Essay 16
MY AUNT PISH
In January, 1980, the Stafford Courier, the home town newspaper where I went to high school, published the following article.
The text reads
“SPACE OBJECTS?? No. They're just ordinary of golf balls. The strangest thing about these golf balls is where they were found. Alfred Taylor of Stafford farms a piece of ground 1 mile north, one West and 1/2 north of Seward, Kansas. Over the past six or seven years he has found nine golf balls out in the middle of his field. The balls have all been found near the center of the section and usually one or two at a time. No one near Seward knows anything about the appearance of the balls, and there is no golf course or driving range nearby. The ground is level and sandy, and Alfred usually has it in wheat or milo. The balls are of various brands, Titalist, Spalding, Dunlop, Turfmaster and Tournament, just to name a few of them. Most of them seem to be fairly new and in good shape, except where a plow or disk has nicked them before Alfred saw them. Alfred reports that many years ago there was an oil well in the field, but the balls appear to be too new to have been lost or put there 30 years ago. If anyone has any ideas on where these golf balls might have come from, write us at the Courier, box 276 and maybe we can help clear up the mystery of the roving golf balls. (Courier Photos by Mike Sat) (Story by Debbie Trock)”
In February, 1979, there was a solar eclipse visible from the US, and Paul Mutschlecner, a long-time fellow student at Indiana University and colleague at Los Alamos and I decided to go to Montana to see it. We thought that might be about the best place. Fortunately in the summer of 1978 son Chip had worked for a farm family there, and we were invited to stay with them for this major event.
The senior patriarch of the family was Grandfather, he supplied us with truly magical stories, and we had a wonderful time. In many of these stories we heard of the fabulous doings of his Aunt Pish.
After we were back in Los Alamos, we reviewed these Aunt Pish stories, and realized that we had never asked for her real name. Might it have been Priscilla? We could only guess. But it was clear that she was such an outstanding aunt, that we concluded every American family should have an Aunt Pish. If they did not have one, she should be invented.
The question arose, how would you go about inventing an aunt? As time permitted, this question was reviewed on occasions.
My final conclusion was a simple one. It would be sufficient to make Aunt Pish a real person if one could get her name published in the home town newspaper.
I did not have an Aunt Pish though we had many aunts in the family, so I tried to think about a variety of ways of inserting her into the family history. Suddenly the Stafford Courier requests letters from readers about possible origins of the golf balls in Stafford County, Kansas.
I fashioned a letter to the Editor; Points I made in it follow.
Golf Balls—Everything You Ever Wanted to Know And Were Afraid to Ask.
It is quite clear to some of here in Los Alamos that the discovery of those golf balls by Mr. Taylor over a period of five or six years near the center of a section of land presents a problem of considerable interest and importance. Unfortunately we have insufficient data to enable us to come to definitive answers. We have decided, however, not to let the paucity of information interfere with our speculations, and indeed, in the spirit of the age, we feel that we have every right to believe what we wish without regard to the detailed facts.
We have decided to approach this problem with a series of questions.
First, is it possible to approach this matter scientifically? Answer, Yes.
For example, let us assume the laws of physics hold for this problem. One of them speaks to the inevitable increase of entropy with time. This means that what is ordered will become increasingly disordered; that what is gathered will become scattered, etc. Since golf balls have discrete sources, and certainly do become scattered with time, this particular law appears to be relevant.
Let N equal the number of golf balls produced in the United States each year. In six years the number of golf balls produced will be 6N. If A is the area of the United States in square miles, then 6N divided by A will be the number of golf balls per square mile if they were to be evenly distributed. For Mr. Taylor’s golf balls, there appears to be three possible situations;
a.) 6N/A is much greater than 9
b.) 6N/A is roughly equal to 9
c,) 6N/A is very much less than 9
When N is known, it will be clear which of these categories applies.
It is instructive, however to examine each possibility.
Suppose that a. is the situation. This leads to the curious circumstance that golf balls, evenly distributed, will number many more than nine to the square mile. So the problem is immediately shifted away from the question “Why the 9 balls?” to “Where are all the others?” This is of course a fascinating, but utterly different question.
If b. is the situation then one would expect roughly nine balls per square mile, and there is no problem.
If c. is correct, grave question might arise as to the reality of the found balls, for categories of highly improbable events contain miracles, misunderstandings, and hoaxes, not necessarily in equal parts!
For the sake of further discussion, let us assume that the balls are real, and that no hoax is involved.
So, secondly, are these golf balls ordinary, i.e., normal?
