The Camelopardalids

The Camelopardalids are probably a one-and-done event.  One could hardly call the event a  "One-hit Wonder", because the only wonder is to wonder why so many articles predicted that there would likely be a meteor storm, or, if not a storm, at least a show stronger than the annual August 13th Perseid Meteor shower or the annual December 13th Geminids.  Another wonder to me is to wonder why it is being touted as "a new annual meteor shower."

If I live to celebrate my birthday next year, I will have lived 70 years.  I became interested in Astronomy at age five and have long been one of the multitude of active amateur astronomers.  Others, with superior computers tuned to the entire known universe and with much more powerful telescopes and radios at their disposal, know much more, and are able to learn much more, than I.  However, it appears to me that, from the route of the comet whose debris trail we just passed through, and knowing the gravitational effects of the earth, the moon, the sun, and Jupiter, we may never again pass through this comet's debris field in a way which will provide another meteor shower.  And because of this, I will not join the throng of voices which complain about the lack of an exciting meteor shower between 2 a.m. and 4 a.m. Eastern on May 23, 2014.  Rather, I proudly proclaim to be honored to have witnessed the one-time showing of the meteors known as the Camelopardilids, pronounced "ka-MELLOW-pard'lids" or "ka-MELLOW-pard-alids".

My viewing began 15 minutes prior to the announced desired viewing window.  In that first 15, I saw what I would describe as one ordinary, run of the mill, everyday "shooting star", the sort you might see on any night of the year at the rate of 2 or 3 an hour, if you possess 20-20 or better vision.  There was a slight haze over the sky, but I had an hour and 20 minutes during the Prime Time before the clouds moved in.

After the aforementioned common shooting star, shortly after the Prime Time began, I saw my only fireball of the night.  It appeared headed directly towards me, glowing from small to an apparent Venus-size/brightness, then suddenly disappearing.  There was no significant trail of which I was aware, since its direction was directly towards me.  During the next forty minutes, I saw exactly one dozen meteors with trails, mostly unremarkable, then at 2:51 Eastern time, there was a strong, bright meteor with a remarkable trail across the sky.  Then another at 2:53, 2:54, and 2:57, all strong and bright, all emanating from the area near Polaris.  In the following twenty-three minutes before the cloud cover moved in, I saw nary a one.  In all, during my hour and thirty-five minutes of viewing, I observed:

1 fireball
4 strong meteors with bright trails
5 ordinary-looking shooting stars
8 weak units with visible trail arcs of 30-40 degrees

On Saturday afternoon, I went to the web to see what others said about the event.  Almost everyone was disappointed.  Some felt cheated.  Many interesting comments, but general disappointment that more meteors were not visible.  One tweet, addressed to the Camelopardalids,  made me laugh:

                     "Maybe you got the wrong address. 
                      We're the third planet from the sun. 
                      The blue one with the single moon."

For me, it was a successful night.  I kept my head only slightly elevated, in the direction of Polaris, so I did not suffer the stiff neck reported by some.  The weather was comfortable, far more comfortable than the two strongest meteor showers of most years in mid-August and mid-December.  I saw an average of one piece of glowing debris every five minutes and 17 seconds during the viewing time.  Actually, since I didn't see any at all during the final twenty-three minutes prior to the obscuring cloud cover, I saw one every four minutes during the "active" stretch of time.  Not bad.

If, as I suspect, this is a one-time event, i.e., if the Camelopardalids never return for earth viewing, then I will have participated in a "once-in-a-lifetime" event.  Surely, that must be significant, even if the meteor shower was nowhere near the best I've seen.

Thanks, Camelopardalids, for the event, and for creating the occasion for me to sleep two and a half hours and making my once-a-week-only Saturday Morning Coffee taste even better.  Thanks for the memory.

Derek Dooley's two post-game losses

Former practicing attorney and current first-year head Tennessee Volunteers coach Derek Dooley becomes the first coach in history to lose two games after the game clock expires in the same season.

And he did it in only his FIRST year as a head coach.

This is an amazing beginning. I predict he will lose four games after the clock expires next year.

What's the snow-rain-tears deal?

It's New Year's Eve. Thirty-five years and one week ago , Dan's mom sent him out for some cream for Irish Coffee. Jill's mom sent her out for something, I forget what, but the only place either of them could find open was a convenience store in Peoria at the corner of something and something else now known as "Fogelberg Parkway" or something similar. They were 24 years old or so. She was married. He was not. They had dated each other some in high school. After he saw her in the frozen foods, he touched her on the sleeve, she spilled her purse, she didn't recognize him (he had a beard now), they laughed til they cried. They wound up buying a six-pack and drank it in her car, making toasts to innocence and time.

