Essay 36
A TRUCK FOR EMMAUS HIGH SCHOOL
Sometime in the summer of l977 I received a letter from Billy Kaurtei, the principal of the high school for boys on Koror, in the Palau Islands. Palau is now the independent nation of Balau. These islands are located a few hundred miles north of New Guinea.
Addie Leah and I first met Billy in l970 on the island of Koror. He was then a college student. Subsequently he made his first trip to the US via Guam, and when he first arrived there he thought there had been some mistake, and that he was already in the US! He attended Asbury Seminary, became a minister, and returned to Palau as the principal of the Emmaus High School. He had spent some time with us in Los Alamos, and still called us Mom and Dad.
Billy’s letter explained that the school desperately needed a truck. Clearly, he was expecting me to provide one. The need probably requires a little explanation.
The biggest Island by far in Palau is Babelthaup. It is about 40 miles long. But Koror, an island immediately south of Babelthaup, is where the action is, and evidently always has been. It has the shape of a big X--lots of shoreline, but little land. It served as the headquarters island for the Japanese Navy prior to and during much of WWII, and was of course the objective of the American Navy-Marines during the latter period of that war. The island still serves as the seat of government, commerce, and tourism. For example, there is now a five-star hotel there, built of, by, for, with and about Japanese, with, for, and the object of, YEN. Of course, the island is also the site of the public schools, and of Emmaus High School. The latter was founded by German missionaries prior to WWI, when the Germans pretty much ran that part of the world. They were supplanted by the Japanese after WWI; but the German missionaries came back after l946. The original Missionary group was supported by German Christians in the eastern part of Germany. Most of them fled to the west from the Russians, and eventually many of them found their way to New Jersey. It is there that their missionary efforts are now headquartered. Emmaus’ heritage was, and still is, German. And that is why Emmaus is pronounced E-mouse, not E-may-us!
The two main islands, Babelthaup and Koror, are separated by a narrow part of the sea--waters absolutely filled with many species of marine critters, and swarms with countless numbers of fish. The minds of Kansas fishermen would be boggled at the sight! These waters were traversed by a ferry boat.
There being no place to have a farm on Koror, the school had one on Babelthaup. Getting to and from the farm was a real chore. Up early, off to the dock, a slow ferry that was casually run (and one that cost money besides), followed by the need to hitch-hike some miles to the farm, tend and harvest available produce, then make the long journey back--these duties were good outings for the boys, but was a wildly inefficient way to farm. Also, since all commercial products suffered from the same difficulties because only Babelthaup had room for an airstrip, there was naturally a plan to build a causeway and cantilevered bridge (it was to be the largest cantilevered bridge in the world, so maybe one should not say “naturally”) between the two islands, and across the fabulous waters so filled with fish. When the bridge was completed, and if Emmaus had a truck, then it would be possible to take the boys directly from the school to the farm and back whenever necessary. Farm production would go up, food costs would go down, and efficiency--a German and an American concept--would triumph!
When the letter arrived, we were just preparing (!) to send Chip and Elimelek off to college. I had no money for a truck. I could also guess that it would have to be purchased in Japan, then shipped, and the cost would run about $40,000, even for a pickup. This was an amount that I was not capable of seeing as an incremental cost for the family budget. So my response was made orally. I lifted my eyes heavenward, and said “Lord, you will just have to find some other sucker to get a truck for Billy. I can’t afford it, nor do I know anybody who can. So, I’m putting this out of my mind!” And I did.
In early February, l978, I was on Johnston Island, located about 750 miles west-southwest of Honolulu, serving in the capacity of the Scientific Advisor for Safeguard C. I had started wearing this hat in 1970, first for the Atomic Energy Commission (AEC), then the Energy Research and Development Administration (ERDA), and subsequently the Department of Energy (DoE). I believe it was still the ERDA in l978. Safeguard C was a promise of the Executive branch of government to the Congress that we could return, promptly, to nuclear testing if the Limited Test Ban Treaty should ever go sour. I made frequent trips to the island, a principal part of our program, constantly struggling to see if this promise could be kept.
On this particular occasion, I was about to leave the ERDA cottage (swank accommodation for that environment and those times) when Bill Stanley, the ERDA representative on the island, said “Brownlee, you have done so much for us, is there anything we can do for you?” “No”, I said, “I don’t know how you could do anything for me. But thanks, anyway!” Then Bill repeated the offer, amplifying a bit as to why he felt indebted. Again, I had no request to make, and thanked him. A bit later, we rose to catch the Military Air Command flight that was to return to Honolulu in a few minutes. Bill made the offer again, this time in the “if ever you--” mode. At that moment, and to my own surprise, a thought flashed to mind. “As a matter of fact, I need two trucks!” “What for?” asks Bill. “For Palau”, came the reply. It had instantly come to me that I should ask for two trucks, and that such a request was easily justified. If there were two identical trucks, one could be pillaged to keep the other one running. Any observer in the entire Pacific knew that one of anything was always waiting for a part before it could be used! Two identical trucks might have been a magnificent idea, and the only proper one, but even so it was an outrageous request.
A quick explanation to Bill, and he understood the problem perfectly. He promised to see what he could do. Without any real thought, I committed myself to supply the shipping costs for trucks from Hawaii to Palau. Really, I would probably only need the money for just one truck, that being most likely. But Bill said he would see if he could get two surplus trucks from the military somewhere. This too was a great idea.
A couple of weeks later, Bill called me in Los Alamos, saying that he had found two surplus trucks, but they were piles of junk, and of little worth. My reply I recall precisely. “Whatever would we do with two worthless trucks?” They could never be made to run in Palau. Bill agreed, said he would keep trying. Since this was really the only expected result, I dismissed the whole matter one more time.
Again, some weeks pass. Then wonder of wonders, Bill reports that he has found a couple of identical and very good trucks, with brand new tires, excellent mileage, etc, etc. They can be shipped immediately! He does not yet know, however, what the shipping costs might be. I told him that I would start raising money.
The costs were going to be these:
1. Stevedore costs for loading the trucks onto a ship in Honolulu. Expensive, no doubt.
2. Transportation from Honolulu to Guam. Also expensive.
3. Off-loading the trucks in Guam. Unknown Cost.
4 Perhaps, storage costs in Guam. Unknown Cost.
5. Stevedore costs for reloading trucks. Probably costly.
6. Transportation to Palau. Probably costly.
7. Off -loading costs in Palau. Probably Inexpensive.
When I first realized that there might actually be trucks, I immediately embarked on a many-faceted money raising scheme. I went to the church mission board, and asked them to intercept and/or divert whatever contributions might be ethical to a “truck fund” for Emmaus. (Since I had previously made a couple of pitches for the school, and some money occasionally arrived, this seemed to be another good idea. I made known to friends at work that I was going to need money. When they asked how much, I didn’t know, but promised to keep them informed. For a few people, I merely said “I have you down for $100!” They said “OK”. One of my friends had probably never given a dime to anybody in his life, but I hit him up anyway, making a plea that was so emotionally moving that even an old Scottish Presbyterian would cough up something. He gave me $5.00. I noted that thereafter he took a personal interest in the cause, and, being a good administrator, asked repeatedly for progress reports. Truly, where your money goes, there will your heart go also.
Meanwhile, Bill calls. He has arranged to have the Army keep title to the trucks so they can be returned if anything falls through. And now, he has learned that there is a government ship that sails on occasions from Honolulu to Guam, and if they would happen to have any deck space, they would be willing to take trucks that belonged to the Army to Guam for free!! Should he go ahead and ship the trucks commercially, or should he wait to see if there was any deck space! “Wait!” I cry!
