Congratulations Graduate!!

The end is near.
The end has come.
Graduation Day - December 17, 2011. It's been a long trip...two schools, two states, lots of experiences and lots of friends.

 
Where is everybody?





Okay...I'm ready. What's the hold up?

Where's Dad?






Here they come





Endless introductions





Doctoral folks.....Ca-ching, Ca-ching...Lot's of student loans...





 Jibber-Jabber....
Oh....That was the Commencement Address?





Finally....
 Oops - gotta stop for the photograph

"Jillian Rose Hartke" 

Yep -- it's a blur. Walking across the stage....
smiling faces....
handshake....DONE!

Master of Arts 

Information Science & Learning Technologies

Library Science 

Who was that guy???

Have you ever met yourself?  Not like some sort of "know thyself" touchy-feely exercise. I mean really meet someone, a complete stranger, who is essentially you at a younger age. I have and it's spooky. When it happened I was immediately struck by the parallel life choices and the coincidental events that led the two of us strangers  to be at the same place at the same time. After it was over, even now, I am somewhat amazed and wonder how this happened. I perceive myself as being a little different from most guys based on my interests, life experiences, sense of humor, etc.


I was on a solo vacation trip, over 1,000 miles from home, and had spent the day visiting a few places that appeal to me but would not appeal to many other tourists. That's often the way I travel. I might be considered a little bookish and perhaps overly thorough when I plan a trip. Planning is half the fun but I am also just as likely to strike off on an unplanned tangent way off the beaten path. On this day I had spent several hours driving up a dusty canyon road to visit an old archaeological site that used to be famous but has since been pushed aside by other discoveries. Once I got back to civilization I decided to stop at a microbrewery close to my hotel. I sat at the bar and struck up a casual and sporadic conversation with the bar maid -- I brew beer and we talked about different styles and what they were brewing. What they had on tap was pretty good and the place was a beer geek's paradise. They even had a blackboard where they recorded the brew details, dates and specific gravity....really.


After a while a young guy in his mid 20s took the bar stool next to me and ordered a beer and started reading a book. The book was 'The Last Stand: Custer, Sitting Bull, and the Battle of the Little Bighorn' by Nathaniel Philbrick. This is not a book I've read but one I'd probably like to read and by an author I have read. I asked him how the book was and we ended up talking at length about authors and various books. We had read the same books in many instances and some others by the same authors. If you have ever met an old friend after many months or years apart and began talking like you had never been separated --- this was almost what the experience was like.  It turned out that we had the same interests. He was a government researcher who had moved to this city a while back and was about to get married in the next few months. This is somewhat close to my own experience at the same age. We talked for quite a while and had several beers. We talked about our work careers and job changes and hobbies and the more we talked the more it seemed like I was talking to myself at an age almost 40 years younger than I am now. Pretty soon it was time to go find something to eat so we parted ways and said our goodbyes. I have no idea who this guy was but as I left I really wanted to tell him to hang in there and stick with his plans and that it was all going to work out OK in the end.

The Miracle Cat - November 16, 2011

After a life-long struggle and two miraculous recoveries, we finally had to euthanize Jill's cat, Iris. Iris was the sweetest cat I have ever known although she was a major challenge to manage and she had a very strong stubborn streak. She was born into adversity and was discovered alone and lost in Washington Park at about 4 or 5 weeks old and taken to the city's animal shelter. Jill adopted her and brought her home. This was a very sad time at my house as Joanne had just died a few weeks previously and Jill and I were deep in grief and not functioning well. Iris helped us to get focused and served as a diversion when we really needed it. Although she seemed like a normal kitten she had a few quirks....like singing in the litter box and her funny way of walking.

Watson didn't know what to think at first but soon took her under his wing...and his paw...and tried to be a surrogate dad. He taught her how to be a cat and things that only a mom-cat could pass on to a kitten. She followed him around like his shadow. Sometimes they would get into spats that took a long time to settle. I had a squirt water bottle that I had to use to break up a few wrestling matches. Watson was so big that Iris would often start to scream whenever he approached and looked like he was going to use her as a toy. Nobody was ever hurt in these confrontations and Iris came out stronger through the experience. She eventually started initiating the wrestling matches so we decided it was just rough play.

