From 29 to 79. And Remembering
During our Japan years we lived on top of a, well it was the ridge of a low mountain, wasn’t it, looking out over Tokyo Bay to the east, and down on a Japanese neighborhood that was as ancient Japan as one could imagine. In the wee hours, sleeping with the windows open, we would wake to a distant clop-clop-clop sound and the wail of a flute from far below -- the “noodle man” wearing geta, those old wooden sandals, and pulling a noodle cart along the narrow cobblestone streets in the neighborhood, playing a mournful tune on his flute announcing his presence, he had hot noodles for sale, breakfast for early risers.
It was Yokohama at its most quaint, and we loved it. Maybe my only tour of duty better than my first sea duty. Well, maybe WashDC.
It was Yokohama at its most quaint, and we loved it. Maybe my only tour of duty better than my first sea duty. Well, maybe WashDC.
Being high up above Yokohama, our nights were usually clear, with wonderful views of the stars, and I took up astronomy as a serious hobby. I read every English language book on astronomy, the sky, moon, planets, galaxies, telescopes, every book available in Japan, including having the armed forces library call for books from their satellite libraries all over the country. In time, I ordered a telescope special to my specifications, first a reflector then exchanged it for a refractor, from a Japanese maker. That was early in 1965. I used the telescope many, many nights out in our front yard in Japan, sometimes freezing nights into my own wee hours, so that Linda bought me warm clothes, sweatpants and a gray hoodie, and a little folding bench with a pocket for eyepieces and such. Young naval officer in his late twenties, an amateur astronomer.
The telescope served me many years both in Japan and later. Our first tour back in the States, for example, we lived out in the country in a quiet part of Virginia outside Washington, DC, across the street from an abandoned farm, again with a clear sky. Using my star atlas and the equatorial mount on my telescope, I found many stars and constellations and galaxies of all shapes, including spiral. And I read journals to keep track of where the visible planets were from night to night. One clear night in 1966 or 67 I found the planet Neptune far, far away, a greenish disc that, as I recall, rolls vertically on a horizontal axis, unlike Earth, which rotates horizontally on our north-south pole axis. It was the only time I ever found it.
In later years, my children used the telescope for science projects, observing the planet Jupiter over the course of a month, and plotting the position of Jupiter’s four visible moons that move back and forth in a straight line from one side of the planet to the other and routinely hide behind the planet or are invisible transiting its surface. In time, especially as the children grew up, I lost interest in the hobby and enthusiasm for the telescope, and it has laid in our attics and storage rooms unused for many years. Until yesterday, when I brought it downstairs from its latest attic resting place to put it in the stack of stuff to be given to Goodwill Industries. I opened it and looked, and everything seems to be there, the only thing I found missing is one of the two finger-pieces for controlling the equatorial mount.
No longer the young amateur astronomer in his twenties, I’m all the way through my seventies and looking at eighty come September. I don’t have room for it any more, or the keen interest in pursuing the hobby, and lots of the knowledge I had those fifty years ago has long since fled me. Before taking it to Goodwill, though, I would give it to someone local who is interested in astronomy and would use it. Not some bozo who would just take it out and sell it. In fact, I decided to hold back from taking it to Goodwill for a day or so and see if anyone is indeed interested, maybe some amateur astronomer who can’t afford a telescope.
No longer the young amateur astronomer in his twenties, I’m all the way through my seventies and looking at eighty come September. I don’t have room for it any more, or the keen interest in pursuing the hobby, and lots of the knowledge I had those fifty years ago has long since fled me. Before taking it to Goodwill, though, I would give it to someone local who is interested in astronomy and would use it. Not some bozo who would just take it out and sell it. In fact, I decided to hold back from taking it to Goodwill for a day or so and see if anyone is indeed interested, maybe some amateur astronomer who can’t afford a telescope.
This one isn’t electric powered, it’s manual, a refractor (not a reflector) with about a 3 inch main lens as I recall. Looks like this pic that I l lifted from the web:
I’ll keep it here a couple days in case anyone contacts me. It’s to give away, and locally. I will NOT pack and ship it: local pick up only, but contact me first.
Remembering: putting back together. I am mindful of the morning, as I look out on St. Andrews Bay across the exact route Annie & Jennie would have sailed on her way to what we now call the Old Pass, January 7, 1918. It was a family tragedy that desolated my home, but as I've said here before, made my own life possible. Prompting a theological reflection that God may bring life out of death.
Tom
Tom
twellerpc@gmail.com