The loading costs must still be found. I called a friend who was the president of an old AEC contractor company. He had work, and people, and offices in Honolulu. Could his company pick up the stevedore costs in the Honolulu port? He groaned, and said Yes. Cost 1 is OK. If there is deck space, so is cost 2. And there was!!
For the first time since the original letter, I communicate with Billy. I am expecting to send two trucks to him, and I need to know his costs when they arrive in Palau. As I noted above, this cost was expected to be the least of any so I was relatively relaxed about it. A few days later I got a phone call from a friend of Billy’s in Guam who said that Billy had told him to call me and have me send him $1400. I thought that was a bit high, but I made the rounds, called in money as promised, counted the take, and had as I recall $1420. So I send $1400 to Billy, sighing about how much more was going to have to be found, from where I knew not. But anyway, Cost 7 was covered.
Funny thing happened on the way to Guam! The instructions, ownership papers, etc., had been attached TO the trucks. The ship encountered several big storms, and the papers had all washed away! When the ship arrived in Guam, nobody knew quite who they belonged to, or what should happen next. There being nobody to bill for costs, the trucks were off-loaded to the dock, where they sat, and the ship sailed away. So much for costs 3 and 4.
Now Billy had heard that the trucks were coming, and he had $1400, but he had heard nothing else. (Neither had I!) It is at this moment that he receives a letter from the High Commissioner of the Trust Territories. The HC wants him to attend a meeting in Saipan, and encloses an air ticket. Of course it is not possible to fly directly from Palau to Saipan. It is necessary to spend the night in Guam. Billy arrives there, is met by a friend with a car. They drive to the docks, and there sit two trucks. Whose are they? Nobody knows. Billie claims them. Then he goes to the US Coast Guard Station, and asks to see the Admiral. He does this because the Coast Guard has a LORAN station in Palau, manned by the Coast Guard, and there are sailor types there. They have adopted the boys at Emmaus for ball games, and baseball caps, etc., and the Admiral is proud of the whole works, and on one occasion has told Billy that if there is ever anything he can do for them, to let him know. So, now, Billy does!
The tag end of this story is easy to see. The Coast Guard loads the trucks on their ship, sail to Koror, and off-load them there. (Costs 5 and 6 AND 7) Billy now has $1400 in cash!
Guess what! The trucks arrive just a few days before the bridge opens! That event was to have happened long before, and of course it had been unavoidably delayed. When the bridge did open, there was a huge formal ceremony, with a line of cars filled with officials and dignitaries waiting to cross. When the ribbon was cut, the entire population surged onto the bridge to fish. There was no vehicular traffic for hours.
Billy had had the boys praying for a truck more than a year. The general community became aware of these prayers, and the kids from the public high school were making fun of the Emmaus boys. Obviously, anything that had not happened in a year would never happen. Then TWO trucks, big Army ones at that, arrived on a Coast Guard Ship! The reputation for prayer was secure. The status of the boys had been dramatically enhanced!
Believers, rejoice!!
Non-believers, we welcome your silence!
Postscript: When the trucks arrived only one of them had a carburetor. Somewhere along the way, someone was amazed to see just what he needed. So his prayers were also answered.
Another postscript. Sometime around 1996 or so the cantilevered bridge was inspected, given a clean bill of health, and shortly thereafter it fell into the ocean. The entire economy of the nation was destroyed. Ultimately the bridge was replaced, but Japan footed the bill. This happened because it had something to do with all those fish! On our trip to Palau in 2000, one truck was still doing yeoman (so to speak) service, just the plan we had in mind.
Now for the required commercial message; I write this story as a confession that when I gave the Lord my original quick response, I had not been very receptive to the message. While I had instantly felt that the burden had been laid on me, and that I did not deserve it, I had failed, as usual, to remember that I am never asked to do everything, only what I can. If I do my part, others will do theirs. I am embarrassed to admit that I have to relearn this lesson repeatedly.
Saturday, September 27, 2008
Essay 37 Our Love Affair With The Marshallese
Essay 37 OUR LOVE AFFAIR WITH THE MARSHALLESE
I first saw the Marshall Islands in the summer of 1945 on my way to the Marianas. We landed in Kwajalein to refuel, but spent a couple of days there for reasons that I cannot recall.
From Kwajalein we flew past Enewetak to Guam, then on the Tinian. I did see some Chamorro people on Guam, but on Tinian we only saw prisoners of war—a few Japanese and quite a few Koreans. I do not remember very much distinction being made between the latter groups, and I had to learn in time that the Koreans and Japanese were mortal enemies. The Koreans we found on Tinian had in effect been slaves of the Japanese. In truth, there were very few Japanese, as they had mostly killed themselves rather than surrender.
After the war’s end, we still flew regularly, and I was fortunate to visit Guam on a number of occasions, to visit Truk and Ponape, and to see a good many Pacific islands from the air. Their beauty was very striking, and I vowed to bring Addie Leah to that part of the world as soon as I could.
After the war the entire Pacific Basin was under the control of the United States Navy. For example, a Navy plane flew to Ponape at regular intervals with a medical doctor aboard who treated patients after setting up an office under one of the palm trees.
The Navy doctor wanted to have an office with some shelter, and also a place where patients could be examined with some privacy. So the request was made to purchase some land where a small facility could be build. The offer included a survey that would enable deeds to be made, questions of ownership solved, and order would prevail. Explanations of each facet of the proposal were made. The Navy asked how soon they could do this. The Ponapeans deliberated for some time, and finally returned with their answer. It would take a hundred years. It was of course news to the Americans, for they did not know that whereas the land was owned by someone, the coconut trees were owned by someone else. For someone to have full and complete ownership in the manner described to them in the American concept of a deed, one would have to wait until the palm tree died, one hundred years being their anticipated lifetime.
Now, here’s a pretty mess. What we want is to be fair in the simplest way. We are just trying to helpful here. Anybody should be able to see that! How do we continue the discussion? This is but a tiny illustration of the inevitable complications when we try to interact with Pacific Islanders.
Herein lies the first lesson; our culture is not their culture, and whatever we propose, it will take a lot more time to accomplish than we can imagine. And Americans are not patient.
The Navy’s control over this area of the world ended in 1951 when the Trust Territory was established by the United Nations.
Continental Airlines began regular service to “Micronesia” in February of 1971. I fulfilled my vow to take Addie Leah to that great part of the world, the two of us arriving in June. The air route was established for the Department of the Interior who administered the Trust Territory and the air passengers were almost entirely government employees. So it happened that we were the first genuine tourists on Ponape and Truk. One lady took her entire staff aside and pointing to us, said, “See? I told you that real tourists would arrive!” This is an honor lost in history but we remember it well.
We also visited Yap and Palau, and it was in Palau that circumstances led us ultimately to have a Marshallese family of our own.