Iris was a slow grower and didn't gain weight as fast as she should. We had to wait a while to get her spayed and declawed but she finally went to the vet and had the surgery done. She was never the same cat afterwards. She came home disoriented and depressed and apparently blind or at least mostly blind. We were never 100% certain that she was totally blind all of the time because it seemed that she had some vision...maybe could see dark and light or shadows at some times but she eventually gave up on seeing and became a functional blind cat. As she grew older it was amazing how she managed and people would not know she was blind unless we told them.

Iris had seen three Vets during her life and each one seemed to have their own theory but no one actually knew what her problem was. Not only was she blind but her funny way of walking as a kitten turned into a full-fledged hip dysfunction as an adult. As she grew she developed her own way of walking so that she was hunched up in the back and essentially walked on her hind toes and claws. Her hips seemed to be deformed as she grew older.

Jill and Iris moved into a two-story apartment for a year and then Jill bought her house which was also two-story. Iris memorized the layout of each place as well as my house so she was able to manage wherever she was. She was able to go up and down stairs and even able to jump up on the couch during her early adulthood. The stairs at her new house offered a challenge because they turned 90-degrees and she had to be very careful to hug the one wall so she didn't tumble around the tight corner....but she figured it out after a few hard falls.

Iris and Wormie #1

I can't go into all of the health problems she had but there were a couple times where we didn't think she would pull through and we were afraid we would have to put her down...but she struggled back. Her last two years were her happiest since she was the Queen of her house and seemed to have everything under control. That means she had things the way she wanted them....not the way Jill wanted them or even how a normal cat would want them. She was able to confine her toilet to the sun porch but often (and later, usually) didn't make it to the litter box.  Jill was patient most of the time but there were a few yelling matches and Iris could yell right back.  Iris would go anywhere she pleased but didn't like the basement when Jill would sweep her up and run downstairs during storm warnings. She had little hide and seek games with the TV and stereo cabinets and she adopted her little friend, Wormie, a knitted toy she would drag around from place to place.

She finally wore out at four and a half years old and went into a decline that she couldn't bounce back from. There had been other serious declines but her spirit was strong and she fought her way back. This time it was different and in her own way she told us she was done. She had a good life and maybe even a better life than some normal cats. At any rate she had the best life that she could have had given her limitations. We all learned a lot from her and she always kept her sweet disposition even up to the end.


Iris was a creature of habit, like most cats, and she had a set routine. She knew when Jill would be home from work or school and would wait in the middle of her rug when it was time for her to come home. Mornings started with Iris outside Jill's bedroom door -- sometimes impatiently waiting for her to get up. It didn't seem like much but sometimes those are the things that you miss the most.

Halloween Season

The Halloween season is here...not to be confused with the Harvest season or the Christmas season or the Thanksgiving season which seem to all run simultaneously these days.  Halloween used to be a kid's holiday with a little bit of ritualistic charm but now it is a business.

I must be one of the few people who just don't get it. I enjoy the change in seasons from summer to fall and the things that we do to prepare for colder weather. Every living thing seems to go through this transition. Cows and horses and even house cats get a winter coat of heavier fur. I always put on thick layers of supple fat and, unfortunately, it doesn't seem to come off when it gets warmer. We harvest apples and other produce. The trees change color and drop their leaves...which I refuse to rake. My Hickory tree has been dropping its nuts for weeks and the squirrels have been having a great time. Now its leaves are turning bright yellow and will fall on the next windy or rainy day. We had our first frost last night.

Okay...but what is it that causes us to celebrate Halloween the way we do. Some folks have gone a little crazy over the holiday. Where one carved pumpkin would be fine, they have a dozen. Houses are decked out in orange Halloween lights. We have two large costume stores that pop up in September like toadstools. People wire their front yards for sound and then broadcast creepy music or ghoulish sounds at night.

I try...really, I do try to get into it but I always see it as something that other people do so it is half-hearted. This year I actually bought a Happy Halloween pennant that hangs from my mailbox. I always buy a couple pumpkins and stick them out on the front porch with some other fall decorations but I very rarely will carve a Jack-o-lantern and when I do it always looks happy, with a smiley face. I can't seem to make them look scary.

I actually understand the Day of the Dead thing in Mexico or other Hispanic-culture places. But Halloween seems pointless. We really don't know where it comes from. We aren't commemorating dead ancestors or anything like that. Even the old Celtic festival of the same season had nothing to do with the dead or a satanic figure. I know that some churches or church leaders have a dim view of Halloween but I don't even see the point of that.

