A successful bingo found me at an extended morning coffee. I miss Skinny Liz, my lady friend from the phone place. We weren’t an item but between us we could afford to go anywhere and do anything. She was also interested in a wide variety of things, none of which were family, drama, television, or romantic fantasies. She's the one who clued me in that 99% of women fake it to get t heir own way. Liz & I visited dinosaur museums, bookstores, dam sites, airports, ski resorts, and Sunday brunch was a standing offer unless either of us had a date. In our day we were well known in the right parts of town. Liz was one of the few upsides of working for the phone place. That’s one company where you will meet older single women who are self-supporting in lieu of marriage. (I believe we were both at the same pay scale but I remind the reader that is not usually something discussed by the type of women I associate with. But it was around $150k between us.) We toured Oregon and the Yakima Valley. By the end of five years, we’d gone every last place that was a weekend’s driving distance. Best of all, everything was dutch.
Then she moved up country and that put 243 miles between us. We still visited when our days off coincided. I’d more than appreciate another friend like that. The only times we never got along involved her other friends. She was not nearly near as picky as I was. But being friends, we easily worked around that. Equal, but separate.
I just double-checked that mileage and noted that from here to where I want to be in Colorado is the same distance as from Sydney to Perth in Australia. 2447 miles.
Later. I made it to the science museum. It’s worth the admission since all the exhibits are either live or interactive. It is a kid’s place, there are no European-style “research” museums in south Florida. Parents be tipped off that it is unlikely anything over there will inspire your children to greatness. Interactive doesn’t mean simple and kids would quickly lose interest in any of the operating principles. Like the sound wave machine or robot arm. One might also remind parents that the place is not a free-for-all playground either. Curb your brood.
My favorite items would include this camera. It was the first space camera or a replica or a model. The missing cover shows the mechanical workings of the early space era. I was unable to identify the make or model as this exhibit was not labeled correctly. The flight simulators were all broken although I did see one expert gamer fly the Airbus model. The Mars ride is not included in your ticket and costs $3 extra.Get the Imax Museum package so you can watch the 45 minute movie. The adult price is $18. Today’s show was on orphaned elephants and orangutans narrated by Morgan Freeman. These 3D mini-documentaries are actually a good deal compared to the content of feature movies these days. (Producers are skimping with bad movies by making them 3D. Garbage is garbage, Disneyworld.)
ADDENDUM
For anyone curious about my distant past, here’s something to read, since in normal families such connections would be difficult to imagine. I am descended from a 300 year line of men who could make women cry in their beer. The difference is I’m the first one to do it with music instead of body odor.
I’m entering a compelling chapter of “The Fifty-Year Wound” titled “Hard Pounding”. Somehow I missed this section in my first pass. It concerns the way that Reagan changed US strategy to oust the Soviets and that engages me because at the time I followed closely how he did it. He dealt directly with the problem instead of with the people that were causing it. And they were infuriated.
Reagan realized that the Soviets were never going to change. For thirty years, they continued to churn out missiles while pretending to negotiate peace. It was by following Reagan’s ultimately successful tactics that I realized I was up against the same situation with my own family. This was not so preposterously odd as it seems today, and yes, like Reagan, most of my on-lookers were critics. But in the end, cutting off the Soviets and my family from stealing the information they needed to cause all the trouble resulted in their collapse.
I watched Reagan one day fold his arms. No more negotiating, no more treaties, no more summits. Nothing—until the Evil Empire dismantled half their rockets and set themselves on the path to respecting the wishes of others. So that’s what I did with the same result. The enemy was now called the enemy and treated like one. So were such common acquaintances the enemy was falsely nurturing, the way Reagan cut off European countries that tried to jump in and sell pipeline gear to the Russians behind America’s back. Cut them all off. Permanently, they deserve it.
Once the supply of stolen information ran dry, all the countless other problems miraculously cleared up on their own. The enemy was left with their now useless and corrupt system. All the critics who wanted to maintain the status quo have been proven not only wrong, but incredibly stupid. My family is now just an historical bad example, spending the rest of their days contemplating the wasteland of their own lives. They will not be remembered unless in the light presented here.