Answer: NO! Notice the following points
1. Normal golf balls are always associated with golfers—a point not necessarily to their credit. But these balls are utterly without this traditional association.
2. Normally golf balls in sand are abhorrent especially if they are in that circumstance for long periods of time—say periods longer than 1 hour. Normally this is not to be permitted.
3. Ordinary golf balls have a history of being lost. These balls have only a history of being found. Strange, indeed.
Conclusion: These are not normal golf balls!
Thirdly, and a principal question nowadays, Are these golf balls radioactive?
Answer: Almost certainly!
1. For normal golf balls, this question would not be necessary. For non-normal golf balls it is fundamental.
2. The existence of these balls is sinister, for why else would so many of us be concerned?
3. Sinister things border on evil.
4. In today’s society, evil things are usually radioactive. (The fact that one’s spouse is radioactive is suppressed for purposes of this discussion.)
5. If the question arises about anything being radioactive, ever more and more careful measurements will finally reveal that it is.
6. Bad news is always forthcoming if you insist upon knowing.
Conclusion: These balls are much more apt to be radioactive than not.
Fourth: What possible reason could anyone have for distributing radioactive golf balls in hard-to-spot places throughout the country?
Answer: There is a very good reason why this might be true.
1. The government has a big nuclear waste problem, right?
2. The government only embraces evil for good reason.
3. There is not a lot of nuclear waste, so a little dab here and there will do it.
4. Probably only the government has the means to distribute waste in golf balls without being detected. (Notice that much of what the governmental departments do goes undetected. Consider the Departments of Interior, Agriculture, Labor and Education. Usually it is just the Departments of Defense and Energy that call themselves to the public’s attention, and they always regret it!)
Conclusion: At last all this becomes plain. The government is using golf balls to get rid of its nuclear waste.
Fifth: Are there no other alternatives to the government’s nuclear waste dilemma?
Answer: Yes. But none are being pursued.
1. We can think of no other alternatives involving golf balls.
2. It is important to note that other kinds of radioactive objects have not been found in fields. (Radioactive objects have been found occasionally along the roads, but this is too dumb to be planned. It is most likely due to incompetence.)
Conclusion: No help here.
Sixth: Surely it is possible to invent another explanation.
Answer: Yes.
1. The radioactive waste explanation is newsworthy. Even movie stars will like it.
2. To have the balls dropped from satellites is not competitive with the Soviets.
3. Blaming crows is too prosaic.
4. The whole thing has been too quiet to be associated with the Iranian crisis.
5. The Department of Agriculture may know a lot about golf and fields, but to suggest they could do this is unkind.
6. Teen-agers get blamed for everything.
Conclusion; Ho-hum.
Seventh: Can one, by the introduction of but a single fact, overthrow the above logic?
Answer: Yes
1. The fact is that in the United States there are over 200 million golf balls manufactured each year. In six years 1.2 billion are about. The area of the United States, including Alaska, is about 3.6 million Square miles. Therefore, if these balls were evenly distributed, there would be 300 per square mile.
Conclusion: Now we have a real problem! Where are all of these golf balls??
The best possible summary of this is the old saying Aunt Pish used to have for every imponderable, “These Things Happen!”
And, there it was! Aunt Pish’s name was published in my home town newspaper when they printed my letter. For some years thereafter I would bring up the name of Aunt Pish in large family gatherings, and was never questioned about her. Apparently each person thought she was from the other side of the family.
This story does not really end here, for the printed letter was picked up by small newspapers throughout the Midwest, and I began receiving letters from long-time acquaintances asking just what I was trying to do. Chip, in college, had a friend bring him a copy of HIS home town newspaper asking if Chip was any relation. Chip conceded, but also wondered why. A number of us from the lab departed in a Boeing 707 for Africa not too many weeks later, and when I opened my airplane mounted scope in Kenya, to my amazement there was a sack of golf balls, each with its own radioactive sticker. (See below.) The original plan was to drop them from 30,000 feet as the plane flew over Stafford County, but it was decided that having them in Kenya would be more fun. The question then arose; do we leave them in Kenya? What a splendid international incident. But could we smuggle them back into the US? We thought we would try, and we did.
Hence, the picture.
It was many years before I confessed to the family the true origin of Aunt Pish.
However, it happens that I have her picture. Bill Ogle was going through ancient pictures of his family, and there was one picture no one could identify. His conclusion was that it was a picture of Brownlee’s Aunt Pish, so I now own her picture as well.