It was a Sunday, and we found a church on Koror, the principal island in Palau, a country now called Balau. It was a mission church founded by a group of German Christians when Germany controlled that part of the world prior to World War I. The area was controlled by Japan after that time until we arrived during World War II. After church we met the pastor, who invited us to his home, being doubtless quite curious about his Sunday morning visitors. We immediately heard a fascinating history. The pastor was Herbert Lang, and his father was an SS trooper who was executed by freedom fighters in German occupied territory before the war’s end. Herb’s pregnant mother and two children (Herb was the oldest) made their way afoot to East Germany, and to avoid the Russians made their way from there to West Germany soon after the war ended. The original church was the Liebenzell Church, and they had had a mission effort in several parts of the world including Palau. Their church was reestablished in New Jersey after the war, from where they still function. Herb was supported by the New Jersey office and received a very small sum each month to operate a high school for boys, named Emmaus School. The boys came from a good many parts of the Pacific area, including the Marshall Islands. We heard of the many good things that the school was accomplishing, and were especially touched by the great need for help. We resolved to send Herb some money each month recognizing that a sum not so very considerable to us could make a huge difference in Herb’s budget.
We also heard about the girls’ school that was on the island of Bablethaup, and how marginal they were.
One of the great problems was that whenever a young man would happen to make it to the US, the cultural shock was such that he tended to isolate himself from everyone, pine for home, and fail in assimilating any valuable part of American culture. Herb mentioned there was need was for a boy to live in an American home for some time before college was attempted.
From our trip to Palau grew a plan, and it unfolded like this. The following year, 1972, our son Chip, just thirteen, went to Palau to go to school for one semester. This was a tremendous learning experience for him, but when he brought Elimelek home with him, it was a learning experience for all of us. Our lives were changed forever.
Elimelek joins the family
Elimelek was Marshallese, his father’s original birthplace being Likiep Atoll. During the war his father was a scout for the Japanese Army in Kwajalein Atoll, and was living on the island of Roi or Namur at the northern part of the atoll. During the invasion by the American Army of those two islands, he decided that the Americans were going to win, and awaited his chance to surrender at a moment when he thought he might not be shot. That worked out fine, and within a few days he became a scout for the American Army. Thus began a long tie of Elimelek’s family with Americans and it lasts until the present moment.
The boys left Palau, and then flew to Guam, Truk, Ponape, Kwajalein, Majuro, Johnston Island, and Honolulu. Concerned that we might lose track of them somewhere along the way, I had friends check on their arrival and departure at each of their stops. As soon as they left one spot I had a message to that effect, usually by telephone. A long time friend, the manager of Honolulu’s AEC office, Bill Hills, met the boys in Honolulu and put them up at a high-rise hotel. They stayed up all night watching television! Oh the joys of being in America!
Elimelek lived with us for almost seven years, graduating from high school in Los Alamos and then going to Sterling College with Chip. He returned to the Marshall Islands in 1977, and lives on Ebeye, an island in the Kwajalein atoll.
The story has not yet stopped, for two of Elimelek’s daughters spent a school year with daughter Nancy and John Bonnema in 2005.
Suffice it to say that we now have Marshallese great-grand children!
I first saw the Marshall Islands in the summer of 1945 on my way to the Marianas. We landed in Kwajalein to refuel, but spent a couple of days there for reasons that I cannot recall.
From Kwajalein we flew past Enewetak to Guam, then on the Tinian. I did see some Chamorro people on Guam, but on Tinian we only saw prisoners of war—a few Japanese and quite a few Koreans. I do not remember very much distinction being made between the latter groups, and I had to learn in time that the Koreans and Japanese were mortal enemies. The Koreans we found on Tinian had in effect been slaves of the Japanese. In truth, there were very few Japanese, as they had mostly killed themselves rather than surrender.
After the war’s end, we still flew regularly, and I was fortunate to visit Guam on a number of occasions, to visit Truk and Ponape, and to see a good many Pacific islands from the air. Their beauty was very striking, and I vowed to bring Addie Leah to that part of the world as soon as I could.
After the war the entire Pacific Basin was under the control of the United States Navy. For example, a Navy plane flew to Ponape at regular intervals with a medical doctor aboard who treated patients after setting up an office under one of the palm trees.
The Navy doctor wanted to have an office with some shelter, and also a place where patients could be examined with some privacy. So the request was made to purchase some land where a small facility could be build. The offer included a survey that would enable deeds to be made, questions of ownership solved, and order would prevail. Explanations of each facet of the proposal were made. The Navy asked how soon they could do this. The Ponapeans deliberated for some time, and finally returned with their answer. It would take a hundred years. It was of course news to the Americans, for they did not know that whereas the land was owned by someone, the coconut trees were owned by someone else. For someone to have full and complete ownership in the manner described to them in the American concept of a deed, one would have to wait until the palm tree died, one hundred years being their anticipated lifetime.
Now, here’s a pretty mess. What we want is to be fair in the simplest way. We are just trying to helpful here. Anybody should be able to see that! How do we continue the discussion? This is but a tiny illustration of the inevitable complications when we try to interact with Pacific Islanders.
Herein lies the first lesson; our culture is not their culture, and whatever we propose, it will take a lot more time to accomplish than we can imagine. And Americans are not patient.
The Navy’s control over this area of the world ended in 1951 when the Trust Territory was established by the United Nations.
Continental Airlines began regular service to “Micronesia” in February of 1971. I fulfilled my vow to take Addie Leah to that great part of the world, the two of us arriving in June. The air route was established for the Department of the Interior who administered the Trust Territory and the air passengers were almost entirely government employees. So it happened that we were the first genuine tourists on Ponape and Truk. One lady took her entire staff aside and pointing to us, said, “See? I told you that real tourists would arrive!” This is an honor lost in history but we remember it well.
We also visited Yap and Palau, and it was in Palau that circumstances led us ultimately to have a Marshallese family of our own.
It was a Sunday, and we found a church on Koror, the principal island in Palau, a country now called Balau. It was a mission church founded by a group of German Christians when Germany controlled that part of the world prior to World War I. The area was controlled by Japan after that time until we arrived during World War II. After church we met the pastor, who invited us to his home, being doubtless quite curious about his Sunday morning visitors. We immediately heard a fascinating history. The pastor was Herbert Lang, and his father was an SS trooper who was executed by freedom fighters in German occupied territory before the war’s end. Herb’s pregnant mother and two children (Herb was the oldest) made their way afoot to East Germany, and to avoid the Russians made their way from there to West Germany soon after the war ended. The original church was the Liebenzell Church, and they had had a mission effort in several parts of the world including Palau. Their church was reestablished in New Jersey after the war, from where they still function. Herb was supported by the New Jersey office and received a very small sum each month to operate a high school for boys, named Emmaus School. The boys came from a good many parts of the Pacific area, including the Marshall Islands. We heard of the many good things that the school was accomplishing, and were especially touched by the great need for help. We resolved to send Herb some money each month recognizing that a sum not so very considerable to us could make a huge difference in Herb’s budget.
We also heard about the girls’ school that was on the island of Bablethaup, and how marginal they were.
One of the great problems was that whenever a young man would happen to make it to the US, the cultural shock was such that he tended to isolate himself from everyone, pine for home, and fail in assimilating any valuable part of American culture. Herb mentioned there was need was for a boy to live in an American home for some time before college was attempted.
From our trip to Palau grew a plan, and it unfolded like this. The following year, 1972, our son Chip, just thirteen, went to Palau to go to school for one semester. This was a tremendous learning experience for him, but when he brought Elimelek home with him, it was a learning experience for all of us. Our lives were changed forever.
Elimelek joins the family
Elimelek was Marshallese, his father’s original birthplace being Likiep Atoll. During the war his father was a scout for the Japanese Army in Kwajalein Atoll, and was living on the island of Roi or Namur at the northern part of the atoll. During the invasion by the American Army of those two islands, he decided that the Americans were going to win, and awaited his chance to surrender at a moment when he thought he might not be shot. That worked out fine, and within a few days he became a scout for the American Army. Thus began a long tie of Elimelek’s family with Americans and it lasts until the present moment.
