It's A Date

I was going to write something about watching a yule log video, but it occurred to me that today is Pearl Harbor Day. Coming on the heels of Nelson Mandela's death, I wonder if it will be much remembered, except by the likes of me. I find it easy enough to remember. FDR's speech after the tragedy is very memorable in itself, and as it starts with the date of the event, seeing that it is December 7th never fails to remind me.

I can hardly imagine what it was like to be there, or merely to be alive and bear any kind of witness to the event and its aftermath. America, I guess, had little interest in getting involved before it happened. Afterwards, what choice did we have? Some say that our political leadership let it happen, wanting as they did to get us into the fight that had already been raging overseas. It does seem curious that our most valuable ships should have been out of the harbor, but then what point there is in dredging up that debate, I don't know.

High School Memories

I was thinking today about the Russian submarine they called the Kursk. When I was a high school senior, it sank. One of its torpedoes, which did not have warheads and were not tested according to very exacting standards, failed and exploded. All the sailors aboard, numbering over a hundred, perished inside the sub, which had come to rest in something less than four hundred feet of water. It was quite a tragedy.

I was upset at the time that the Russians declined offers of help from other governments to attempt rescue of the men aboard. It seemed to be some matter of pride, or perhaps of a desire to protect information concerning Russia's submarines. I recall writing some report in my English class on the subject, and being a senior I'm sure I thought I knew it all. I still knew it all through college, and only starting to get dumb thereafter.

I Was There

There's been a lot of buzz surrounding the retirement of NASA's shuttle fleet, and for good reason. One rather interesting story is the ultimate fate of the remaining shuttles. One, the Endeavor, is destined to become a fixture of the California Science Center museum, and it's no easy feat to get it there from Cape Canaveral. Ultimately, it must bully its way along surface streets to reach the museum itself, but yesterday it completed to the leg of the journey immediately before that one: flying coast to coast while piggy-backing on a Boeing 747.

NASA kindly arranged a route which would bring the shuttle around to a variety of spots across the country which hold significance in the story of the shuttle program. The final destination was Los Angeles International Airport, but before it got there, the shuttle wandered to and fro all over the metro area. I entertained the idea of trying to be by the airport for the landing, but discarded it. I did notice, though, that it was to pass over Universal Studios, just a couple miles to the south.

A Step Forward From Way Back

I guess I think about the past more than some people. When I took a test meant to gauge one's strengths, that was confirmed. I do believe there's considerable insight to be gleaned from the travails of the past as well as the happier times. It's all happened before in the thousands of years man has been a concern, hasn't it? Sometimes I imagine that I can see things from the eyes of people who were there when it happened. Maybe I'm mistaken about that, but I get the feeling nonetheless. I think of an obsolete piece of technology and imagine when it wasn't just relevant but a revelation. Today we have instantaneous communication by means of the Internet, but it was of course not always so. It wasn't always so that you could purchase goods that way. Once you couldn't buy something unless you were physically there to buy it. Then came the mail order catalog.

Does anyone order from a printed catalog that arrived in the mail anymore? I suppose they don't, but perhaps people do still make use of the one that comes with an airline ticket. It always seemed silly to order something during the three hours one spends in the air on a transcontinental flight, but I guess you can take the thing with you and order from home. I understand people do. There's no wonder in it, though. I imagine a time 150 years ago, when many people lived on what was still the frontier. There wasn't much to be had in the way of retail shopping out past St. Louis, I gather. If one had a catalog from Sears and Roebuck, however, the goods of the world were at one's disposal. If a dress or a desk was wanted, it was necessary only to page through the publication. There weren't even photographs in it- you perused the illustrations in it until the desired product appeared.

American History Excellent

A while ago, I was reading some Wikipedia articles on Phoenix TV stations, and reveling in the history behind them. Not for the first time, I thought about the education I got in history from my formal education in Arizona. I'd say there were gaps in it, but to be truthful, there were more gaps then there was education. Most of the history I remember learning before college concerned the founding of America and cursory coverage of the rest of the world. As far as local history, the only thing I ever got was the Native Americans. As far as I recall, Latino history consisted mainly of a loving tribute to Mexican food conveyed by a children's book. General local history was non-existent. To get any of it at the time, I had to skip ahead in the text books to chapters we weren't ever going to study.

I got more from college, but the vast majority of what I know I learned on my own initiative outside of any educational institution. I seem to have developed a reputation as something of an knowledgeable person, but know more about places I've never been than the place I lived in from birth to the age of twenty-three. That doesn't seem right, does it? I don't know what the reason behind it is. Often the  ills of civic pride are traced back to the paucity of native Arizonas and Phoenicians. A friend and fellow Arizona native and I played a state trivia board game one day years ago, and he just beat the hell out of me. I attribute that lopsided defeat to him being the son of natives, whereas I was born to parents from Connecticut and Florida.