The only good part of Halloween is the actual Trick or Treat parade that comes to the front door. Years ago the old pagan holiday morphed into a kid's celebration with costumes and candy. As a kid, I admit I enjoyed every year's trek up and down the street in whatever costume I managed to cobble together lugging my grocery bag full of candy. As an adult I enjoy greeting the neighborhood kids at the door and handing out fist-fulls of high fructose corn syrup nuggets of one kind or another. I even enjoy the older kids whose voices are changing and barely put up the effort at a costume because they need one more last childhood fling...God knows where they will be in five years. 

The adult side of the holiday seems to be morphing into a weird commercial enterprise. I think that's what takes away from the enjoyment and robs the holiday of it's old-fashioned charm. 

I'm turning into a Parrot

I can't help myself. I'm sure that I'm not the only person with this "problem" but I don't know how common my "affliction" is. I'm not a trained linguist or even versed in foreign languages other than a bare minimum of Spanish and Italian. When I go to a foreign country or even to a place in the US where I hear people speaking something other than my own local version  of English I end up parroting their speech patterns after only a short period of time.

I'm from Missouri -- in my family that's Missouree not Missouruh -- and living smack dab in the middle of the US I've always been fascinated by the different American accents. We commonly encounter people speaking Minnesotan or Texan or Chicagoan or North Carolinian. There is N'Orleaneeze and Baltimorean and New Yorker and New Jerseyish and a couple Louisiana dialects depending on the amount of Cajun-ness. Arkansan has kind of a mountain and delta version. Missouri is the same way with urban and rural patterns and there are differences between St. Louis and Kansas City...especially among women.  I can often tell roughly where someone is from if I talk to them long enough. There are exceptions (Ohio and Indiana) and there are places with such an influx of variations...like California and some parts of Florida...that I can't seem to figure it out.

This fascination leads me to unintentionally picking up some of those speech patterns. I start using a hybrid version of my normal speaking patterns and pronunciations mixed with the newly acquired stuff.

It's not just American English dialects that suck me in. I have a friend from Aberdeen Scotland and another from Lviv in Ukraine. I had a fellow working with me for a while from the Ural Mountains in Russia and another from the Philippines. I seem to be willing to surrender my own speech patterns and habits to anyone. I went to Italy and came home sounding like I just moved to the US from a village in Umbria.

I don't mind it. I'm just surprised by how quickly I take on these other patterns and I hope that others don't think that I'm mocking them or making fun of their English.

However, now I am a little disconcerted about a recent development. I am a fan of The Big Bang Theory, a CBS TV situation comedy, and look forward to seeing it every week. If you are unfamiliar with TBBT look here for a clip (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k0xgjUhEG3U&feature=related) . They recently started showing it in re-runs for an hour each evening on Fox TV. Guess what. Now I'm starting to sound like Dr. Sheldon Cooper. This will never do...maybe there is some kind of therapy.  Soft kitty. Warm kitty. Little ball of fur.... 

Surprise, surprise, surprise

Times is hard. A good chunk of the middle class is sliding into poverty. The percentage of families in poverty is at a record high. The unemployment rate is officially below 10 percent (wink, wink) but the actual rate is probably more like 15 to 18 percent because job seekers are demoralized and have stopped looking and are too busy moving out of their foreclosed homes. We have been in "recovery" for well over a year and there are not many signs that the economy has a pulse. People on the right are quick to criticize the government's stimulus efforts but I shudder to think where we would be without them. We have had serious recessions before and no one wants to use the "D" word but I would not be surprised if future economists and historians claim that we are in a depression.

There are a few things that make this "downturn" different from others. Big employers have sent thousands of jobs overseas and those jobs are lost...unless you want to move to India or Malaysia. That has been happening for a while and people have been wringing their hands but not much has been done to counter the trend. The difference this time around might be that we no longer have relevant labor unions. I understand the criticism of labor unions but they would have had a voice in the crippling flow of jobs overseas and the elimination of the middle range jobs that have been lost. This economic slump has destroyed many of the middle range jobs that had, in previous decades, been under the umbrella of labor union protection. 

People complain that a worker should be able to hold a job without belonging to a union and that unions drive up the cost of running a business. In the first instance, labor unions used their collective bargaining rights to benefit all workers and I don't see a real issue with wanting workers to be part of the union. If we had strong unions we would have more people working and more people buying homes, cars and other products...which would benefit the economy.