MY AUNT PISH
In January, 1980, the Stafford Courier, the home town newspaper where I went to high school, published the following article.
The text reads
“SPACE OBJECTS?? No. They're just ordinary of golf balls. The strangest thing about these golf balls is where they were found. Alfred Taylor of Stafford farms a piece of ground 1 mile north, one West and 1/2 north of Seward, Kansas. Over the past six or seven years he has found nine golf balls out in the middle of his field. The balls have all been found near the center of the section and usually one or two at a time. No one near Seward knows anything about the appearance of the balls, and there is no golf course or driving range nearby. The ground is level and sandy, and Alfred usually has it in wheat or milo. The balls are of various brands, Titalist, Spalding, Dunlop, Turfmaster and Tournament, just to name a few of them. Most of them seem to be fairly new and in good shape, except where a plow or disk has nicked them before Alfred saw them. Alfred reports that many years ago there was an oil well in the field, but the balls appear to be too new to have been lost or put there 30 years ago. If anyone has any ideas on where these golf balls might have come from, write us at the Courier, box 276 and maybe we can help clear up the mystery of the roving golf balls. (Courier Photos by Mike Sat) (Story by Debbie Trock)”
In February, 1979, there was a solar eclipse visible from the US, and Paul Mutschlecner, a long-time fellow student at Indiana University and colleague at Los Alamos and I decided to go to Montana to see it. We thought that might be about the best place. Fortunately in the summer of 1978 son Chip had worked for a farm family there, and we were invited to stay with them for this major event.
The senior patriarch of the family was Grandfather, he supplied us with truly magical stories, and we had a wonderful time. In many of these stories we heard of the fabulous doings of his Aunt Pish.
After we were back in Los Alamos, we reviewed these Aunt Pish stories, and realized that we had never asked for her real name. Might it have been Priscilla? We could only guess. But it was clear that she was such an outstanding aunt, that we concluded every American family should have an Aunt Pish. If they did not have one, she should be invented.
The question arose, how would you go about inventing an aunt? As time permitted, this question was reviewed on occasions.
My final conclusion was a simple one. It would be sufficient to make Aunt Pish a real person if one could get her name published in the home town newspaper.
I did not have an Aunt Pish though we had many aunts in the family, so I tried to think about a variety of ways of inserting her into the family history. Suddenly the Stafford Courier requests letters from readers about possible origins of the golf balls in Stafford County, Kansas.
I fashioned a letter to the Editor; Points I made in it follow.
Golf Balls—Everything You Ever Wanted to Know And Were Afraid to Ask.
It is quite clear to some of here in Los Alamos that the discovery of those golf balls by Mr. Taylor over a period of five or six years near the center of a section of land presents a problem of considerable interest and importance. Unfortunately we have insufficient data to enable us to come to definitive answers. We have decided, however, not to let the paucity of information interfere with our speculations, and indeed, in the spirit of the age, we feel that we have every right to believe what we wish without regard to the detailed facts.
We have decided to approach this problem with a series of questions.
First, is it possible to approach this matter scientifically? Answer, Yes.
For example, let us assume the laws of physics hold for this problem. One of them speaks to the inevitable increase of entropy with time. This means that what is ordered will become increasingly disordered; that what is gathered will become scattered, etc. Since golf balls have discrete sources, and certainly do become scattered with time, this particular law appears to be relevant.
Let N equal the number of golf balls produced in the United States each year. In six years the number of golf balls produced will be 6N. If A is the area of the United States in square miles, then 6N divided by A will be the number of golf balls per square mile if they were to be evenly distributed. For Mr. Taylor’s golf balls, there appears to be three possible situations;
a.) 6N/A is much greater than 9
b.) 6N/A is roughly equal to 9
c,) 6N/A is very much less than 9
When N is known, it will be clear which of these categories applies.
It is instructive, however to examine each possibility.
Suppose that a. is the situation. This leads to the curious circumstance that golf balls, evenly distributed, will number many more than nine to the square mile. So the problem is immediately shifted away from the question “Why the 9 balls?” to “Where are all the others?” This is of course a fascinating, but utterly different question.
If b. is the situation then one would expect roughly nine balls per square mile, and there is no problem.
If c. is correct, grave question might arise as to the reality of the found balls, for categories of highly improbable events contain miracles, misunderstandings, and hoaxes, not necessarily in equal parts!
For the sake of further discussion, let us assume that the balls are real, and that no hoax is involved.
So, secondly, are these golf balls ordinary, i.e., normal?