The boys left Palau, and then flew to Guam, Truk, Ponape, Kwajalein, Majuro, Johnston Island, and Honolulu. Concerned that we might lose track of them somewhere along the way, I had friends check on their arrival and departure at each of their stops. As soon as they left one spot I had a message to that effect, usually by telephone. A long time friend, the manager of Honolulu’s AEC office, Bill Hills, met the boys in Honolulu and put them up at a high-rise hotel. They stayed up all night watching television! Oh the joys of being in America!
Elimelek lived with us for almost seven years, graduating from high school in Los Alamos and then going to Sterling College with Chip. He returned to the Marshall Islands in 1977, and lives on Ebeye, an island in the Kwajalein atoll.
The story has not yet stopped, for two of Elimelek’s daughters spent a school year with daughter Nancy and John Bonnema in 2005.
Suffice it to say that we now have Marshallese great-grand children!
Essay 33 Old Brindle
Essay 33
OLD BRINDLE
When I was a boy we had a brindle-colored cow named, aptly, Old Brindle. I detested that ornery old cow.
Old Brindle had a talent for getting out! She would go into the barn and, refusing to go into her stall* the first time, she always forced the north barn door. Someone then had to chase her to the garage and drive her back to the barn. After this escapade, Old Brindle would go directly into her stall without further fuss.
On one occasion I arranged just outside the north barn door a wobbly structure, containing “a ton” of debris, such as concrete blocks and the like, so that, when Old Brindle made her escape through the barn door, the sky would fall on her. It did, and I enjoyed the ensuing spectacle a lot, but there was no discernible change in Old Brindle’s behavior. Shucks!
One day Uncle Mason, who had mounted a horn taken from a Greyhound bus on his Model A Ford, was driving north on the Zenith road when he encountered Old Brindle standing in the road. Because she was facing into the wind, away from his Model A, it is likely that Old Brindle was unaware of his presence. He drove up immediately behind her, and, expecting a surprise blast of that big bus horn would fun to watch, he honked the horn. Without otherwise moving, Old Brindle promptly kicked out one of his headlights! And stood there!
This event confirmed my belief that old cows had nervous systems that transmitted signals directly from their sensors to their muscles, by-passing brains. However, I suspect that Uncle Mason found some way to attract her attention before he went on home. One lesson learned was that people and vehicles may scatter when they heard that horn, but Old Brindle did not.
This historical event ultimately triggered a whole series of events, detailed in the following essay.
*each cow had her own stall, and almost never went into another cow's stall
OLD BRINDLE
When I was a boy we had a brindle-colored cow named, aptly, Old Brindle. I detested that ornery old cow.
Old Brindle had a talent for getting out! She would go into the barn and, refusing to go into her stall* the first time, she always forced the north barn door. Someone then had to chase her to the garage and drive her back to the barn. After this escapade, Old Brindle would go directly into her stall without further fuss.
On one occasion I arranged just outside the north barn door a wobbly structure, containing “a ton” of debris, such as concrete blocks and the like, so that, when Old Brindle made her escape through the barn door, the sky would fall on her. It did, and I enjoyed the ensuing spectacle a lot, but there was no discernible change in Old Brindle’s behavior. Shucks!
One day Uncle Mason, who had mounted a horn taken from a Greyhound bus on his Model A Ford, was driving north on the Zenith road when he encountered Old Brindle standing in the road. Because she was facing into the wind, away from his Model A, it is likely that Old Brindle was unaware of his presence. He drove up immediately behind her, and, expecting a surprise blast of that big bus horn would fun to watch, he honked the horn. Without otherwise moving, Old Brindle promptly kicked out one of his headlights! And stood there!
This event confirmed my belief that old cows had nervous systems that transmitted signals directly from their sensors to their muscles, by-passing brains. However, I suspect that Uncle Mason found some way to attract her attention before he went on home. One lesson learned was that people and vehicles may scatter when they heard that horn, but Old Brindle did not.
This historical event ultimately triggered a whole series of events, detailed in the following essay.
*each cow had her own stall, and almost never went into another cow's stall
Essay 32 Why Knowledge is Not Neutral
Essay 32
WHY KNOWLEDGE IS NOT “NEUTRAL”
December 16, 2000
Last week in Sunday school class, there was a thought expressed that “knowledge is neutral”. Subsequently Ken Johnson and Ed Wilcox each commented to me that they did not believe the thought to be true. I agreed. During the week I have reflected upon this from time to time, and conclude the following.
Neutral "things" tend to be judged to be in the middle. Mathematicians usually assign that spot a "zero". I'll adopt this as a useful technique, and assign knowledge a zero. Now, let us plot ignorance on the same scale. OOPS! At first thought, one wishes to assign it a zero also. This seems to put ignorance on an equal footing with knowledge. Since this does not sit very well, it would seem to be preferable to assign values to the two that SUM to zero. Ergo, knowledge has a positive value.
But surely this is too easy.
Perhaps the comment is intended to rest upon the application of knowledge. The argument could be that it is only the application that can be assigned value, plus or minus, and since knowledge can be used for both good and evil, therefore it is "neutral".
Can ignorance be used for both good and evil? To state the matter in this way causes an eyebrow to rise. We seem to be inherently uncomfortable with the words "can ignorance be used" for that seems to endow ignorance with a quality that its very definition would appear to exclude.
No, we had best bring this discussion down to the real world.
Let us consider the possibility that a person's legs are not of the same length. I must add that I am amused by the thought that a fault is always assigned to one leg--the shorter! When that person walks, he must do so by averaging leg length in some manner or other. They will average to a length "N".
Is "N" neutral? Certainly not! Even without the knowledge that one leg is shorter, he limps. But with the knowledge, he can put a riser on the correct shoe. And the knowledge appears to me to have considerable value, even before the knowledge is applied. For it explains bad backs! I of course can speak with some authority on this subject, since I was having all kinds of back problems before I discovered the discrepancies in my leg lengths.
Remember these sayings?: "A little knowledge is a dangerous thing". (Even a little is not neutral!) "Knowledge, however small, can offset ignorance, however vast". (Knowledge has weight, a "zero" doesn't); "he is all-knowing!" (If knowing is neutral, can all-knowing be bad?)
I am going to avoid such sayings as "never argue with an idiot" but I know that fits in here somewhere.
It seems clear. Knowledge has weight and value, independent of its application. And the reason is also easy--knowledge rests in truth.
WHY KNOWLEDGE IS NOT “NEUTRAL”
December 16, 2000
Last week in Sunday school class, there was a thought expressed that “knowledge is neutral”. Subsequently Ken Johnson and Ed Wilcox each commented to me that they did not believe the thought to be true. I agreed. During the week I have reflected upon this from time to time, and conclude the following.
Neutral "things" tend to be judged to be in the middle. Mathematicians usually assign that spot a "zero". I'll adopt this as a useful technique, and assign knowledge a zero. Now, let us plot ignorance on the same scale. OOPS! At first thought, one wishes to assign it a zero also. This seems to put ignorance on an equal footing with knowledge. Since this does not sit very well, it would seem to be preferable to assign values to the two that SUM to zero. Ergo, knowledge has a positive value.
But surely this is too easy.
