Election Coincidences

     There are two major coincidences in my life which beg mentioning here. One is that I attended 

Wharton (a college at Penn) at about the same time as Donald Trump. I actually only took one course at 

Wharton - it was required that engineering students like myself had to have two liberal arts courses - non 

technical courses - in order to graduate, so I signed up for a course in "Criminology" at Wharton. Two It 

Things I remember that impressed me there. One, was that all the crime statistics from Chicago hadn't 

been accepted by the FBI since the prohibition, Al Capone, days. The other was a story our instructor 

told us about the class being held up with guys holding bananas in their hands. This was to show us the 

problems about witnessing crimes. No one reported the bananas! This made us laugh at the time! I look 

at today's election problems and still smile at these memories.

     The other coincidence I recall f? rom earlier days was from elementary school where I had been 

elected four times in a row as president of our class. Here I was at our fifth term, conducting a new 

election, which I assumed would have the same results. No such luck. In complete bewilderment, I 

counted the raised hands of kids who voted for my opponent and then myself. What? No way! My 

opponent had more votes!!  So, I told them that we would do this over again (recount?) and we did. 

This time, my opponent had many more hands than before - which goes to show you what happens when

you question democratic opinion. Ha Ha on me! Well I lost that election, but went on to win the next too

and we graduated.

                                                             n'took

   n'took looked out at the strong yellow sun of July and was thankful for the warmth. He was also thankful for his fur coat of elk and his sealskin boots. This far north and protection against the cold and wet of winter was just about as important as breathing. The tundra was deep green and he watched it growing before his eyes and smiled. "This is a good day mother, we are lucky to be Inuit people and safe from the dangers of the wild people of the south". His mother smiled and reminded him of the stories of their history, and defeating the thieves and murderers of the south using their knowledge of the snow and cold to confuse and blind their enemies and then slay them with their bone tipped spears. n'took was proud to be Inuit and a good fisherman who the others valued to be in their company on their fishing trips. He loved the fresh smell of summer and the growing grasses, the cool breezes blowing across the tundra. He loved the gentle quiet of the night and the security that thousands of years of experience at living here had brought to his tribe...

Naomi Spychakov

                                                                Naomi Spychakov

...It was a morning like so many others for Noami. Smiles for the front office and another for her coworker Mischa. "доброе утро миша, как дела" "good morning Mischa how are you". Mischa meant a good strong cup of hot tea with a sprig of mint and some gossip, so Noami's smile was for real. "Good - Spaciba - Noami". It would have been obvious to anyone looking at the two young girls that they were good friends, something in their smiles and the way their heads bounced when they spoke. It might have been because they were both young, or maybe because both were Jewish and single, but it was good at this particular time in Kyiv for anyone to be happy at all. A bird flew by the window, they were only two floors up in a monstrously large building in downtown Kyiv and it was late Spring and the sun shone kindly on a city that had lost it's heart and soul somewhere in the middle of the last century. Even a little brightness helped.

   Noami opened the files for company resources, mostly to check on "coal in the plant". It was her job to make sure there was always adequate coal on hand to keep the generators going. This was not too much of a problem except during long cold spells in the winter when the electrical usage in Minsk usually peaked. Then the rule, as handed down by her supervisor, Yuri Shapir, was to have at least two weeks worth of highest use coal on hand. She remembered his "secret"."Just to be sure that neither you nor I lose our jobs, he confided like one undercover spy to another, 'we' have a secret hidden chamber with exactly that amount of coal", he smiled and raised his eyebrows and said "I will show you this afternoon." Which he did. They were like two children playing in the woods after dark and laughing at the idea of ghosts and wild creatures as they made their way down into caverns that must have been dug out centuries ago. She hoped that she would be able to find the place again and hoped more that she wouldn't have to. Yuri and Mischa were all that kept Noami from being totally bored to death at her job. She rarely considered that it was her personal integrity that brought her to that job and that often she stood as a vital link for insuring electric power to over two million persons in and around  the city of Minsk.