Answer: NO! Notice the following points
1. Normal golf balls are always associated with golfers—a point not necessarily to their credit. But these balls are utterly without this traditional association.
2. Normally golf balls in sand are abhorrent especially if they are in that circumstance for long periods of time—say periods longer than 1 hour. Normally this is not to be permitted.
3. Ordinary golf balls have a history of being lost. These balls have only a history of being found. Strange, indeed.
Conclusion: These are not normal golf balls!
Thirdly, and a principal question nowadays, Are these golf balls radioactive?
Answer: Almost certainly!
1. For normal golf balls, this question would not be necessary. For non-normal golf balls it is fundamental.
2. The existence of these balls is sinister, for why else would so many of us be concerned?
3. Sinister things border on evil.
4. In today’s society, evil things are usually radioactive. (The fact that one’s spouse is radioactive is suppressed for purposes of this discussion.)
5. If the question arises about anything being radioactive, ever more and more careful measurements will finally reveal that it is.
6. Bad news is always forthcoming if you insist upon knowing.
Conclusion: These balls are much more apt to be radioactive than not.
Fourth: What possible reason could anyone have for distributing radioactive golf balls in hard-to-spot places throughout the country?
Answer: There is a very good reason why this might be true.
1. The government has a big nuclear waste problem, right?
2. The government only embraces evil for good reason.
3. There is not a lot of nuclear waste, so a little dab here and there will do it.
4. Probably only the government has the means to distribute waste in golf balls without being detected. (Notice that much of what the governmental departments do goes undetected. Consider the Departments of Interior, Agriculture, Labor and Education. Usually it is just the Departments of Defense and Energy that call themselves to the public’s attention, and they always regret it!)
Conclusion: At last all this becomes plain. The government is using golf balls to get rid of its nuclear waste.
Fifth: Are there no other alternatives to the government’s nuclear waste dilemma?
Answer: Yes. But none are being pursued.
1. We can think of no other alternatives involving golf balls.
2. It is important to note that other kinds of radioactive objects have not been found in fields. (Radioactive objects have been found occasionally along the roads, but this is too dumb to be planned. It is most likely due to incompetence.)
Conclusion: No help here.
Sixth: Surely it is possible to invent another explanation.
Answer: Yes.
1. The radioactive waste explanation is newsworthy. Even movie stars will like it.
2. To have the balls dropped from satellites is not competitive with the Soviets.
3. Blaming crows is too prosaic.
4. The whole thing has been too quiet to be associated with the Iranian crisis.
5. The Department of Agriculture may know a lot about golf and fields, but to suggest they could do this is unkind.
6. Teen-agers get blamed for everything.
Conclusion; Ho-hum.
Seventh: Can one, by the introduction of but a single fact, overthrow the above logic?
Answer: Yes
1. The fact is that in the United States there are over 200 million golf balls manufactured each year. In six years 1.2 billion are about. The area of the United States, including Alaska, is about 3.6 million Square miles. Therefore, if these balls were evenly distributed, there would be 300 per square mile.
Conclusion: Now we have a real problem! Where are all of these golf balls??
The best possible summary of this is the old saying Aunt Pish used to have for every imponderable, “These Things Happen!”
And, there it was! Aunt Pish’s name was published in my home town newspaper when they printed my letter. For some years thereafter I would bring up the name of Aunt Pish in large family gatherings, and was never questioned about her. Apparently each person thought she was from the other side of the family.
This story does not really end here, for the printed letter was picked up by small newspapers throughout the Midwest, and I began receiving letters from long-time acquaintances asking just what I was trying to do. Chip, in college, had a friend bring him a copy of HIS home town newspaper asking if Chip was any relation. Chip conceded, but also wondered why. A number of us from the lab departed in a Boeing 707 for Africa not too many weeks later, and when I opened my airplane mounted scope in Kenya, to my amazement there was a sack of golf balls, each with its own radioactive sticker. (See below.) The original plan was to drop them from 30,000 feet as the plane flew over Stafford County, but it was decided that having them in Kenya would be more fun. The question then arose; do we leave them in Kenya? What a splendid international incident. But could we smuggle them back into the US? We thought we would try, and we did.
Hence, the picture.
It was many years before I confessed to the family the true origin of Aunt Pish.
However, it happens that I have her picture. Bill Ogle was going through ancient pictures of his family, and there was one picture no one could identify. His conclusion was that it was a picture of Brownlee’s Aunt Pish, so I now own her picture as well.
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