The other complaint, that unions raise business costs, is interesting. Now that unions have been pretty much weakened by business interests and popular apathy, why don't we see a corresponding reduction in costs and less expensive products? Products or services offered by non-union providers don't seem to be less expensive than union products or services. Many businesses have been banking huge profits during this downturn and do not seem to be letting any of that trickle down toward new products or job creation. This is called a "wait and see" strategy -- basically you get as much as you can get and sit on it because you are waiting to see the other guy spend his first. Labor unions are not saints or angels and have made terrific mistakes...just like businesses...but the basic premise of collective bargaining is still valid.

At this point we seem to be in a loop of some sort. The economy is bad and we have a gloomy outlook for the future. As a result, we have no confidence in our future and take the "wait and see" approach...which keeps the economy in the dumps. We have been in trouble for a long time. "W" Bush squandered a budget surplus, gave huge tax breaks to the rich and then started two wars without a tax increase to support the cost. We have been engaged in a huge wealth redistribution effort for ten years or more taking money from the poor and middle class folks and giving it to the rich. The social security fund is investing in US treasury bonds which are then used for operating expenses so that the rich don't have to pay their fair share of taxes. Revenue doesn't cover expenses so we borrow from the Chinese or other countries to pay our expenses and then have to pay back the loans. Heaven forbid that the rich be asked to pay their share.

So here we sit. The housing industry tanked and then tanked again and still seems too precarious to be heading toward recovery. All the affiliated industries have suffered. We had six lumber yards in our town and they were competing for four building projects...only four building permits were issued in one month...and, of course, the one lumber yard that most recently went through an expansion and upgrade went belly up. Furniture stores are closing...we lost two of them this year. I'm seeing some house renovations going on but no real increase in new homes. Two developers who were pushing upscale homes and "gated communities" went bankrupt. I'm trying to sell my house but the housing market is in a death spiral. I had three people who wanted to buy but they couldn't sell their own houses. Prices are falling way below what I think some houses are worth...I'm surprised to see the asking prices on some houses and it becomes very difficult to compete. Luckily, I don't have to sell but I have plans that are on hold and I'm not getting any younger.

On being a "renaissance man"

I was reading a blog article that was focusing on the idea of the modern "renaissance man" [OK, renaissance person] and how one would attempt to become one. I was struck by the fact that our modern era is one of specialization and it is rare find someone who is broadly competent in a variety of areas. It is so rare, in fact, that it seems downright odd and our culture and society does not reward or value that kind of broad knowledge. We tend to become employed in a narrow area of responsibility or technical expertise and society views any concerted effort to gain a broader knowledge as wasted effort. The education system seems to be narrowing the student's focus and exposure rather than broadening their education. A university education is priced out of reach for anything that doesn't have a career payback.
Sometimes we will hear about a baseball player or someone else in sports who also has an interest in something other than their sport. It is mentioned as an oddity -- and as "color commentary" that player 'A' is a gifted artist or a musician or writes poetry or makes furniture.

One short line from the blog article stuck in my mind and I paraphrase it here: Nothing exposes a person's ignorance and lack of culture quicker than faulty geography or a lack of literary knowledge. I would add to that a lack of basic historical awareness. I don't think that you need to be a walking encyclopedia but you should know that Pakistan is in Asia and Ecuador is in South America. It would help to know that India and Pakistan are neighbors and that people in Ecuador speak Spanish.

Americans are notably ill informed on geography, literature and history. The situation is so bad that you cringe when people call into talk radio or C-SPAN to ask a question or make a comment. The ones who are least informed seem to be the ones with ready access to telephones and the airwaves.

Sarah Palin, Michele Bachman, and Texas Governor Rick Perry have managed to rise to the top of political life with little basic knowledge or apparent understanding of history, geography or literature...not to mention the constitution or economics.  Presumably, the people who support them are either equally ill informed or choose to ignore the obvious deficit in the candidstes' knowledge. Some of it is pretty comical but the Founding Fathers would be appalled at the lack of basic knowledge in both the voters and the candidates.

It's getting late so I'll end this for now -- to be revisited later.

Getting our house in order

The current debt ceiling debate has been an embarrassing free for all that serves only to demonstrate how far we have fallen from our nation's purpose and potential. The posturing and contrived political schemes have reached a a new level. Instead of solving the problem the real issue became how to use this crisis as a tool to get what we want.  The question is...How can we beat our opponent?...not How can we help the country?  Often we hear some political hack uttering the rhetorical comment that "We must get our house in order!" -- a particularly elusive goal.