Eventually, as the song tells us, their "tongues were tired". She gave him a kiss as he got out, probably a peck somewhere if it was administered as he was exiting the car, and he watched her drive away. Now comes the curious part.

Having listened to the song for almost thirty years now, and knowing that it is based on a true story, with at least two examples of artistic license (Jill tells us that her eyes were green, not blue, and that she was married to a PE teacher, not an architect), I have always been able to imagine and feel what Dan may have experienced until it comes to this:

"Just for a moment, I was back in school, and felt that old familiar pain."

Try as I might, I cannot identify with what pain there might be. Minor heartbreak? Loneliness, from being with a person he had not seen in six years? Stone aches? Did he love her and not act on it? Or did she not feel the same for him? When I hear or sing the song, I try to feel the pain, but it's not there. Did they break up? Were they that close? I just don't get any real feeling there.

Another, more confusing lyric, not from the same song ("Same Old Lang Syne") but from the same album The Innocent Age, the song "Hard to Say" begins -

Lucky at Love, well maybe so,
There's still a lot of things you'll never know
Like why each time the sky begins to snow
You cry

What's that about? Two things on the same album about crying and snow.

Titan

Here I am in a little town (50,000 people, so maybe it's a medium-size town) 30 miles North of Nashville. I thought I'd come South for the winter to avoid ice and snow. Guess what? They've had more snow here this winter than in Isle au Haut! It's really amusing to see how they close schools if a single snow flurry is detected, but I suppose since they have no snow removal equipment here, they must do this to protect the little school kiddies. They're amazing down here. The children are able to build good-looking snow people with only 1/2" of snow! And they expend so much effort for something that's going to melt by noon.

The Tennessee Titans are big sports news in this area, having gone to the Super Bowl in their first year as the Titans instead of the Oilers, so when a friend called and told me the History Channel was having a special on the Titans, I tuned in. Turns out, it wasn't football. It was Titan, one of Saturn's moons. I had no idea that there was a body in this solar system that resembled the earth so much. Apparently, it's the only body which has geography like we do - continents, lakes, oceans - the satellite photos could have been of earth. And Titan is the only other body in the solar system that has mainly Nitrogen for its atmosphere. Well, Pluto does for about 50 years of its 248-year trip around the sun; the rest of the time, it's so cold that the atmosphere freezes and falls to the ground.

Anyway, Titan doesn't have water as its liquid. It has natural gas. Propane lakes, neo-propane/methane rain which would freeze a human solid as a rock when it hits. Wow.

Bet school is out a lot on Titan. But when the sun goes supernova and it gets hot enough, humans may be able to live there for a few seconds til it burns up.

I'm going back to Isle au Haut, where the living is easy and slow and life makes sense.

Top Five Christmas Songs

The USA Today Sunday Insert had an article by Barry Manilow - Five Christmas Songs Everybody Loves, or something like that - the little girl who comes through the house from time to time - the one who can walk through walls, or float through walls, or appear and disappear - that little girl - she asked my patient and me for our top five - song title, performer - and Barry and I had four of the same five, albeit different artists on two of the four, and my patient had three of my four. My five, as I listed them, noting that they were in no particular order except the last one, and it was included out of tradition and fear of excluding it, because, after all, it was the one song listed in the King James Version of Christmas Song Lists, I'm certain.

1 - The Christmas Song - Nat King Cole, 1946
2 - Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas - Just Harmony, lead sung by W. C. "Fig" Newton, Live at FUMC, Hendersonville, early 1990's
3 - Silver Bells - Cadence, "Voices from the Stairwell", Live, Nashville, 1987
4 - In the Bleak Midwinter - Dan Fogelberg, "The First Christmas Morning", 1999
5 - White Christmas, Bing Crosby, at the dawn of civilization

The first two songs listed above are simply the best performances imaginable by two mellow, seasoned voices of two classics. What more can be said?

In 1987, I was, as always, invited to a number of Christmas parties, and I attended one in downtown Nashville where I was treated to a performance which had everyone spellbound. Three pretty ladies in their twenties were singing, a capella, perfect three-part harmonies, and when they began "Silver Bells", I had a feeling somewhat akin to falling in love and being enveloped by The Holy Spirit. It is, in my sixty-four years of life, the single best performance of a song I ever witnessed live. Cadence was one of those many ultra-talented groups in Nashville that never went national but should have.