Perhaps the comment is intended to rest upon the application of knowledge. The argument could be that it is only the application that can be assigned value, plus or minus, and since knowledge can be used for both good and evil, therefore it is "neutral".
Can ignorance be used for both good and evil? To state the matter in this way causes an eyebrow to rise. We seem to be inherently uncomfortable with the words "can ignorance be used" for that seems to endow ignorance with a quality that its very definition would appear to exclude.
No, we had best bring this discussion down to the real world.
Let us consider the possibility that a person's legs are not of the same length. I must add that I am amused by the thought that a fault is always assigned to one leg--the shorter! When that person walks, he must do so by averaging leg length in some manner or other. They will average to a length "N".
Is "N" neutral? Certainly not! Even without the knowledge that one leg is shorter, he limps. But with the knowledge, he can put a riser on the correct shoe. And the knowledge appears to me to have considerable value, even before the knowledge is applied. For it explains bad backs! I of course can speak with some authority on this subject, since I was having all kinds of back problems before I discovered the discrepancies in my leg lengths.
Remember these sayings?: "A little knowledge is a dangerous thing". (Even a little is not neutral!) "Knowledge, however small, can offset ignorance, however vast". (Knowledge has weight, a "zero" doesn't); "he is all-knowing!" (If knowing is neutral, can all-knowing be bad?)
I am going to avoid such sayings as "never argue with an idiot" but I know that fits in here somewhere.
It seems clear. Knowledge has weight and value, independent of its application. And the reason is also easy--knowledge rests in truth.
Essay 31 Some Comments on Tornados
Essay 31
SOME COMMENTS ON TORNADOS
Originally written as correspondence with a scientist-friend of a colleague in Finland
Because I grew up in the state of Kansas, USA, I grew up knowing something about tornados, and their behavior. Principally, this is due to the following:
1. The frequency of tornados in Kansas is relatively large. I have not been keeping up with the statistics in recent years, but I recall that some years ago the state of Iowa had the greatest number per unit area, with Kansas second. In these areas, about 15 occur over every 50 square miles, annually. States best known for tornados are probably Texas and Oklahoma, but in fact they have occurred in every state of the Union, with the possible exception of Hawaii.
2. The plains of Iowa and Kansas have a reasonably evenly distributed population, large numbers of people with an unrestricted view of a relatively large area, and observers sensitized to the problem, so it is fairly certain that any tornado that occurs will be recorded.
3. Certain geographical regions tend to have "repeats", i.e., the same kind of tornados happen in the same places. Thus one can be educated about his own area, and can see regularities, and act accordingly. Being "tuned in" to these amazing systems can save your life!
Where I lived as a boy, in central Kansas, in the southeast corner of Stafford County, the tornados we saw usually passed by us dangling in midair. They had a tendency to be descending slowly, and frequently touched the ground some 50 miles or so northeast of us.
The most tornados that I ever saw at one time were five. It was on that occasion that I learned an adage from my father that the Army tried to teach me some years later--namely, that Constant Bearing Means Collision! As the five approached us from the southwest, my father pointed out that the two on the west, and the two on the east, were all slowly changing azimuth, but that the center one was not? We were therefore to keep our eyes on that one, and would seek shelter in our storm cellar when it was near enough. There was good visibility. My mother, terrified, was already in the cellar, and was scolding my father severely for allowing me to stay out to watch for in those days she regarded a six year old as worth saving. But Dad said that there would be plenty of time to seek shelter. I would guess that the funnels were moving 20-30 miles per hour. Before long, we could see that the middle one was beginning to move to drift to the left, ever so slowly, and the crisis was declared to be over.
While the tornado at the base of the clouds is moving with a more or less constant vector, the lower part, whether on the ground or in the air, is bending and twisting, and is capable of sudden changes in direction. Therefore, the length of the funnel is important, for a long one will be capable of surprising you, and can suddenly move directly toward you after you believe that it is going to pass by. For a very big tornado--the largest ones I know about can be approximately a half mile in diameter on the ground--it tends to move as a unit, at constant direction and velocity. They normally move between 10 and 50 miles per hour. The tornados that touched down in our vicinity were usually only a few yards in diameter, on the ground, and probably did not stay on the ground for more than a mile or two. Whenever a tornado slams into a city, or other complexities, observers report that it "lifts", to settle down to the ground again after traveling a few miles. I do not believe that it actually lifts, but that it does so much work that the end of the funnel is eroded away. For those that are among the most powerful known, the thing can stay right on the ground, grinding its way through whatever is there. But these are rare.
One time, I think in the mid 1950's, I was visiting at the home of my uncle, adjacent to the house of my grandmother, who was then more than 90 years old. It was maybe 8 pm, and a huge weather front was approaching from the west. The lightning displays were awesome, and I was keeping an eye on it. I had with me my wife and children, and my uncle had a fine basement for refuge. I was standing outside with my wife, watching, hearing the low rumbling noise of the massive storm growing ever louder. The sound grows gradually, so there is really not one moment when one's alarm bell sounds. But suddenly, superimposed on the low rumble, there was the sound of a screaming jet engine. The combination of these two sounds--a nearby freight train and a jet engine--means TORNADO! My wife ran immediately to get the children and the others inside to take shelter, and I ran to my grandmother's house to get her. She was on the second floor, sleeping in her bedroom. She was quite small, being about 5 feet tall, and weighing no more than perhaps 80 pounds. I swept her from her bed, and ran with her to the cellar, some yards away from the house. She was greatly startled, of course, when I first snatched her from her bed, but when I said it was a tornado, she was quite prepared to have me running while carrying her, for she had been taking shelter from tornados for many decades!
I was now outside the house, running as fast as I could, when the Tornado arrived. Now the first rule in dealing with tornados is NEVER to be caught in the open. Yet here I was, with my grandmother! But this tornado was not all the way to the ground, and it passed overhead. As it did so, I looked up and saw into the funnel. There was a steady, yet flickering, intensely blue light, apparently cylindrically shaped. It was moving rapidly (as was I), so the sight was a short one, but I had no doubt of what I had just seen. Immediately as the funnel cloud passed, wind and rain arrived in a terrible onslaught, and I made our way, wet but safely, to the shelter. Subsequently, the tornado touched down about 25 miles to the northeast of us, but it did little damage.
Once again, when I was a boy, a tornado cut through a neighbor's house. We went to see it the next morning, and I still remember the destruction vividly. The house was cut exactly in two, with one part being totally gone. In the remaining part, the clothes were in the closets, the curtains on the windows, and there were even some newspapers lying on the dining room table! The surviving half looked totally unaffected. It was on this occasion that I saw, on the side of the house that was destroyed, the proverbial straw driven into wooden posts, and also saw many live chickens that had no feathers at all.
As is well known, the deep decrease in pressure causes things to explode, and the air in old wooden posts expands, creating openings, and the straw enters while the post is open. Most houses lose their roofs, as a minimum, but at times the explosions are so great that there will be virtually nothing left. If a person is exposed to the air, he will almost certainly be picked up, to be deposited again as much as 500 meters away. Automobiles are treated the same way, and there has been a fairly large number of survivors of such encounters. Individuals caught outside, however, almost never survive unless they have managed to lie down in a ditch, or otherwise to find a way to reduce the amount of air around themselves.
Throughout the entire central part of the US, called the Midwest, there are many stories of the kind I've related. In recent years there have been a number of books published on the subject. Dramatic video tapes have been taken in the very recent past, thanks to the prevalence of video cameras in the hands of ordinary citizens. It seems clear to me that there will be many more pictures in the near future than there have been heretofore.