Granted, our house needs attention. We live in an interesting neighborhood where neighbors keep climbing our fence and camp out in the yard. We have some friends but there are also some folks that are very unfriendly and downright hostile and we have to keep sending our kids over to get them to stop harassing us or we hire security guards to watch our stuff. Grandma and grandpa are hanging on as best they can but have some incredible medical bills and can barely pay for their meds so we have to help out a little.

Trash is piling up around the door because we have gotten into the habit of just heaving it from the porch. The sidewalk is crumbling and the driveway is full of holes but we can't afford to go anywhere anyway because the price of gas is way out of reach. The SUV isn't running very well anyway and leaks oil and smokes. The paint is peeling and the gutters are falling off but that's just on the outside. The furniture is worn out, the roof is leaking, windows are broken and the sewer is clogged and backing up. Something is growing in the refrigerator and poisoning the food but we don't want to look in there. Family members are hateful to each other and constantly fighting and half of them are packing heat. We have locked up a bunch of them because we don't know what else to do. Meanwhile it is getting hotter and hotter and the lawn and shade trees are starting to look pretty bad because we have ignored them but some in the family are convinced otherwise and scream at us when we want to try to do anything about it. Several family members have started chopping down the few trees that are left.

Luckily, we have friends in the neighborhood who will loan us money to try to keep this house together and functioning as well as it does. We have a lot of money of our own but we don't want to use it for any of this stuff because we want to install a hot tub, big screen TV and upgrade to granite in the kitchen. Some of us have accumulated a fortune but aren’t sharing and take nice vacations to places where the plumbing works.

Lately those favorite neighbors that loan us money have been grumbling because they also want granite in the kitchen but we have their money and don't want to give it back. We try to ignore their complaints and get them to keep supplying the money with promises that we will do better and will pay them back someday. After a huge fight we hatch a repayment plan -- stop helping grandma and grandpa with their bills and postpone or cancel repair work on the house and, if that doesn’t work, fire the security guards. This should still allow for the kitchen upgrade and hot tub installation but the big screen TV might have to wait a while. Sacrifice is hard work.

Time Passes Slowly

Sometimes it seems that time races by and we barely get a chance to savor the events of our life. Sometimes it seems like time slows down to a crawl and we spend a great deal of our lives suspended in one place.  These are like two opposing dimensions and lately I've had one foot in each one.

Today marks four years since Joie died and I am re-experiencing some of that sense of loss like it is new all over again. This is my end-of-July-blues. Science tells us that prolonged grief brings about chemical changes in our brains so that what seems natural to a grieving person is not perceived the same way by everyone else. It is a continuing struggle to come out of the state of grief and I think that it must take a conscious effort to do so. I'm working on it but I still have a way to go. But I have come a long way and I am pretty happy with my life right now. I surprised myself by declaring that a few weeks ago during a conversation I was having. I have been able to climb pretty far but time passes slowly and sometimes it is like a slow-motion movie.

Joie and I were together about 33 years, more or less and I reflected recently on her ability to indulge my various quirks and interests while still standing her own ground and her own persona. I've mentioned before that she went through nine lives but she always brought some of that forward so it was common for her to have multiple points of focus or to be in some state of transition.  Some friends once observed that she seemed to almost submerge herself once we were married and moved to Jefferson City. That isn't true at all but it is an interesting observation that resulted from the physical distance and the reduced contact that we had with some of our old friends once we moved.

I indulged myself on this sad anniversary to pull together some pictures taken over our time together. Some of these are my favorites.



American Gothic 1975 - Colby Kansas...on our way to Wyoming and our backpacking trip. For a girl that never camped or went into the wild she did great. Her family and friends were stunned that she would do this but she worked hard to get ready and carried a 40-pound pack through the Bog Horns.




Young professionals -- the photographer made me sit on a telephone book because the man was supposed to be taller than the woman and we were exactly the same height. That's why she is grinning.

New mom -- Jill had been born just a few weeks before this was taken. Joie was a great mom but there were some trying times, too, and I had a traveling job for some of those early years.

Up all night -- Project Graduation 2002. We were volunteers for graduation night when Jill graduated from high school. We were getting punchy by dawn. Joie's dad came from St. Louis for the graduation but didn't feel good enough to attend so she was a little concerned. We all had breakfast with him later and he was fine.

