chance

As with everyone else, we have things to do today, things to do, places to go, and people to see, but the solar eclipse takes precedence. For us in PC, begins at 10:42 AM and peaks at 12:15 PM. We have a clear morning, cloudless sky. As I understand it, the view from here will only be partial shading of the sun, but we'll see, maybe a somewhat shadowed sun. Don't look directly at it.

There was a solar eclipse here some years ago, we went down and watched from the garden below, wearing solar glasses we'd gotten at the school, and I got some pictures as it developed.

From years ago, my better memory is watching a solar eclipse unfold from my window seat in an airliner flying across country. I had a card, maybe a 3x5 card, punched a pinhole in it, and focused it on another card in my lap. Watched as the sun's cresent shadow developed. It was an interesting and memorable flight. I don't remember the year, or whether I was flying east to west or west to east, but it was sheer chance and I was fortunate to have a window seat on the sunny side of the plane.

When was that? It was during my densely committed Time of life after my Navy retirement, when I was (1) an adjunct professor teaching defense acquisition courses in a Masters degree curriculum for the University of West Florida, (2) a full time student at Lutheran Theological Seminary, Gettysburg, Pennsylvania; and (3) working full time by myself and traveling 75-to-80 percent of my Time in my defense-related consulting business, with various American, Canadian, and especially Australian government and defense industry clients; so, between February 1978 when I retired, and July 1984 when we moved to Apalachicola. An exciting Time for me, of my life, fun and good, many roads diverging in Frost's yellow wood, many roads taken and roads not taken in those years.

Any number of life choices that would have set me on roads that could never have led to where I am this morning. Life is sheer take a chance, constant rolls of the dice, "call it, heads or tails." From "years and years hence," looking back, what would I change if I could go back in Time? It doesn't matter, does it, Time is irreversible except in the fantasy of our dreams.

Life is short, and we haven't much Time, and it's ours to choose. Judgement and wisdom do not necessarily come with Age, but experience certainly does: my advice for anyone who's at, maybe 40 years old, might be to factor in where you think you would like to be at 70, and consider those hopes as you come to various diverging roads in life.

For me, without future vision, I well might have chosen several roads that would have me other places entirely this morning; or nowhere, and hardly remembered.

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My hopes and fears this morning.

People are sensationalists: I'm afraid that Israel's new war in Gaza will so distract us from Ukraine's ongoing war with Russia that we will lose sight of our primary national interest, which is that Russia not succeed in Putin's expansionist goals.

I'm afraid that Israel is falling into a Hamas trap of total involvement in war that will kill many innocent people, which Hamas does not care, and will soon envelope the MiddleEast, Europe, and the US.

I hope Israel is pressing for evacuation of northern Gaza, not so they can launch a bloody ground invasion, but so they can begin a campaign of dropping bunker-buster bombs to destroy the Hamas tunnel complexes. But I'm afraid they're going to invade and fall into that Hamas trap.

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So be quick to love, and make haste to be kind.

T88&c

a later aside. I don't usually read Sean of the South, because it's so often maudlin in ways that my day doesn't need; but this morning I did read and enjoy his essay. I remember well that men around me used to buy a little bag of Planter's salted roasted peanuts with their Cokes, and pour the entire bag of peanuts into the Coke before drinking, or as they drank. I remember trying it once, and not happy because too many peanuts were left in the Coke bottle. I also remember that we never even knew "Coca-Cola" - - it was "Coke" or "Co-Coler" or "a cold drank."

My sadness for Sean is the terrible mark that his daddy's suicide made on Sean. No father should ever do that to a loved one.