Last week I dropped my only daughter off at college… in Scotland!
She’s studying psychology at the University of Glasgow. One of the “four ancients” in Scotland.
Parts of campus feel like Hogwarts.
Leah’s staying in a flat (don’t call it a dorm!) about 10 minutes from campus, with 11 other kids.
In hers, the WCs and showers are at either end, not in the middle.
Her building has 9 flats, and the student “village” has nearly a dozen buildings. So there are probably 1,000 kids (all students at the University of Glasgow) in her area. They hail from all over the globe, which can be a bit daunting, but also is pretty darn cool. It’s like a mini-United Nations.
Leah took no time at all to get into college mode. It was “freshers” week so there were a lot of planned activities for the incoming students.
She’d much rather hang out with her new friends than with her old man, and that’s as it should be for an 18-year-old. But it didn’t make any easier on her dear old “da” (as they say in Scotland). I wasn’t expecting the shift to be so swift. In theory, I’m all for the wee lassie leaving the nest… but in reality, it was really tough to let go.
I can vaguely remember my college days (too many years + too many beers) but I know the friends I met there are my besties for life. I really hope Leah has the same sort of experience.
In my heart, I know this is where she’s meant to be. But there’s also a big hole in my heart now. How many days until Christmas break?
The Public Library of Cincinnati and Hamilton County have partnered with Dean Regas, an astronomer with the Cincinnati Observatory, to offer telescopes for free to library patrons.
The library has five Orion StarBlast 4.5-inch astronomical telescopes available for checkout at branches around the city. Each telescope can be reserved for 21 days, and comes with two eye pieces, an Orion EZ Finder II Reflex Sight, a star chart and two of Regas’ books—”100 Things to See in the Night Sky” and “Facts from Space!”— to guide viewers through their star-viewing experience.
I think it’s really cool that the library is doing this. Most kids — and adults — spend way too much time with their heads down, staring at their phones. Looking up can reveal whole new worlds – literally and figuratively.
Speaking of telescopes, one plays a prominent role in an excellent short story by John Young, who lives in Cincinnati.
From John Young’s “A Membrook Man”
The story appears in his book Fire in the Field and Other Stories, which is a collection of 16 of his short stories, all of which are thoroughly engaging. Highly recommended – check it out… and maybe check out a telescope while you’re at it.
Mrs. Dubbatrubba and I recently returned from a six-day trip to Colorado.
Getting old is no fun, but it’s nice to have kids old enough to fend for themselves while we’re gone.
We rocked the Rockies pretty hard:
Colorado Springs: Garden of the Gods and Pike’s Peak.
Two concerts at Red Rocks.
Estes Park – my wife ran a half-marathon, I volunteered at the finish line, handing out granola bars, chocolate milk and bananas. (“There’s always money in the banana stand.”)
A full day in Rocky Mountain National Park
More hiking in Colorado Springs… and some breweries too!
Denver for a Rockies game.
The thin air is tough on your lungs, but being up in the mountains also can elevate your spirits. Even if you don’t participate in the legalized recreational activities.
Those of us not named Bezos or Branson can’t take our own rocket to space, but being atop a mountain can give you a great sense of perspective on your place in this world. Feeling insignificant is significant, because you realize we’re all connected… and that life is a series of peaks and valleys.
The West Coast is on fire… after suffering through a “heat dome.” Lake Mead — which supplies water to multiple states — is drying up. What’s going to happen when places like Phoenix are uninhabitable? Where will the people go when there’s no water left?
We thought The Twilight Zone episode called “The Midnight Sun” was just a fever dream… but it’s coming true.
The word that Mrs. Bronson is unable to put into the hot, still, sodden air is ‘doomed,’ because the people you’ve just seen have been handed a death sentence. One month ago, the Earth suddenly changed its elliptical orbit and in doing so began to follow a path which gradually, moment by moment, day by day, took it closer to the sun. And all of man’s little devices to stir up the air are now no longer luxuries—they happen to be pitiful and panicky keys to survival.
We take our daily conveniences for granted – cranking up the AC, taking long showers, watering the lawn. But the clock is ticking, and the world is burning.
An example of gerrymandering at its finest. Courtesy of the Republican party. Because if you can’t win fair and square, you have to try to win unfair and trapezoid… or rhombus… or whatever shape will give you the edge. But sometimes gerrymandering isn’t enough, and you have to resort to voter suppression.
This paragraph from an editorial in — of all places — a music magazine, really sums it up nicely:
Having lost the Presidency, the House, and the Senate over four years by margins so wide that Democrats were able to overcome the structural bias, Republicans have not responded as Democrats did, by trying to expand the elctorate, or convincing the existing one that their own policies and platforms merit a change. The entire story of 2021 so far has been Biden and his party trying to govern, at least trying to tackle dire emergencies it inherited , largely from four year of Republican inaction, incompetence, or inadequate response — a pandemic, economic devastation, worsening inequality, alarming climate change, decayed bureaucracy, etc., etc. — while the Republican party has spent all its time tackling the problem of… too many people voting.
The best response is to A. fight these voter suppression laws and B. vote, no matter the extra hurdles. (Easier said than done, I realize, when you are elderly and/or handicapped and the only mail ballot drop box is miles away. )
Here’s more from The Big Takeover editorial (bold emphasis mine):
But the ultimate effects of all this suppression and a fresh round of gerrymandering this spring won’t be seen until the next round of elections. Over the next two years, Democrats and others who believe in democracy had better stay vigilant, instead of making the classic midterm mistake that all is OK if their side won and is now in office. Memories fade, and the Capitol riot will too, especially if half of us insist upon it. But the effort to defend democracy against a party that has largely lost faith in it, will be as much the most important long-term effort we engage in alongside climate change mitigation and getting out of the pandemic alive. A responsible, accountable right of center party is crucial to our politics. But until the G.O.P. pays a steep enough electoral price for its big lies and continual partisan sabotage, it will never reform itself from within.
I’ve done quite a bit of reading over the past 16 months (thanks pandemic!), but no book has moved me more than this one:
I’m late to the game. The book came out in 2019. Brian Doyle died of brain cancer in 2017, at the age of 60. But better late than never, right?
One Long River of Song is a collection of essays – some happy, some heartbreaking… and all with a spiritual sense of wonder about the world we inhabit.
“Brian Doyle lived the pleasure of bearing daily witness to the glories hidden in people, places and creatures of little or no size or renown, and brought inimitably playful or soaring or aching or heartfelt language to his tellings.”
David James Duncan in the introduction to One Long River of Song
Some books are enjoyable on a surface level but soon forgotten. This one soaks into your skin and burrows into your heart and soul. Simple gorgeous prose.
Austin Kleon’s weekly newsletter put this book on my radar. If you haven’t already read it, do so now and thank me (and Austin) later.
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