Perseverance -- She broke her hip in 2004. She made herself well enough to go to Italy in June on a cane and we went all over Rome and Perugia and Florence.  Later in the year, just before Christmas, she broke her other hip and struggled back from that as well.

Family Reunion -- We came from small families except for the Ackermanns and she always enjoyed Ackermann reunions...even though she sometimes had to figure out who was who in her mom's relatives. Her mom died when she was 14 and she tried hard to stay connected. Jill and I still go to Ackermann reunions.

"Life is not easy for any of us. But what of that? We must have perseverance and above all confidence in ourselves. We must believe that we are gifted for something and that this thing must be attained" 

-- Marie Curie 

And yet, they persist

I've heard it said that the US Congress is the least patriotic body in America. After the last few weeks I have come to fully believe it. The most recent performance...which is still going on at this time...has to do with raising the debt ceiling. This is a routine administrative function that makes it possible for the country to pay it's bills. The crisis is entirely the fault of Republican Tea Party freshmen representatives. That is not to say that the problem with the national debt is entirely their fault...there have been decades of foolishness leading up to this point. The US is addicted to low taxes and high spending so we end up borrowing money to buy or build things we want (or somebody wants) and to subsidize farmers or other businesses and support a growing poverty class and enormous military class stationed in almost 200 countries around the world. The thing is...we have already spent the money that we borrowed... so we owe somebody a shitload of money... plus, we still want all that stuff.

The current road to default sits squarely on the shoulders of George W. Bush and the ridiculous tax cut that he and his friends managed to pass...plus the cost of fighting his two wars simultaneously (one being absolutely unnecessary)...plus a financial and regulatory free-for-all and housing crash that led to the Great Recession.

Do you recall the crash of the Soviet Union? They failed because they no longer had the resources or the national will to keep their country together. We smugly observed that this was the inevitable failure of the communist system and the relentless pressure of Our Hero, Ronald Reagan.

I fully believe that we are looking into the same chasm...we are on the downhill slope and have been there a while. Will we slide past the wreckage of the old Soviet Union as we topple into the abyss? Lack of discipline in our government and commercial affairs has brought us to the brink. Now, instead of trying to fix the problem, we have a bunch of congressional "patriots" trying to push us over...and seemingly gleeful about it. These guys are doing what Al Qaida could not do. In some other countries...mostly third world countries but not always...this is where the military would step in and tell everyone in Washington to go home (by the way, is anyone watching for that?).

It is now past the eleventh hour in this crisis...it's more like 11:59... and they still can't recognize that the system will fail unless there is a fundamental change. Instead, they persist at playing political games and blaming tactics. We are way beyond the point for gamesmanship. We have to raise money to run the government -- Surprise!! It takes real money -- our money, not somebody else's money. People who really benefited from the Bush tax cuts -- the wealthy folks who pay little or no taxes -- need to cough up some cash and pay their share. In the meantime, I hope some adult can gain control of the discussion, slap down the Tea Party folks if need be, and get this crisis settled so we can work on the real solution.

The Ultimate in Outsourcing - Space Travel

Well, it has finally come down to this. Today, July 8, 2011, was the final launch of a United States flagged manned space vehicle. After thirty years the Space Shuttle program  - or at least the launching part of the program - has come to an end with the launch of Atlantis. I suspect that we will continue to dabble in space exploration but I wonder what it will be like without a recognized manned space program. I'm 62 and space exploration has been part of my life for almost all of my life. We had an old Crosley radio that had a shortwave band of some sort and I remember searching for the Sputnik radio beeps. I was home from school the day that our Vanguard rocket blew up on the launchpad. I remember the first Astronauts being selected and most of us wanted to be Astronauts. My brother did a really cool science fair project on rockets and actually got to meet a few of the space scientists. Some of us were almost able to overlook the fact that Yuri Gagarin, the first man in space, was Russian...at least until Alan Shepard was launched on his 15-minute suborbital flight three weeks later in May 1961.


Both of these space pioneers have passed away...Gagarin in a plane crash in 1968 and Shepard died of leukemia in 1998.  Sadly, Gagarin didn't live to see the first moon landing in 1969. Shepard went on to land on the moon during the Apollo 14 mission in 1971 where he made golfing history by driving a few golf balls into deep space.