SOME COMMENTS ON TORNADOS
Originally written as correspondence with a scientist-friend of a colleague in Finland
Because I grew up in the state of Kansas, USA, I grew up knowing something about tornados, and their behavior. Principally, this is due to the following:
1. The frequency of tornados in Kansas is relatively large. I have not been keeping up with the statistics in recent years, but I recall that some years ago the state of Iowa had the greatest number per unit area, with Kansas second. In these areas, about 15 occur over every 50 square miles, annually. States best known for tornados are probably Texas and Oklahoma, but in fact they have occurred in every state of the Union, with the possible exception of Hawaii.
2. The plains of Iowa and Kansas have a reasonably evenly distributed population, large numbers of people with an unrestricted view of a relatively large area, and observers sensitized to the problem, so it is fairly certain that any tornado that occurs will be recorded.
3. Certain geographical regions tend to have "repeats", i.e., the same kind of tornados happen in the same places. Thus one can be educated about his own area, and can see regularities, and act accordingly. Being "tuned in" to these amazing systems can save your life!
Where I lived as a boy, in central Kansas, in the southeast corner of Stafford County, the tornados we saw usually passed by us dangling in midair. They had a tendency to be descending slowly, and frequently touched the ground some 50 miles or so northeast of us.
The most tornados that I ever saw at one time were five. It was on that occasion that I learned an adage from my father that the Army tried to teach me some years later--namely, that Constant Bearing Means Collision! As the five approached us from the southwest, my father pointed out that the two on the west, and the two on the east, were all slowly changing azimuth, but that the center one was not? We were therefore to keep our eyes on that one, and would seek shelter in our storm cellar when it was near enough. There was good visibility. My mother, terrified, was already in the cellar, and was scolding my father severely for allowing me to stay out to watch for in those days she regarded a six year old as worth saving. But Dad said that there would be plenty of time to seek shelter. I would guess that the funnels were moving 20-30 miles per hour. Before long, we could see that the middle one was beginning to move to drift to the left, ever so slowly, and the crisis was declared to be over.
While the tornado at the base of the clouds is moving with a more or less constant vector, the lower part, whether on the ground or in the air, is bending and twisting, and is capable of sudden changes in direction. Therefore, the length of the funnel is important, for a long one will be capable of surprising you, and can suddenly move directly toward you after you believe that it is going to pass by. For a very big tornado--the largest ones I know about can be approximately a half mile in diameter on the ground--it tends to move as a unit, at constant direction and velocity. They normally move between 10 and 50 miles per hour. The tornados that touched down in our vicinity were usually only a few yards in diameter, on the ground, and probably did not stay on the ground for more than a mile or two. Whenever a tornado slams into a city, or other complexities, observers report that it "lifts", to settle down to the ground again after traveling a few miles. I do not believe that it actually lifts, but that it does so much work that the end of the funnel is eroded away. For those that are among the most powerful known, the thing can stay right on the ground, grinding its way through whatever is there. But these are rare.
One time, I think in the mid 1950's, I was visiting at the home of my uncle, adjacent to the house of my grandmother, who was then more than 90 years old. It was maybe 8 pm, and a huge weather front was approaching from the west. The lightning displays were awesome, and I was keeping an eye on it. I had with me my wife and children, and my uncle had a fine basement for refuge. I was standing outside with my wife, watching, hearing the low rumbling noise of the massive storm growing ever louder. The sound grows gradually, so there is really not one moment when one's alarm bell sounds. But suddenly, superimposed on the low rumble, there was the sound of a screaming jet engine. The combination of these two sounds--a nearby freight train and a jet engine--means TORNADO! My wife ran immediately to get the children and the others inside to take shelter, and I ran to my grandmother's house to get her. She was on the second floor, sleeping in her bedroom. She was quite small, being about 5 feet tall, and weighing no more than perhaps 80 pounds. I swept her from her bed, and ran with her to the cellar, some yards away from the house. She was greatly startled, of course, when I first snatched her from her bed, but when I said it was a tornado, she was quite prepared to have me running while carrying her, for she had been taking shelter from tornados for many decades!
I was now outside the house, running as fast as I could, when the Tornado arrived. Now the first rule in dealing with tornados is NEVER to be caught in the open. Yet here I was, with my grandmother! But this tornado was not all the way to the ground, and it passed overhead. As it did so, I looked up and saw into the funnel. There was a steady, yet flickering, intensely blue light, apparently cylindrically shaped. It was moving rapidly (as was I), so the sight was a short one, but I had no doubt of what I had just seen. Immediately as the funnel cloud passed, wind and rain arrived in a terrible onslaught, and I made our way, wet but safely, to the shelter. Subsequently, the tornado touched down about 25 miles to the northeast of us, but it did little damage.
Once again, when I was a boy, a tornado cut through a neighbor's house. We went to see it the next morning, and I still remember the destruction vividly. The house was cut exactly in two, with one part being totally gone. In the remaining part, the clothes were in the closets, the curtains on the windows, and there were even some newspapers lying on the dining room table! The surviving half looked totally unaffected. It was on this occasion that I saw, on the side of the house that was destroyed, the proverbial straw driven into wooden posts, and also saw many live chickens that had no feathers at all.
As is well known, the deep decrease in pressure causes things to explode, and the air in old wooden posts expands, creating openings, and the straw enters while the post is open. Most houses lose their roofs, as a minimum, but at times the explosions are so great that there will be virtually nothing left. If a person is exposed to the air, he will almost certainly be picked up, to be deposited again as much as 500 meters away. Automobiles are treated the same way, and there has been a fairly large number of survivors of such encounters. Individuals caught outside, however, almost never survive unless they have managed to lie down in a ditch, or otherwise to find a way to reduce the amount of air around themselves.
Throughout the entire central part of the US, called the Midwest, there are many stories of the kind I've related. In recent years there have been a number of books published on the subject. Dramatic video tapes have been taken in the very recent past, thanks to the prevalence of video cameras in the hands of ordinary citizens. It seems clear to me that there will be many more pictures in the near future than there have been heretofore.
Essay 25 China as seen in October-November, 1995
Essay 25
CHINA AS SEEN IN OCTOBER-NOVEMBER, 1995
On our trip to China in 1995, I was absolutely astounded to see the changes in Shanghai since we were there in l986. As usual, there appeared to be a beehive of activity, but this time the city had been transformed, and was being transformed by a veritable frenzy of construction.
I had been invited to visit Fudan University in Shanghai, where I gave a couple of lectures at the Center for American Studies. I was able to ask questions of people who maybe knew the answers, and could thus learn more than if we had been normal tourists. I was told that at present there were more than 10,000 construction projects! Perhaps even more amazingly, a good fraction of those were magnificent buildings of some considerable height, say 20 to 45 stories. These were frequently being built in clusters of five or more, and were scattered over a huge area. Shanghai covers a larger area than Los Angeles, so it is not possible to see a very large portion of the city from any one spot. Even so, no matter where you were, the horizon seemed to be filled with skyscrapers, partially built.
These constructions were not in the fashion of the tenement buildings one sees in New York or Chicago. They were elegant buildings, many gleaming in white tile, and appeared to be worthy of any city in the world, indeed, better than most. Everywhere, construction, day and night!