One of the serendipitous events of my life was the release of a Christmas album by the best-ever singer, songwriter, multi-instrumentalist Dan Fogelberg. My reaction to the release of an album was curiosity, not thinking pop star Fogelberg would ever release a holiday album. I remember the night my lady friend and I previewed the project. After a bit of a weak opening, the album showed exceptional preparation, thorough research, and skilled performance. Halfway through the album is a haunting, ethereal instrumental, "Snowfall," which invokes a bone-chilling blue sense of dark, bitter cold silent snowfall, setting the mood for "In the Bleak Midwinter." At one point in "Bleak", I had a helpless feeling, as if the song itself had control of me, and as I felt my chest swelling, I was aware that tears were coming from my eyes. I looked, and the lady was crying silently as well. The tender, sensitive performance left me speechless. I couldn't say anything. I turned off the music. I just wanted to be quiet for awhile and let it sink in all the way.

White Christmas is included not only because it is a classic, but because in the Christmas Music Editorial Ethics Guide, one of the provisions is that this song is included in every list and during every variety show Christmas Performance. People have loved it for nearly 70 years. I'm sure it will be here for at least 70 more.

Merry Christmas, EVERyONe!

Same Old - - - -

GREAT CHRISTMAS SONGS - "1812 Overture" - a classic among classics - we can hear it almost anytime we attend a Pops in the Park concert, especially around Independence Day or Labor Day, when fireworks are scheduled. All of us, regardless of whether we ever took music lessons or a class in Music Appreciation, are familiar with the nine-note sequence played in conjunction with the setting off of the first fireworks. There is a low rumble or even a bang, a tympani or bass drum or low loud notes, followed by (1) nine notes played, (2)repeated, (3) played a step higher, then (4)repeated at the original level (a step back down), then the four steps are repeated but this time with the old Russian National Hymn being played simultaneously. By now, fireworks are exploding and the crowd is awing and being amazed by the thrill of it all, no matter how many times it has previously been experienced. I was in my fifties before I ever listened closely to, and analyzed in my amateur mind, the entire overture, not long after I read that Napster had been sued to shut down its free sharing of music. The next month or so was a busy time for me, downloading every song I ever wanted plus whatever else I came across that struck my fantasy. I was surprised at what I heard in the overture. Throughout, I could hear familiar themes, then I realized what Tchaikovsky had done with this work. I named each theme/movement in my mind, according to my limited knowledge of music and according to what I knew about European political history. When I decide to take the time, I must google it to see the actual designations.

All that to say this: Never once have I thought of the 1812 Overture as being a Christmas song.

In 1969, Dan Fogelberg left his home in Peoria to attend the University of Illinois in Champaign. After a time there, he went home to announce to his parents that he was dropping out of school to be a musician, and he and Irv Azoff (Eagles, REO Speedwagon, and others) drove to L.A. and lived in Irv's car for two weeks until they ran into Jackson Browne, J. D. Souther, and a bunch of guys who were going to one day become the Eagles. Then Dan moved to Kingston Springs, outside of Nashville, and recorded for awhile before returning to L.A. and, eventually, Colorado. Christmas Eve, 1975, found him back home in Peoria and his parents' house, and mama sent Dan to the convenience store for whipped cream. At the hilltop convenience store on what has since been honorarily designated "Fogelberg Parkway", Dan saw Jill Anderson, whom he had dated on and off throughout high school. They had not seen each other for six years.

Jill didn't see Dan. Dan quietly approached her, and, without speaking, touched her arm. Dan had grown a beard. Jill had never seen him with a beard. She didn't recognize his face, at first. When she did, she instinctively opened her arms to hug him, not mindful of the open-top purse, which slid off, spilling the contents.
They laughed. I always wondered whether, in Jill's purse, there were three cassette tapes which Dan saw when he knelt to assist her in gathering the spilled items. I have often imagined a music video which, at this point, shows a compact, lipstick, eye shadow, a small gift-wrapped package, along with the Home Free, Souvenirs, and Captured Angel cassettes. After visiting in Jill's car with a six-pack of beer (Olympia or Olympus - sorry I don't remember beer brands), they returned to their respective families, and Dan, with that particular movement of The 1812 Overture in his mind, "just fooling around at the piano", came up with the lyrics:


____C - D - E - D - C - D - E - C - C
"Met my old lover at the grocery store..."


Since the song lyrics include the term "Christmas Eve", this song gets heavy airplay around Christmas time. It is not a Christmas song. It works on Independence Day and Labor Day as well as on Christmas, yet every year, it appears to be the most-blogged song on the world-wide-web. No one is lukewarm about it. Some love it. Some despise it and decry its lack of Christmas content or something about its lyrics. I always tell those people they should talk to the deejays who choose to play it when they play it. I tell them that if they don't want to hear "Same Old Lang Syne" around the holidays, use the radio knobs or stay out of elevators and grocery stores. After Dan's release of his Christmas project, "The First Christmas Morning", a decade ago, I thought, "Finally! Now the deejays have some REAL Dan Christmas music to play!" but have they played it? Not on my stations. As Dan used to say, "Go figure." That project contains a song which is virtually indescribable in its content, quality and feeling. One must simply listen to it and be overcome, as was I and as was everyone -- everyone -- who has told me about their experience.

