that was no longer necessary.  For decades, I lived my live in suits, ties, and slacks.  Now, it's mainly jeans.  We're still sorting out boxes here in my daughter's house, so I guess you could say I still have a job, albeit a different one.

The really fun thing we've discovered is the freedom we have to go do things without consulting our smartphone calendars.  This week, on a whim, we drove up to Breckenridge, Colorado for a day...just because.  We walked around town, did some shopping, some eating, spent the night and drove home the next day through a driving snowstorm.  Today, we were passing a theater, and decided to go see a movie.  Just like that.

Birds, Brains, and Beauty

From Crafthub.com

Copyright © 2017

by Ralph F, Couey

Written content only

Nature is many things from the violent to the visually stunning.  In some of those things, there is a stunning complexity to the design and execution that would challenge the ablest human artist or engineer.  If we only take the time to slow down, stop, and look closer, we can be amazed.

A couple of autumns ago, I was hiking on a section of the Appalachian Trail near Harper's Ferry, West Virginia.  This section has a very steep ascent called Weverton Cliffs.  The trail zigzags up 600 feet to a hiker's treat, a long, level stretch.  As I was struggling up the hillside, I came across a bird's nest lying just off trail under a good-size sycamore tree.  I picked it up and continued on.  When I finally go to the top, I stopped and sat on a convenient rock to catch my breath.  As I sat there, I began to look at the nest.  This was not the first nest I had seen, but it was the first one I had actually looked at.

From the Other Side

From Pinterest.com

©2017

by Ralph F. Couey

There are times in life when something huge is looming in our path, a life-changing moment the outcome of which is utterly unclear.  In those moments of shaky anticipation, one can't spend too much time worrying about what may or may not happen. Such breathless foreboding only guarantees the sleepless nights and hollow eyes that pave the road to a nervous breakdown.  

I have adopted the hiker's philosophy implemented at the foot of every long, steep ascent.  One step at a time.  Don't look up, don't look down. Have faith that, even on the Appalachian Trail, hills do eventually end.  To others, this can be translated as "This too shall pass."

Retirement can be viewed in one of two ways. "I'm ready, it's time, let's do this." Or, "I have to do this because the alternative is even worse."  I detailed in previous posts my struggles in recent months which led to that decision.  That my bosses could not have been more compassionate and accommodating made things easier, but in the end, I still found myself on a cold, cloudy Virginia afternoon standing on the outside, looking in.

I'd rather put hot needles in my eyes than re-live the past two months.  But now that I'm on the other side of those events, I can look at them with a bit more pragmatism.  And understanding.

Every change in life involves some kind of personal trauma.  I hated to leave behind...what I left behind.  The exciting, challenging work, the wonderful and awesomely intelligent people I was privileged to work with.  There was cachet in the organization and the mission which lent an air of the extraordinary to my days. As one of my friends put it, "After all this, it's hard to be ordinary again."  There's a tinge of pain to that statement.  Let me hasten to say that this was not about ego, but rather about the personal fulfillment engendered in not just doing work, but performing a mission. We were defending our country, a calling by any definition.

On my last day, there was a ceremony.  People said some really nice things about me, and I gave a perhaps too lengthy speech out of the need to get those thoughts off my chest.  My family was there and got a chance to meet some of those singular individuals.  But after the ceremony, the pizza, and some final goodbyes, I went down to the security office.  There, I sat across the table from a man who had me sign some non-disclosure forms written in very stiff language.  I was read out of my clearances and programs.  I surrendered my badges, and in the final moments, in the friendliest way, I was shown the door.  Several of them in fact, as befits the multiple barriers of one of those undisclosed locations.  

Post Number 600

Copyright © 2016

by Ralph F. Couey

On November 3, 2006, I opened a blog account with blogger.com. My first post was about a motorcycle accident involving Steeler’s quarterback Ben Roethlisberger. Today, a little over ten years later, I am uploading post number 600.

The title came from a moment on a motorcycle trip.  I was riding westward across Kansas, heading towards my night's stop in the town of Liberal.  As the day wound down, the sun was sinking towards the horizon.  The low angle of its light brought a host of those heart-warming tones I call "evening colors."  The wheat fields on either side of US 54, dancing and weaving in those prairie zephyrs were displaying a warm color that I now understood was the origination of the phrase, "amber waves of grain."  As the sun dipped below the horizon, a few remaining clouds turned bright gold.  It was a perfect moment in time.  I recognized that as the day was coming to a close, I was racing the sunset towards night.

I established the blog in order to exercise my growing passion for writing. I felt that by doing this, I could give some air to the thoughts and emotions which had been banging around inside of me for so long, begging for release. About that same time, I began writing a regular newspaper column in the Johnstown, PA Tribune-Democrat. A few months later, I added the Somerset, PA Daily American to my clients. Because those two towns were only 30 miles apart, I had to write two separate columns each week. But surprisingly, that was never a problem. All of the columns I wrote for those papers, and those I wrote as a contributor to other publications are a part of this website, the titles marked with an asterisk. As much as it was a kick to see my words, and byline, in print, I was much more gratified and humbled by the positive and touching responses. I always felt that my target audience was not the person who read my words and responded with anger and hate, but rather the person who, after reading, would sit back, sigh, and smile.

