First, a public-service announcement: The Clark Center’s Senior Indoor Walking Program has started and will continue through till spring. Anyone older than 55 is eligible to join the group that circles the track above the basketball courts in the sports center. The informalprogram begins at 10 a.m. Monday, Wednesday and Friday. No special attire, though wear soft soles for traction on the carpeting.
Come join us! We don’t compete, but just have a lot of fun.
Now, as to the following information: I’m comfortable sharing it with you; after all, we’ve been visiting through this column for 18 years. But I’d really rather you didn’t spread it around. People who don’t know me as well as you do might misunderstand. I’lladmit that it does sound a bit strange: I’ve been eavesdropping on UFOs. Hearing alien chatter.
I said it would sound strange. (“Oh, dear!” you’re thinking. “Have they changed the poor man’s medications? Did he whack his head on the mail box or the newel post?”) Thanks for your concern, but nothing like that has happened. Circumstances are less dramatic and just involve my earmuffs.
I mean my ear mufflers, the sound mufflers I sometimes wear when I nap. They’re meant to dampen sound when one’s ripping big boards or chain sawing logs. I can’t do either any more and now keep the mufflers in my study.
In summer, when lawn mowers roar or in winter when the snowplows (bless them and their crews!) have to bang and scrape their blades, the mufflers make for a quiet afternoon nap. I lay me down on my couch, clap the mufflers on my ears, and sink into blessed quiet. Until lately.
Inside the muffs, I’m been picking up faint, highpitched sound. “Drat!” I first thought. “I’m getting tinnitus!”
My friend George has borne with that all his adult life: a constant sound like a dial tone, always precisely at D above high C. George himself has perfect pitch, and that relentless tone is a curse. He loves classical music; and if he’s listening to, say, a cello etude in B flat, that high D, just a grating half step below the tonic, drills right through etude’s beauty and largely wrecks it. Poor George.
Mine’s not a steady tone, though. The sound rises and falls, the way voices do. And I’ve learned to recognize when phrases and sentences end, when increasing volume suggests argument,and even when odd rises and drops suggest questions and answers. But, you say, what good’s that, if you can’t understand the words? I can. Well, not exactly.
But I’ve realized that, as I’ve strained my brain (lying there, covers tucked under my beard), I’ve begun to draw meanings from the chatter. First it was brief snatches, but now I’m following conversations.
Friends, it’s grim stuff they’re talking about. It seems these “Whoevers” have been circling Earth for millennia, studying our particular species and sending reports to “Big Boy,” as they say.
The study’s goal is to decide if there’s still a chance we humans can pull it off: if we can shake off the egoism that’s making us trash one another and the planet itself.
And I’ve also figured out that other studies are under way elsewhere in the universe. They’re watching thousands of planets that have intelligent life, and we’ve come out looking really bad.
Other rational species’ tribes and nations have got past mayhem to get goods, turf and power, and evidently their individuals live in serene happiness. Imagine! But reports on us have grown steadily grimmer, and the Whoevers seem close to sending a recommendation up the chain: Wipe out these housewrecking humans before they do more damage.
They project optimistically that, with us gone, a few thousand years will find the planet finished with cleaning up our messes. Air and water will be pure again, and the wounds to hills and plains will have filled in and grassed over.
The other living species will increase and multiply, and in time one of them may evolve to consciousness and rationality.
Earlier reports to Big Boy had suggested temporizing, holding off till our sick species wipes itself out with its own weapons and pollution.
But now the high-flying observers have turned more pessimistic. I’ve heard them close to agreement on recommending that a particular nanosecond be chosen, and in that instant the whole seven billion of us be “humanely put down,” as we might say.
No, not transported elsewhere, where we’d be saying, “Yikes! Where are we? What’s happened?” Nope. No one to say that. No us, anywhere. These bozos are talking annihilation.
And another strain has entered this reasoning, one that may speed up any timetable. The aliens have noted that the planet itself seems to be making first signs of ridding itself of us. It’s stirring in its dreamless sleep, wrinkling its surface with earthquakes and eruptions, provoking tsunamis, droughts, floods, volcanoes and rivers of lava. All this terrifies humans crawling on that surface, but not enough to change.
