I know that it has been quite awhile since I last blogged about anything but sooner or later I need to come out of the background and put something up for the world to see, and marvel at. I had a thought back in February while Jan and I were home bound from Japan. We had gone mostly north out of Narita across Siberia and out over the Bering Sea at 39000 feet. It was -73 degrees outside the window and it occurred to me that this is as close to space flight as most of us will ever get. Extremely cold, low air pressure, and a lack of oxygen that would be deadly in a matter of seconds. We are just floating along in this 777 over the Bering Sea miles from any kind of civilization assuming that this Boeing collection of parts will keep flying to our destination, which it did. Anyhow, there's that. Another thing that I have thought about for years, Mars landing, now I just want to live to see the day. After our Moon landing in 1969, almost 50 years ago now, the plan was that we would plant the flag on Mars by 1985. That plan went by the wayside, and now they talk about the 2030s. If I make it that far I will be in my 90s by that time, although Mom is almost 95. Enough about that.
Back in May I rode up to North Dakota to visit some of the areas that I worked in 45 years ago, back when that was part of the telephone company territory that I worked for at the time as an engineer. The area was between Fargo and Grand Forks extending to the west as far as Aneta. I had been through all of the exchanges out there, and spent some weeks inventorying Aneta and west Northwood when we sold them to Polar Tel. Our old office still sits on a side street in Aneta with Polars' newer building alongside. West Northwood was on an intersection of two gravel roads in the middle of nowhere, with maybe 10 lines heading in three directions. It was a fun time riding around in the other guys' station wagon counting poles etc.. He had a rifle in the back seat and we stopped sometimes to take a shot at stuff. This year it was kind of windy and dry up there, don't think that I will be back. You know I have another long one to post so I think that I will post it up in the future. It is about my brother Phil and my western ride.
1 comment:
I enjoyed reading your thoughts about space, Pete.
It's good that you have the time and interest to go back to places in your history. I have enjoyed doing that, too—especially to the two cities in Illinois where we lived in the late 60's and early 70's. In the early one, I had a hard time finding the office where I had worked due to the changes in roads.
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