The mixture of the old and the new China was also fascinating. Every technology was seemingly being used in the most efficient manner. For example, where broken rock was needed, rock was being broken by men wielding huge sledge hammers. Where the most modern machines, trucks, communication facilities were needed, there they were. The object seemed to be the most efficient use of anybody and everything. Because workers are so plentiful, they are used in lieu of machines where that makes sense. But there seemed to be no shortages of equipment, i.e., sophisticated machines were everywhere rampant.
What could this mean? It was very difficult for me to comprehend what I was seeing. How was all of this being managed, and planned for, and paid for, and sustained? And how did this activity originate, when I had so little clue as to the future only nine years earlier?
So I asked that question. Who is responsible for all of this? The immediate answer was Deng Xaio Peng, but as he was reported to be in wheel chairs, and to either nod yes or no, or nod not at all when a paper was placed before him, it seemed unlikely to me that this was the entire answer. The next answer was that it was Zemin, a deputy, who was a native of the Shanghai region, and it was he who drew a ring around the Shanghai area, and five others, and proclaimed that, effectively, people living within those areas could be capitalists. He caused the government to subsidize the peasant farmers; food production immediately increased tremendously, and subsequently those peasants became enormously wealthy, with many millionaires being created. Some of this was underway in l986, for then we saw in action what is called the free market, where farmers brought their products into the city early every morning, sold them for cash, and got to keep everything they made more than a relative small amount of what I'd call tax. It may be that taxes were mostly avoided, considering the cleverness of peasants!
It will be tremendously interesting to see how all this plays out! I can’t really believe that it is possible for a country to allow some people to be capitalists, and at the same time to keep huge numbers of people in a state that can only be considered slavery. Also, the peasants now have access (not all, of course) to some TV. While everything is controlled, still there are Chinese who are learning for the first time that there exists a world outside of China--and a world that is filled with things beyond their imaginings. Incidentally, weather forecasts are prohibited! I concede, however, that the communist doctrine that power comes from the barrel of a gun is powerfully successful in keeping dissidents quiet.
Meanwhile, few in the US ever have any really factual information about what is going on in China. I consider myself reasonably well read, but I was totally unprepared for what I saw in Shanghai. China’s interior was mostly the “Old China”, but there were signs of an encroachment of western ideas and technologies almost everywhere.
We’re in for a good many surprises vis-a-vis China, and there won’t be many that we will like, at least from a political point of view. But I remain confident that communist systems will ultimately fall of their own weight. The time scale for this is problematic, and I am keenly aware that 100 years is a very short time, and that 2 years can be very long.
I would like to live long enough to see China become a successful republic.
That doesn’t seem very likely, but we can always have hope.
CHINA AS SEEN IN OCTOBER-NOVEMBER, 1995
On our trip to China in 1995, I was absolutely astounded to see the changes in Shanghai since we were there in l986. As usual, there appeared to be a beehive of activity, but this time the city had been transformed, and was being transformed by a veritable frenzy of construction.
I had been invited to visit Fudan University in Shanghai, where I gave a couple of lectures at the Center for American Studies. I was able to ask questions of people who maybe knew the answers, and could thus learn more than if we had been normal tourists. I was told that at present there were more than 10,000 construction projects! Perhaps even more amazingly, a good fraction of those were magnificent buildings of some considerable height, say 20 to 45 stories. These were frequently being built in clusters of five or more, and were scattered over a huge area. Shanghai covers a larger area than Los Angeles, so it is not possible to see a very large portion of the city from any one spot. Even so, no matter where you were, the horizon seemed to be filled with skyscrapers, partially built.
These constructions were not in the fashion of the tenement buildings one sees in New York or Chicago. They were elegant buildings, many gleaming in white tile, and appeared to be worthy of any city in the world, indeed, better than most. Everywhere, construction, day and night!
The mixture of the old and the new China was also fascinating. Every technology was seemingly being used in the most efficient manner. For example, where broken rock was needed, rock was being broken by men wielding huge sledge hammers. Where the most modern machines, trucks, communication facilities were needed, there they were. The object seemed to be the most efficient use of anybody and everything. Because workers are so plentiful, they are used in lieu of machines where that makes sense. But there seemed to be no shortages of equipment, i.e., sophisticated machines were everywhere rampant.
What could this mean? It was very difficult for me to comprehend what I was seeing. How was all of this being managed, and planned for, and paid for, and sustained? And how did this activity originate, when I had so little clue as to the future only nine years earlier?
So I asked that question. Who is responsible for all of this? The immediate answer was Deng Xaio Peng, but as he was reported to be in wheel chairs, and to either nod yes or no, or nod not at all when a paper was placed before him, it seemed unlikely to me that this was the entire answer. The next answer was that it was Zemin, a deputy, who was a native of the Shanghai region, and it was he who drew a ring around the Shanghai area, and five others, and proclaimed that, effectively, people living within those areas could be capitalists. He caused the government to subsidize the peasant farmers; food production immediately increased tremendously, and subsequently those peasants became enormously wealthy, with many millionaires being created. Some of this was underway in l986, for then we saw in action what is called the free market, where farmers brought their products into the city early every morning, sold them for cash, and got to keep everything they made more than a relative small amount of what I'd call tax. It may be that taxes were mostly avoided, considering the cleverness of peasants!
It will be tremendously interesting to see how all this plays out! I can’t really believe that it is possible for a country to allow some people to be capitalists, and at the same time to keep huge numbers of people in a state that can only be considered slavery. Also, the peasants now have access (not all, of course) to some TV. While everything is controlled, still there are Chinese who are learning for the first time that there exists a world outside of China--and a world that is filled with things beyond their imaginings. Incidentally, weather forecasts are prohibited! I concede, however, that the communist doctrine that power comes from the barrel of a gun is powerfully successful in keeping dissidents quiet.
Meanwhile, few in the US ever have any really factual information about what is going on in China. I consider myself reasonably well read, but I was totally unprepared for what I saw in Shanghai. China’s interior was mostly the “Old China”, but there were signs of an encroachment of western ideas and technologies almost everywhere.
We’re in for a good many surprises vis-a-vis China, and there won’t be many that we will like, at least from a political point of view. But I remain confident that communist systems will ultimately fall of their own weight. The time scale for this is problematic, and I am keenly aware that 100 years is a very short time, and that 2 years can be very long.
I would like to live long enough to see China become a successful republic.
That doesn’t seem very likely, but we can always have hope.
Essay 40 The Drummer Boy
Essay 40
THE DRUMMER BOY
In 1962 I attended a small astronomical meeting at Herstmonceux Castle, in Sussex, England. At that time I was deep in the business of modeling the sun, and was beginning to understand some things about stellar evolution--as were those at the meeting. It was an exciting time, with about a dozen astronomers present from various parts of the world.
The castle at Herstmonceux is the seat of the Royal Greenwich Observatory, once they moved from Greenwich. It is a l5th century castle, much restored, and eventually became somebody's manor house. When it became "home" to Britain's astronomers (government) the Astronomer Royal lived in it, but there was room for many visiting firemen to be accommodated in the back part of the castle. The castle had a library (formerly the chapel), a moat, ballroom, places to pour boiling oil, etc. Just super.
High up along the back, third floor, above the ballroom, was a series of small rooms, one of which was mine. The window faced to the north, looking out upon the formal garden. Hills nearly surrounded the castle, but mostly to the east through the north to the west.
Early one morning, maybe 4AM, the sun was just up, there was not a breath of air, and you could hear the bells on the sheep as they grazed in the distance. I was awake, lying perfectly still, listening to the birds and bells, and reflecting upon the beauty of an English summer morning. The morning was glorious, and I was glad to be alive.
