be sure, but I know one or two drivers who love to spend their holidays riding around the country seeing things they had missed before. And no more cottage cheese!
Abigail and her husband Steve and the kids were the first to arrive. Abby greeted me warmly. As both of us have grown older she has begun to understand that I did my best as a father, as I, in turn, have come to grips with my own father’s shortcomings. We all make mistakes, we never get it right, as she is learning for herself, which (as prot pointed out) is probably the only way any of us ever really learn anything.
Abby, perhaps sensing an ally in our alien visitor, took the opportunity, which she hadn’t done in years, to ask me whether I realized yet that animal experimentation was “the most costly mistake in the history of medical science. Not that some good hasn’t come of it, ” she went on before I could respond, “as there would be for almost any piss-ass approach to scientific problems. But we have to ask how much farther we might have progressed if better methodologies had been developed decades ago.”
I reminded my daughter, the radical, that she might get farther with her case if she cleaned up her language a little, and if the animal-rights people would stop breaking into laboratories and terrorizing researchers.
“Oh, Dad, you’re so fucking establishment. As if property and what you call ‘bad language’ were more important than the animals you kill every day. They called the war (she meant Vietnam) protesters terrorists, too, remember? Now we know that was just bullshit. They were right and everybody knows it. It’s exactly the same now with the animal-rights movement. Fortunately, ” she added, only half jokingly, “all you old farts will peter out someday and things will change. The younger guys are beginning to see the folly of animal research. ” Then she smiled and kissed me on the cheek. Happily, all our arguments end this way.
My astronomer son-in-law Steve knew all about Charlie Flynn’s interview with prot, and he reported that his colleague was busy searching the skies with renewed vigor for evidence of inhabited planets. Over the past few years Flynn has received a number of prestigious awards for his “discoveries” of several previously unknown worlds, including Noll and Flor and Tersipion, all of which were brought to his attention by prot in 1990. He and some of his colleagues were also working with officials at the State Department in hopes of visiting Libya or, at a minimum, of arranging to import as much excrement as possible from a certain spider indigenous to that country. And he had put all his graduate students to work shining lights into mirrors, hoping they would skip across the laboratory at superlight speeds, so far without success. “Ah love it, ” Steve drawled. “It’s just like bein’ in a sci-fi novel. “
My grandsons Rain and Star, ages eleven and nine respectively, had a good time that day, primarily because of the dogs, I suppose, with whom they are great friends. As soon as they arrived the great Frisbee chase began, the boys’ shoulder-length hair flying out behind them like little flags. Shasta Daisy, now thirteen, hard of hearing and somewhat arthritic, became a puppy again in the excitement of the chase.
Betty and her husband Walt and the triplets arrived a little later with Giselle and prot, whom Shasta recognized at once from the similar visit five years earlier. Oxeye approached him as well, though somewhat more cautiously. Perhaps he instinctively realized this was not Robert, the silent companion of his puppyhood (I had brought Oxie to the catatonic ward in a feeble attempt to get Rob to relate to him). In any case, the dogs rarely left his side all afternoon.
Finally came Will, who brought his girlfriend Dawn. Will had just finished his summer stint at MPI, disappointed that he had not been able to decipher Dustin’s secret code. He was sure it had something to do with
Abigail and her husband Steve and the kids were the first to arrive. Abby greeted me warmly. As both of us have grown older she has begun to understand that I did my best as a father, as I, in turn, have come to grips with my own father’s shortcomings. We all make mistakes, we never get it right, as she is learning for herself, which (as prot pointed out) is probably the only way any of us ever really learn anything.
Abby, perhaps sensing an ally in our alien visitor, took the opportunity, which she hadn’t done in years, to ask me whether I realized yet that animal experimentation was “the most costly mistake in the history of medical science. Not that some good hasn’t come of it, ” she went on before I could respond, “as there would be for almost any piss-ass approach to scientific problems. But we have to ask how much farther we might have progressed if better methodologies had been developed decades ago.”
I reminded my daughter, the radical, that she might get farther with her case if she cleaned up her language a little, and if the animal-rights people would stop breaking into laboratories and terrorizing researchers.
“Oh, Dad, you’re so fucking establishment. As if property and what you call ‘bad language’ were more important than the animals you kill every day. They called the war (she meant Vietnam) protesters terrorists, too, remember? Now we know that was just bullshit. They were right and everybody knows it. It’s exactly the same now with the animal-rights movement. Fortunately, ” she added, only half jokingly, “all you old farts will peter out someday and things will change. The younger guys are beginning to see the folly of animal research. ” Then she smiled and kissed me on the cheek. Happily, all our arguments end this way.
My astronomer son-in-law Steve knew all about Charlie Flynn’s interview with prot, and he reported that his colleague was busy searching the skies with renewed vigor for evidence of inhabited planets. Over the past few years Flynn has received a number of prestigious awards for his “discoveries” of several previously unknown worlds, including Noll and Flor and Tersipion, all of which were brought to his attention by prot in 1990. He and some of his colleagues were also working with officials at the State Department in hopes of visiting Libya or, at a minimum, of arranging to import as much excrement as possible from a certain spider indigenous to that country. And he had put all his graduate students to work shining lights into mirrors, hoping they would skip across the laboratory at superlight speeds, so far without success. “Ah love it, ” Steve drawled. “It’s just like bein’ in a sci-fi novel. “
My grandsons Rain and Star, ages eleven and nine respectively, had a good time that day, primarily because of the dogs, I suppose, with whom they are great friends. As soon as they arrived the great Frisbee chase began, the boys’ shoulder-length hair flying out behind them like little flags. Shasta Daisy, now thirteen, hard of hearing and somewhat arthritic, became a puppy again in the excitement of the chase.
Betty and her husband Walt and the triplets arrived a little later with Giselle and prot, whom Shasta recognized at once from the similar visit five years earlier. Oxeye approached him as well, though somewhat more cautiously. Perhaps he instinctively realized this was not Robert, the silent companion of his puppyhood (I had brought Oxie to the catatonic ward in a feeble attempt to get Rob to relate to him). In any case, the dogs rarely left his side all afternoon.
Finally came Will, who brought his girlfriend Dawn. Will had just finished his summer stint at MPI, disappointed that he had not been able to decipher Dustin’s secret code. He was sure it had something to do with
Similar Books