The subjects upon which I wrote were many and varied, touching just about everything except politics. I felt that as a country, we were already deeply divided, and I had no wish to add to that division. What I have written has reflected the passions in my life. As I look over the post listing, I see that I wrote a lot about motorcycling and hiking, sharing my love for the open road and the forested trail. These activities brought me a great deal of joy…and peace, and I felt it was natural to share those moments, and some of the pictures as well. Some of the images are pretty good (if I do say so myself), but they’ll never match the portrait that in that moment was painted on my heart.

The Great Upheaval

Copyright © 2016

By Ralph F. Couey

It was a cold, but bright and beautiful morning.  The night before, freezing rain had moved in and had coated the 8 inches of snow with a veneer of ice.  It was the kind of surface that guaranteed some heart-stopping sledding.  My friends and I met at our customary place, a moderately steep hill.  At the bottom, we had built a jump ramp which we figured would give us enough air to span the rocks of Mill Creek.  

Getting there was difficult, as the icy top of the snow kept us falling frequently, only occasionally crunching through the surface.   Finally though, we stood at the crest of the hill.  The sun was well up, and it's light reflected on the surface, turning the hill into something that resembled a huge sheet of glass.  Now, we were adventurous youth, but some tendrils of mortality crept into our collective brains as we began to realize that disaster could await us at the bottom of the hill.

Me, being me, decided to go first.  I waxed the runners and flipped it over, laying down on the top.  With a brave-sounding "YEEEEHAWWWW!!!!" I started down the hill.

I hadn't gone a hundred feet before I realized something was very wrong.  The icy surface was very fast, but gave me absolutely no way to steer.  The runners, instead of creasing the surface were just skittering across it like a waterbug.  About halfway down, I knew I was in trouble. The sled began to swing back and forth, at times going sideways.  I tried to dig the toes of my boots into the unyielding surface, but to no avail.  About 50 feet from the ramp, I was in a full panic.  I was headed downslope, faster than I had ever gone before, and with absolutely no control.

That memory has come back to me as my life has unfolded, and unraveled, over the past two months.

Age and the Betrayal by the Mind

From University College London Brain Sciences

Copyright © 2016

By Ralph F. Couey

Throughout our lives we are burdened by a self-imposed delusion that we are somehow bullet-proof and immortal.  This is probably a reflection of the common insecurity that we all carry with us, whether latent or manifest.  But age has a way of shattering delusions, as we come to grips with how fragile a thing humans are.

It started a couple of years ago with memory problems.  When you're 61 years old, that's usually something to joke about.  But as time went on, things got worse, affecting the quality of my work.  My superiors, despite my difficulties, were massively patient.  Finally, out of an abundance of concern, I scheduled myself for a series of appointments with people whose specialty is the brain.

My first concern was the possibility of Alzheimer's, or early onset of senility.  I remembered my father's last two years of life when he was afflicted by both.  Bit by bit, he drifted away from us.  Towards the end, there were times when he couldn't recognize anyone.  I did not want to be that guy, especially this early.  I love my grandchildren, and the absolute last thing I wanted was to see the hurt on their faces when Grampa didn't know who they were.

I went to a neuropsychologist who put me through a battery of tests, lasting several hours.  I waited anxiously for the results which took about a week.  The results were both good and bad.

Preparing for the Final Frontier

Alpha Centauri A and B

Proxima is inside the red circle

Image By Skatebiker at English Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=46833562

Copyright © 2016

by Ralph F. Couey

Except cited portions

On September15, 1965, the CBS television network debuted a new science fiction show entitled “Lost in Space.”  The Irwin Allen production followed the adventures of the Robinson family who were being sent on an interstellar mission to find a new place for an over-populated earth to call home.  The show was known far more for its campy style than anything else.  The main character became, not the Robinson’s, but the evil conniving Dr. Zachary Smith, who had snuck aboard as a foreign agent to sabotage the mission, but managed to get stuck there when the ship took off.  He was certainly the most buffoonish foreign agent ever, in addition to being a sniveling coward of the first order, and the episodes mainly revolved around Smith doing foolish things to get the Robinson’s in trouble.  It was not intellectual by any stretch, but managed to stay on the air for three seasons before being canceled, according to statements by cast and crew, due to declining ratings and increasing costs.

So what, you may ask.  Well, the destination for the Robinsons and their saucer-shaped Jupiter 2 spacecraft was Alpha Centauri, long known to be the closest star to our own solar system, about 4.2 light years away. According to the plot, there was a planet there that could support human life and it was the Robinson’s mission to survey the planet and report back.

As it has turned out, Irwin Allen seems to have been a prophet.