Maybe the planet’s deep sleep has been troubled by the sting of pollution in air and water, and it’s begun blindly to sense the land ravaged and scarred, and other species dying.
And, mumbling in its sleep, maybe the planet is gathering to swat away the source of irritation, like a mosquito.
That possibility worries the Whoevers. For such a move by the sleeping giant (their term, not mine) would also mean collateral damage: destruction of other, innocent living species, too. (These Whoevers seem actually to live, you see, by the morality we pretend guides us.)
And so their strong recommendation to Big Boy may be to speed up the sequence. Bring on that nanosecond! Put us out of our misery and let the planet heal.
Of course I’ll keep listening in. But please, keep this stuff to yourselves. You understand me, but others could write me off as a wacko.
Worrisome stuff, isn’t it? I’ll report back.
Columns
From Fly Creek: Keep this to yourself . . .
- Columns
-
-
From Fly Creek: Revving up for spring
Time to bring you up to date on Fly Creek’s happy clambering into Spring. First, the eatery scene. “Is Jerry’s open yet?” The answer is, “Oh, yes!” The porches are freshly stained; the lawns a uniform green, and the hop vines are already climbing the posts on the covered side deck. Blue and I went up there to lunch earlier this week, and I celebrated spring with my traditional bacon, onion and Swiss cheese hamburger. We two sat on the deck, enjoying the broad view and some spectacular clouds marching across, up toward Schuyler Lake.
Continued ... -
In These Otsego Hills: More from 1986 ...
This week we continue with the discussion of telephone service from the pre-dial days. On March 12 we noted that: “No one has yet produced a telephone directory from pre-dial days, but Doug Preston of New Hartford recalls that some business (which one?) in the village had the phone number 7.”
Continued ... -
Home Notes: Celebrations abound at the Thanksgiving Home
April was a month of celebrations and much to appreciate. We had a 90th birthday celebration for Wanda Noyes on April 4 including her family and friends. Personal care staff Dee Bouck worked with residents to hand paint Easter eggs for the tree in the activity room.
Continued ... -
In These Otsego Hills: 1986 continues ...
This week we continue our journey through the columns of 1986 with the answer to the question “for whom, according to tradition, was Hannah’s Hill named?”
Continued ... -
Book Notes: Baseball book features local contributors
Baseball is part of the nation’s fabric. Most kids have a memory of the game either from playing Little League, attending a major league contest or meeting a favorite player. In Cooperstown that feeling is magnified since we are the official home of baseball. We get to see firsthand what has made the sport the national pastime.
Continued ... -
From Fly Creek: Ya really wanna know?
SETTING: Fly Creek General Store. CAST: Assorted seated geezers, drinking coffee. [Door opens, enter heavy-set geezer; walking slowly with wide stance, maybe prostatitis.]
Continued ... -
In These Otsego Hills: Returning to 1986 ...
For the past several years now we have undertaken sharing some of the area’s oral history we have collected over the years that we have written this column. Therefore, this year, we would like to go back to 1986 to share that rather unusual year. Those who were here then no doubt remember that it was that year that the village celebrated the bicentennial of its founding.
Continued ... -
From Fly Creek: For reasons unknowable
[Jim’s reached back to 2002 to share one of his favorite columns.] My father was born as the last century began into a river village in tidewater Maryland. He told me once of a man there in his boyhood who, like so many, made a thin living tonging for oysters in the cold months and, in the hot and humid ones, crabbing and raising vegetables.
Continued ... -
In These Otsego Hills: CCS balancing act ... side two
Last week we shared a number of activities in which students at CCS can participate. We thought it was an impressive, if not overwhelming, list. And we are indeed pleased that the young people of our area have these opportunities. However, we think it is also important to keep in mind that these undertakings do have a cost associated with them. They are not free. In fact there are, no doubt, those who would say they do not come cheap.