We were all captivated by the Gemini missions when we had two Astronauts flying together in a tiny capsule (How did they pee? especially after drinking all that Tang...we all wondered). Then we were consumed with the Apollo program when we were all getting ready to go to the moon.

The first actual Apollo crew was killed in a launchpad fire in 1967. These were guys we all knew because they were involved in earlier missions and it came as a shock. Gus Grissom, Edward White and Roger Chaffee were going to be the first guys to actually pilot a lunar mission spacecraft and we were all looking forward to the launch date. Ed White was the first man to "walk in space".

It seemed then that the Apollo program and the moon landings were the high water mark of the space program. There were other things going on. Skylab was an early space station - an orbiting laboratory that flew from the early 1970s until sort of a momentous and fiery return to earth over western Australia in 1979.

The Space Shuttle program was a new twist on space exploration because it was a reusable vehicle. It took off strapped to a rocket but landed like a plane on an air strip and then could be used over and over. The first manned shuttle flight took place in April, 1981 and they have continued all the way up to 2011. There were some spectacular disasters along the way but the shuttle proved to be the successful work horse of the space program. Before long we almost lost track of whether there were people in orbit and we no longer could remember their names. The International Space Station was constructed and the shuttles were used to ferry astronauts from several nations and their supplies to and from the space station.

Now Atlantis, a Space Shuttle that entered service in 1985 as the 21st shuttle mission, is completing the last shuttle mission. This one is number 135 for the shuttles and is the 166th NASA manned space flight. There are no other manned NASA flights scheduled or planned. This is the end of an era and I'll be sad to see it go.

We have a bunch of Astronauts but no planned missions. Some will be "let go" while some will remain and will probably fly on trips to the International Space Station aboard Russian shuttles at a cost of $60 million per seat. How long the Russian shuttles will fly is a good question. There are a couple private American companies that want to provide space flights to NASA or other astronauts but they haven't been able to demonstrate the ability to launch and return anything let alone a manned vehicle.

I think that this will be a loss for the United States if we end up relying on rented seats on a Russian space bus. Manned spaceflight is risky and expensive but it was a wonderful part of my early life. I can remember that the whole nation collectively held it's breath as the Saturn rockets...all 360 feet of them...rose off the launchpad and hurled the Astronauts into space. We waited for those few minutes until we heard the first voices from space and then everyone smiled.

We could use a few reasons to smile these days and also a good reason to believe, once again, that we are one nation indivisible. Kids could certainly use some heroes and role models other than the NBA stars or the pop culture instant celebs. Astronauts got into the spotlight of our collective attention by hard work and bravery and risk taking. I think I'd also like to see some of our young American heroes not dressed in camo and carrying guns in foreign countries. Kids need to aspire to greatness...to make the very best out of what they have and I regret that they won't have much of a space program to give them inspiration.

The last few Space Shuttles will be sanitized and retired to eventually end up in various museums.

I wish we could take just one Space Shuttle and send it out into deep space as a memorial to what we once could imagine and accomplish as a nation -- and the inspiration that the space program gave to a generation of kids.

...Almost Family

Fourth of July weekend was busy. We had the Ackermann family reunion on Saturday and then later, on the 4th, we had sort of a reunion when Gene came in to town from California for a few days. Although this was my second tripo St. Louis over the weekend, it was an enjoyable day.

Jeanne, Gene & Cam

Bonnie & George

Sheryl & Raymond

 Ken & Gene

Jeanne & Gene

Family

I have a very small family. I have one brother and on one side of the family I can easily locate only two cousins. I have only three cousins on the other side and we all stay in touch. I think that the fact that the family is small and pretty much disconnected made me interested in genealogy and, over the years, I've discovered a number of distant relatives.

We used to have Hartke/Knoke family reunions but once the older generation passed we no longer have much contact. That's why I'm happy to attend the Ackermann reunion held every two years in St, Charles. The Ackermanns are Joanne's mom's family...Jill's maternal grandmother's family. There are bunches of them... all shapes and sizes... and they all seem to get along and enjoy being together in   95-degree heat on the July 4th weekend. Jill was enthusiastic at the thought at first but the heat gave her 2nd thoughts. Once we were there it was shady and tolerable. It was good seeing everyone again...even though I know only about a third of them.

I'd like to be able to put names with all of these people but I'd be wrong most of the time.

 Don and Annette

               Some Davidsons

Don and Jill





Vince, Booie, Don, Jill & Skip

Don & Dot

Dot and Jill