Merry Christmas, Mom

“Merry Christmas, Mom” is a phrase I haven’t been able to say to my mother for over a decade. You’d be surprised how such simple things like that can elicit such strong emotions. It’s Christmas time and I wish I had the opportunity to talk to Mom just one more time. But the sands in the hourglass have shifted closing that chapter of my life forever.

I have some bad memories of my childhood, yes, but they seem to have faded into the archive vault in my head - no longer able to hurt me.

Most of my memories now are from the more fun things we’d do - like UFO watching. If you haven’t read “Advantages of…”’s post “Midnight” from 6/28/06, about our UFO adventures, I highly recommend it. You can find a link to his site under “blogroll” on the right of the screen.

I remember searching the paper for disasters - pretty much any kind as long as it was on a grand scale. Finding one for Mom to read to me was a real treat. Yes, I know how that sounds but Mom like disasters and her reading them or telling me about them was one of the few moments we felt really connected.

I’d ask questions about why earthquakes, avalanches, mud slides, etc., happened and she’d tell me to look it up in the encyclopedias we had. If I needed more information, the school library was also an excellent resource. Thus my love of research was born - I loved finding answers to all my questions.

I miss how Mom would laugh - always with her hand covering her mouth as if she was afraid it might explode from her uncontrollably. The real reason, of course, was her embarrassment over the way her teeth looked but we never cared.

I remember nights of cowering on the couch together as we watched another terrifying episode of “Creature Feature” or “Twilight Zone.”

We’d also be found on the couch when episodes of National Geographic would come on about Jacques Cousteu or the great mysteries of the world. Mom and I would try to figure out what great scientists couldn’t - like the theory of Atlantis, the disappearances in the Bermuda Triangle, and how the stones came to be at Easter Island. Of course, the more outlandish the reasoning, the more fun it was.

We’d look at travel books - marveling at the majestic mountains, the Painted Desert, the Grand Canyon and the clear blueness of the oceans. We’d talk about how “someday” we’d see it all.

Of course I could go on and on. Her love of reading and writing inspired the same in her children. She also enjoyed drawing along with an artist on TV and even took a few art classes. She was good though she didn’t think so. That trait was not something, unfortunately, that was passed on to me though I try my hand at it every now and then - trying to will the creative juices within to flow onto the canvas. It never works.

For those of you who really know me, reading this post will make you smile. You’ll realize why I love to go out at night with my telescope to gaze at the stars, why I’m fascinated by the cause of disasters, and a whole slew of other “strange” interests I have…like scary movies.

I am a combobulation of my past - a dim reflection of all the good things my Mom shared with me. We are all, whether we like it or not, a shadow of our mothers to some degree.

I wish I could tell my Mom one more time how much she meant to me and how much I still miss her after all these years. “Merry Christmas, Mom.”

Tahiti Airplane Crash

Last Thursday a Tahiti passenger plane crashed into 1,420 feet of water. I don’t remember hearing anything about it on the news but maybe that is because only nineteen people died. It also could be that I rarely watch the news.

France has located the black box but lacks the equipment to recover it. Paris is sending a robot that is capable of going to that depth but need a boat to launch the robot from.

The article said France may ask neighboring countries for help finding an adequate boat for the task. This bothers me. Why should they have to ask? Why aren’t the countries offering assistance? Why aren’t we?

Once again I think we need to have an “Immediate International Response Team” to mobilize or at least offer to mobilize when crisis of any magnitude hits any country.

Every person bears the whole stamp of human condition. –Michel Eyquem de Montaigne

Edmund Fitzgerald

Very cool what I just heard on the news today. A family on the beach at Lake Superior found a life ring from the Edmund Fitzgerald. Everyone who knows me, knows that I have always been fascinated by sunken ships…this wreck was no different.

The Edmund Fitzgerald was a lake freighter, nicknamed The Fitz, that went down in a sudden storm on Lake Superior on November 10, 1975. Many of you may remember the song by Gordon Lightfoot “Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald”.

The Fitz was named for the President of Western Mutual, the company that had commissioned it. From the beginning, the Fitz seemed plagued by bad karma. The day of it’s christening, in 1958, Mrs Fitzgerald had to swing the champagne bottle three times over the bow before the bottle broke. Upon launching the vessel into the water the boat hit the dock and was damaged. When they finally got it out in the water, a onlooker suffered a massive heart attack.

Over the next 17 years, the Fitz had five collisions. She ran aground in 1969, collided with the SS Hochelaga in 1970, struck a wall of a lock later that same year, then hit a different lock wall in 1973 and again in 1974. She then lost her bow anchor in the Detroit River in 1974. She was lost at sea in 1975.

In a movie I saw a while back there is a comment about “something did come back from the sea, sooner or later everything does.” I do believe it was the movie “The Fog”. Anyway, here it is 32 years later and this life ring makes it to shore.

Now just how strange, unusual and yet very cool is that???