Continued ... -
From Fly Creek: A graceful crowd
Make of this what you will, friends. I feel I’m really meant to share it with you. Despite good medication for my Parkinsonism, every four or five weeks I can sensethe symptoms building up on me, giving me more than ordinary trouble. Lately it’s been falls, and last week brought a typical one. I’d gone out to get the paper, moving along with penguin steps on the snowcoved ice patches, and usingmy spike-tipped cane the waya climber uses an ice axe. But circumstances overcame me. Parkinson’s wipes out the possibility of multi-tasking.
Continued ... -
In These Otsego Hills: This and that and the other side ...
We note that the CCS Class of 2012 is presenting its senior class play, “Snow White” by Tim Kelly, this week with performances 7:30 p.m Thursday and Friday, March 29 and 30, and at 11 a.m. and 7:30 p.m. Saturday, March 31. All performances will be at the Nicolas J. Sterling Auditorium at the Middle/High School.
Continued ... -
In These Otsego Hills: That green thing ...
Of late we have noticed that our email inbox has been much busier than usual. In fact, we find ourselves hard pressed to keep up with all the various messages we receive. As a result we suspect we have not answered some in as timely a fashion as might be thought appropriate.
Continued ... -
From Fly Creek: What you need to know
In their last Sunday’s bulletins, all 84 churches of Otsego County were to have carried announcements of an important meeting; most of them did. But because the announcement is so important, and not just to the churched, here it is again.
Continued ... -
Book Notes: Living the magic of ‘Hoosier’
A lot of people consider “Hoosiers” the best sports film of all time. The 1986 classic follows the exploits of a fictional small town Indiana high school basketball team in 1952 as it attempts to achieve the impossible dream of a state championship. The story is inspired by the true life achievement of the 1954 Milan team, who with an enrollment of only 161 students shocked big city power Muncie Central on a last second shot to win the state title. It’s the kind of sports story that represents something that is hard to grasp unless you live in a small town.
Continued ... -
In These Otsego Hills: The most perfect village... home to heavy industry?
We suspect we would get a whole lot more accomplished if we spent less time thinking, pondering and musing about things. In fact, there is a good possibility we might actually have completed our goal of cleaning the basement if we only focused on the task at hand, instead of trying to figure out the world around us. It almost makes us wonder if it is possible to think too much about things. We certainly hope not because should that be the case, we are in deep trouble.
Continued ... -
Up On Hawthorn Hill: The past in the present
Clichés abound about the value of photographs. Most are probably true at least to a certain extent. What I do know about an image is that it represents something of the past that is not the pastitself. But that is the power of any image. It represents something that once was. The beauty of an image, revisited, is that it functions as a catalystfor reliving in the present a past experience. My own view, one that I thank the Spanish writer Jorge Luis Borges for, is that all we ever can experience is the present.
Continued ... -
Home Notes: Workshops held for Thanksgiving Home residents
We welcomed Linda Keller, Ph.D. of the Bassett Research Institute and Ida Baker of NYCAMH who presented a six-week workshop for residents and staff.
Continued ... -
From Fly Creek: Late-winter hamlet news
Well, at least I’m “guessing” it’s late winter now — in the winter that wasn’t. But, if not snow, I can provide a flurry of Fly Creek news to share with you, scooping Associated Press, Reuter’s, and United Press International, not to mention all local news services except our General Store.
Continued ... -
In These Otsego Hills: Waiting for spring to have sprung ...
Difficult as it to believe, both January and February seem to have flown by and we find ourselves turning the calendar over to the month of March, which we have long thought is one of the more dreary months of the year. Of course, as in the pastthere are signs of spring as reflected by the tapping of the maple trees. For many years, the trees sprouted buckets to capture their all important sap. However, we now know to look for the sap collection lines that are strung from tree to tree.
Continued ... -
Book Notes: Kennedy: a unique individual
It’s been almost 50 years since the Kennedy assassination shocked the nation. Since then much has been written about President John F. Kennedy and whether he would have achieved his destiny (whatever that may have been) if he had lived. It is said he inspired young people in a way that has never been equaled. And there is the notion of Camelot, espoused by his widow Jackie, that there will never be a time of hope and promise like that again.
Continued ...
-
From Fly Creek: Revving up for spring