On the table at the west side of the room, I had laid my pants out as I had gone to bed, with the pant legs over the table's edge, to help protect the crease. Lying there, I happened to be looking directly at the pants when to my amazement they were suddenly "jerked" to the floor. Now normally when something like that falls, there is a gradual creeping toward the edge, an acceleration of motion, then the slipping becomes more and more rapid. But this was not really what I seemed to see. First of all, the pants had been there for hours. Secondly, while the window was open, as it had been all night, I had detected no breeze. Thirdly, I saw no gradual motion, but a sudden jerk. I was quite impressed for the event did not fit into what I felt should have happened.
Later that day I happened to mention, casually, to the maintenance superintendent about my observation. "That would be the Drummer Boy", he responded with hesitation. "He's always playing tricks like that” The Drummer Boy inhabited the back of the castle, while the Gray Lady ghosted the front part, where the Astronomer Royal lived. People kept seeing her, for example when they suddenly turned into a hallway or a corridor. This being my first encounter with famed British ghosts, I was of course fascinated, and returned home with the story.
Some weeks after my return, various family members started hearing, while they were in the upstairs rooms, someone walk up the stairs and down the hall. The noise was not squeaks, but footfalls. Of course, when you got up to see who was there, as Chipper, Tiki the dog and I all did one time, there was no one there. Wenda and Nancy have had this experience too, being appropriately terrified, and so has Wayne. One time my sister Donice, while visiting us and after warning her daughter not to go upstairs, heard somebody coming, leaped out to scold the culprit, and was amazed to find no one. She had never heard that we had such things happen and didn't mention it until later, when she heard us talking about the Drummer Boy. In more recent years I have twice encountered the Drummer Boy in the upstairs hallway. Once he walked down to the bathroom when I was standing at the sink. I waited, expectantly, for Addie Leah to appear, but she had stopped just out of sight, and just stood there. Of course when I could stand it no longer, and looked out--nobody! But a checked on Addie Leah, and a couple of minutes later I found her in bed sound asleep. Another time, late at night, I met Addie Leah in the hall, suddenly realized she had never seen me and that we were going to collide, so I jerked to one side to avoid being hit--and there was no one there. Once again, it turned out that Addie Leah was asleep for I checked immediately! I was under the impression that we were home by ourselves, but apparently not. After hearing our stories, Addie Leah's sister, Wanda, also reported that she had encountered the ghost every time she had stayed with us!
I have never believed in ghosts, and still don’t!! But on the other hand what about these events that I experienced? Who knows about these things? The family had concluded that the Drummer Boy must have come home with me from Herstmonceux, so that’s what we called him and that seems as good a conclusion to make as any. Addie Leah is the only family member who had not met him, and she always said that if she did, there was a new house in it for her! But I note that the Drummer Boy stayed clear of the Lady in the front of the castle, so I'm sure that’s why Addie Leah was always left alone.
As the years have passed, for our house in Loveland there has not been a Drummer Boy. I wanted to tell the people who bought our house in Los Alamos about him, but Addie Leah said NO. Is it possible that they still have him? Should we inquire?
THE DRUMMER BOY
In 1962 I attended a small astronomical meeting at Herstmonceux Castle, in Sussex, England. At that time I was deep in the business of modeling the sun, and was beginning to understand some things about stellar evolution--as were those at the meeting. It was an exciting time, with about a dozen astronomers present from various parts of the world.
The castle at Herstmonceux is the seat of the Royal Greenwich Observatory, once they moved from Greenwich. It is a l5th century castle, much restored, and eventually became somebody's manor house. When it became "home" to Britain's astronomers (government) the Astronomer Royal lived in it, but there was room for many visiting firemen to be accommodated in the back part of the castle. The castle had a library (formerly the chapel), a moat, ballroom, places to pour boiling oil, etc. Just super.
High up along the back, third floor, above the ballroom, was a series of small rooms, one of which was mine. The window faced to the north, looking out upon the formal garden. Hills nearly surrounded the castle, but mostly to the east through the north to the west.
Early one morning, maybe 4AM, the sun was just up, there was not a breath of air, and you could hear the bells on the sheep as they grazed in the distance. I was awake, lying perfectly still, listening to the birds and bells, and reflecting upon the beauty of an English summer morning. The morning was glorious, and I was glad to be alive.
On the table at the west side of the room, I had laid my pants out as I had gone to bed, with the pant legs over the table's edge, to help protect the crease. Lying there, I happened to be looking directly at the pants when to my amazement they were suddenly "jerked" to the floor. Now normally when something like that falls, there is a gradual creeping toward the edge, an acceleration of motion, then the slipping becomes more and more rapid. But this was not really what I seemed to see. First of all, the pants had been there for hours. Secondly, while the window was open, as it had been all night, I had detected no breeze. Thirdly, I saw no gradual motion, but a sudden jerk. I was quite impressed for the event did not fit into what I felt should have happened.
Later that day I happened to mention, casually, to the maintenance superintendent about my observation. "That would be the Drummer Boy", he responded with hesitation. "He's always playing tricks like that” The Drummer Boy inhabited the back of the castle, while the Gray Lady ghosted the front part, where the Astronomer Royal lived. People kept seeing her, for example when they suddenly turned into a hallway or a corridor. This being my first encounter with famed British ghosts, I was of course fascinated, and returned home with the story.
Some weeks after my return, various family members started hearing, while they were in the upstairs rooms, someone walk up the stairs and down the hall. The noise was not squeaks, but footfalls. Of course, when you got up to see who was there, as Chipper, Tiki the dog and I all did one time, there was no one there. Wenda and Nancy have had this experience too, being appropriately terrified, and so has Wayne. One time my sister Donice, while visiting us and after warning her daughter not to go upstairs, heard somebody coming, leaped out to scold the culprit, and was amazed to find no one. She had never heard that we had such things happen and didn't mention it until later, when she heard us talking about the Drummer Boy. In more recent years I have twice encountered the Drummer Boy in the upstairs hallway. Once he walked down to the bathroom when I was standing at the sink. I waited, expectantly, for Addie Leah to appear, but she had stopped just out of sight, and just stood there. Of course when I could stand it no longer, and looked out--nobody! But a checked on Addie Leah, and a couple of minutes later I found her in bed sound asleep. Another time, late at night, I met Addie Leah in the hall, suddenly realized she had never seen me and that we were going to collide, so I jerked to one side to avoid being hit--and there was no one there. Once again, it turned out that Addie Leah was asleep for I checked immediately! I was under the impression that we were home by ourselves, but apparently not. After hearing our stories, Addie Leah's sister, Wanda, also reported that she had encountered the ghost every time she had stayed with us!
I have never believed in ghosts, and still don’t!! But on the other hand what about these events that I experienced? Who knows about these things? The family had concluded that the Drummer Boy must have come home with me from Herstmonceux, so that’s what we called him and that seems as good a conclusion to make as any. Addie Leah is the only family member who had not met him, and she always said that if she did, there was a new house in it for her! But I note that the Drummer Boy stayed clear of the Lady in the front of the castle, so I'm sure that’s why Addie Leah was always left alone.
As the years have passed, for our house in Loveland there has not been a Drummer Boy. I wanted to tell the people who bought our house in Los Alamos about him, but Addie Leah said NO. Is it possible that they still have him? Should we inquire?
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