made by
a local craftsman, and upon the silver were etched a fish and a falcon to represent my love of things wild and free. That
was it, and it was just fine.
Still, the gentle lash of my friends and relations about the day’s significance had its effect. In the midst of my reading
that afternoon, I began to drift, thinking about time and the curious spiral dance of which I am a part. If I am just one
of a long file of travelers, how about the rest? What were they doing on some other August 1 ?
Galileo, for example, in 1633. In April of that year, the Church had forced him, under threat of torture, to recant the conclusions
reached in his
Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems
that Ptolemy had been wrong and Copernicus had been right: earth was not the center of all things heavenly. So I imagined
Galileo Galilei in Florence, afraid, angry, and alone on a warm August day.
How did a shepherd ranging over the hills of Sumer, 2,000 years before Galileo, feel on this day? Did the flutter of light
and shadow cause him to stop and think of a woman in a nearby town or how life is passing strange? Was the Rev. Thomas Bayes
working on his famous probability theorem on the first of August in 1760? The beauty of his proof, which is taken by some
as the beginning of modern statistics, consistently has escaped my students.
And Socrates. Where was he on a fine August evening? Making his way home with other guests from a night at Xenophon’s, I suppose.
The music was fading, but there was yet enough wine in the blood to stir their tongues as they moved through the quiet streets
of Athens, the conversation still lively, still centered around matters at the heart of things.
Was Alexander out on the desert with his armies? Where was Geronimo a hundred years ago? And how did the infantryman walking
along the French hedgerows in 1944 feel? On some August 1st was Charlie Parker practicing scales in E-flat major and Gertrude
Stein holding court in Paris and Dali twirling his moustache? Was Swinburne writing “The world is not sweet in the end” on
my birthday somewhere in the cool of England, while a black woman stared through a haze of Alabama heat at distant rain clouds?
Swinging around in my chair, I looked at what surrounded me and imagined a future archaeologist, perhaps some alien blob of
magenta protoplasm, carefully brushing away the crust of five thousand years and making notes on what it found. “Computer
keyboard—primitive method of data entry.” “Guitar—well-preserved example of mid-twentieth-century instrument building.” “Stapler—used
for fastening papers together prior to the invention of laser bonding.” “Camera—one of the last models predating portable,
digital imaging.”
Next, I reviewed my list of ways I do not want to die. For example, I have noted “In a hospital.” And, “Tail-ended by a 74
Cadillac in front of K Mart while a blue-light special on men’s underwear is commencing.” Then I turned to the acceptable
list. “Falling off a cliff in northern Iowa on a foggy morning while adjusting my tripod.” Or, “A spear in the chest on the
African veldt” (first preference).
I also remembered that, following his orders, the bones of Genghis Khan were carried about by his armies in the field after
his death, as a kind of memorial. That’s what morticians like to call “pre-need planning.” Personally, I’ve always thought
that Khan pushed things a bit, overstayed his welcome, as it were.
That was all good fun, but it took me no closer to anything fundamental than where I had been at the beginning. So I dug in
a bit, started things running back and forth across the corpus callosum, and got down to basics, while the overhead fan turned
slowly. “All right,” I said to myself, “Im gibbous, more than half-rounded, a long run from the chrisom and the breast. So
what can be made of that? What do I know and feel here on a summer
a local craftsman, and upon the silver were etched a fish and a falcon to represent my love of things wild and free. That
was it, and it was just fine.
Still, the gentle lash of my friends and relations about the day’s significance had its effect. In the midst of my reading
that afternoon, I began to drift, thinking about time and the curious spiral dance of which I am a part. If I am just one
of a long file of travelers, how about the rest? What were they doing on some other August 1 ?
Galileo, for example, in 1633. In April of that year, the Church had forced him, under threat of torture, to recant the conclusions
reached in his
Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems
that Ptolemy had been wrong and Copernicus had been right: earth was not the center of all things heavenly. So I imagined
Galileo Galilei in Florence, afraid, angry, and alone on a warm August day.
How did a shepherd ranging over the hills of Sumer, 2,000 years before Galileo, feel on this day? Did the flutter of light
and shadow cause him to stop and think of a woman in a nearby town or how life is passing strange? Was the Rev. Thomas Bayes
working on his famous probability theorem on the first of August in 1760? The beauty of his proof, which is taken by some
as the beginning of modern statistics, consistently has escaped my students.
And Socrates. Where was he on a fine August evening? Making his way home with other guests from a night at Xenophon’s, I suppose.
The music was fading, but there was yet enough wine in the blood to stir their tongues as they moved through the quiet streets
of Athens, the conversation still lively, still centered around matters at the heart of things.
Was Alexander out on the desert with his armies? Where was Geronimo a hundred years ago? And how did the infantryman walking
along the French hedgerows in 1944 feel? On some August 1st was Charlie Parker practicing scales in E-flat major and Gertrude
Stein holding court in Paris and Dali twirling his moustache? Was Swinburne writing “The world is not sweet in the end” on
my birthday somewhere in the cool of England, while a black woman stared through a haze of Alabama heat at distant rain clouds?
Swinging around in my chair, I looked at what surrounded me and imagined a future archaeologist, perhaps some alien blob of
magenta protoplasm, carefully brushing away the crust of five thousand years and making notes on what it found. “Computer
keyboard—primitive method of data entry.” “Guitar—well-preserved example of mid-twentieth-century instrument building.” “Stapler—used
for fastening papers together prior to the invention of laser bonding.” “Camera—one of the last models predating portable,
digital imaging.”
Next, I reviewed my list of ways I do not want to die. For example, I have noted “In a hospital.” And, “Tail-ended by a 74
Cadillac in front of K Mart while a blue-light special on men’s underwear is commencing.” Then I turned to the acceptable
list. “Falling off a cliff in northern Iowa on a foggy morning while adjusting my tripod.” Or, “A spear in the chest on the
African veldt” (first preference).
I also remembered that, following his orders, the bones of Genghis Khan were carried about by his armies in the field after
his death, as a kind of memorial. That’s what morticians like to call “pre-need planning.” Personally, I’ve always thought
that Khan pushed things a bit, overstayed his welcome, as it were.
That was all good fun, but it took me no closer to anything fundamental than where I had been at the beginning. So I dug in
a bit, started things running back and forth across the corpus callosum, and got down to basics, while the overhead fan turned
slowly. “All right,” I said to myself, “Im gibbous, more than half-rounded, a long run from the chrisom and the breast. So
what can be made of that? What do I know and feel here on a summer
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