   A brightly colored ad caught her eye. "How can they just insert stuff like that onto your browser". she thought. It reminded her of grade school. Silly faces and childish smiles. "Come join us on Mars", it read. "What?", she thought and smiled at the idea. "Was this a joke?". She clicked on the "Find Out If This Is For You"  button. That was the last thing Noami would do as Naomi Spychakov, assistant to technical director of central power station Minsk Obast. The site simply captured all of her imagination and took her, with building excitement, nearly to the surface of Mars. Well, that's at least how it seemed. 

The Second Step

                                                        The Second Step 


   Where were you when Neil Armstrong took that first step? He was on the Moon - that's 

for sure. It was July 20, 1969 - well sort of. In Florida it was 10:56 pm EDT. 

"That's one small step for a man, one giant leap for mankind."  And now here we are.

Thanksgiving on the Mars Colony

                                           Thanksgiving on the Mars Colony

     Imagine trying to put together a Thanksgiving Dinner on Mars! No pumpkins. No turkeys. 

No Atmosphere! Sure, they could drop a hundred complete Thanksgiving Dinners in time for

the holiday. You could televise the whole thing and make the Earth people laugh and 

wonder. They were paying the bills. Why shouldn't they get a smile out of our efforts. Still, 

it wasn't really Thanksgiving. No pilgrims. No Indians. No snow except at the poles and that 

was carbon dioxide. No atmosphere. Marsha could feel a tear starting to fall. Why'd she sign

on to a crazy tour like this. "Twelve years of pioneering through the heavens".She 

remembered the poster. The stars and the sun and the little red planet. Then she thought of 

the pioneers that landed at Plymouth Colony and were lucky enough to have food to eat and

a shelter against the coming winter. "They had just about the same level of difficulty ahead  

of them as we do here and now". And she cried for them and wondered what kind of 

"Indians" might happen into their camp... 

The Black Knights vs The Mummy

                                           


                                                      The Black Knights vs The Mummy

...Maybe, just maybe, this story - which is totally true - just amuses me - now that it's 
over. But, it's being written for you. Don't play with matches - Don't make fun of the things that go "boooo" in the night. You know what I mean, because - they will get you as sure as 
it snows in winter and rains in April.

                                 

   ...We had weekly meetings of the Black Knights club every Friday evening. Each week was at someone else's house. I won't tell you the name of the kid whose house it was this particular week, because we'd all be arrested - that's for sure - but his initials were J. L. and we were all about ten years old - maybe eleven. 

  We were finishing off our snacks of pretzels and cokes. This was usually the high point of our meetings, when someone asked J. L. what they had down in the basement. That's when he warned us; "There's a mummy down there - you don't want to go down there". Now, you have to realize that, even then, people didn't mention things like this - not over cokes and pretzels - maybe sometimes out camping at night telling ghost stories or something - but not in a real house where you were having your weekly club meeting. So it went over with a sort of questioning curiosity mixed with a little bit of challenge against who knew what was actually down there - if anything. "What, someone asked, is he alive?" I don't remember the actual conversation but it went something like that. "He's a mummy!", came the reply. Again, that's the darned best I can remember this. Remembering anything at all after the mummy has to be a great accomplishment, you understand. 

   Now look, it wasn't for nothing that we were called the Black Knights. We were a force to be dealt with whether on our bikes or on foot, especially on Halloween at night when we rang doorbells and engaged in all kinds of mischief - better left unsaid. 
...I forget who, but one of us decided to laugh off the whole idea of a Mummy in the basement and show the world just who the Black Knights were. He was the first in line down the steps and I was a few guys behind. We went down slowly. Each step was like a "no way back" descent into the depths of the lair of the evil one himself. I'm not kidding you.You could feel the damp fear closing in on you, cold and mean, like a hungry werewolf, or something so horrible, no one has ever imagined it. At the first step down, there was fear, real fear, and the second step was total abject terror. It wasn't a question of smelling it or hearing it - you knew it was there and was going to eat you - at least this. 

...It's not clear yet, who bolted first, but it was sheer stampede back up the steps. "I told you", J. L. said matter of factly...
   That was the last meeting of the Black Knights...