So far, I have declined to ruin anyone's experience by telling them, in advance, which song is so moving. When you get there, you'll know. And don't read my next blog until you experience the project, because in my next blog, I will write about my top five Christmas songs.

Listen to the project alone, when there is no t.v., no phone, no romping children. And be prepared to experience a feeling you'll never forget.

Georgia at War

Boy, was I ever disappointed to see Georgia at war with Russia. Several things come to mind. First, I'm concerned about my Brother (OldBrotherWise) and my lil sis Maiinga who live just across the border in Chattanooga. Then, I wonder why Georgia lets itself get into a war in the first place. I mean, their record's not so good. They started off as a penal colony for the British. Then they got Americanized. Then they secede from the United States.

During the Civil War, one-third of the 300+ battles were fought in Virginia. One-tenth were fought in Tennessee. Tied for third most battles were Missouri and Georgia at 27 each. Three of the battles in Georgia were inconclusive. Of the other 24, the United States won 16 and the Rebels won eight. Three of the eight victories were designated as "I" after the site of the battle. In each of the three's "II" battles, the Union was victorious. One of the eight victories had a Mississippi army and the other seven victories had a Tennessee army fighting in Georgia. Far as I can determine, Georgia's troops had zero (0) victories.

Now I read in the paper that Russia has invaded and Georgia is trying to surrender and the Russians are ignoring the offer.

Back to the Tennessee armies for a minute - I was born in Tennessee, moved to Mississippi when I was two, moved back to Tennessee when I was nearly six, had my secondary education in Tennessee as well as my undergraduate education. Tennessee's decision to secede from the Union was by two votes in the Tennessee legislature. East Tennessee considered seceding from Tennessee and forming a separate state like West Virginia did - but being surrounded by Rebel governments, they thought better of it. Tennessee provided 50,000 troops to the United States, and I don't know how many Rebel troops they provided, but those troops which won in Georgia were Rebel armies, I guess from Middle and West Tennessee. Just wanted to throw that in FWIW.

Twice, Georgia and Tennessee had border disputes. Once was about what state owned Chattanooga. Tennessee won. Just superior firepower, I suppose. The second dispute also involved a train, as well as a border thing. Georgia stole a train from Tennessee. The General Jackson, I think it was called. I don't know how the story goes from the Georgia side, but in Tennessee they tell it like this:

The train was stolen sometime between midnight and 5 a.m.

Georgia boasted about acquiring the train and indicated that a lawsuit to determine proper ownership of the train and Chattanooga would follow. Georgia assured the train was secured in a locked compound with two dozen armed guards so Tennessee might as well not try to "steal" it.

Next morning, the locked compound was still locked. The armed guards had disappeared without a trace. The train was NOT in the compound and nowhere to be found in Chattanooga or in Georgia. A day later the train was in Knoxville. Two weeks later, the armed guards reappeared in Georgia. No one ever talked about what happened, publicly, at least.

End of story so far as I know.

I still can't believe Georgia and Russia are at war.

During the civil war, Sherman pretty much had his way marching across Georgia. There was one battle with an "inconclusive" decision, in which a Tennessee army "slowed" Sherman for awhile, but otherwise, Sherman stomped and burned his way across Georgia, including burning Atlanta to the ground. The only town in the path which was not destroyed was Savannah, on the Atlantic Coast. It is told that the mayor, the town council, and business and home owners met Sherman's troops 22 miles west (northwest?) of town, displaying white flags and American Flags, offering Sherman the keys to city hall, businesses and homes and with fresh food for the troops. I wonder: Is this where the "keys to the city" thing came from? Sorry I ended a sentence with a preposition, but sometimes that's easier.

Being an English major and Speech minor in undergraduate, I generally used to go to great lengths to keep from ending a sentence with a preposition. I guess I agreed with Winston Churchill who addressed the matter thusly: "That is one thing up with which I will not put." Sounds awfully stilted, doesn't it?

Those of you reading this who are not yet asleep (actually, I don't think anyone will read this but me) can read my next blog about ending sentences with prepositions. You may not enjoy it, but I did (and will).

Good luck to Georgia. I sincerely hope the fighting stops soon.