#201 A Long Time Coming

It’s been a struggle getting this post ready for publication. More than a month has passed since the last post. The fight is part of my battle with Parkinson’s Disease. Besides the more visible motor symptoms—tremors, slowness, shuffling, stooped posture—one of the numerous non-motor symptoms of the disease is apathy, a lack of interest in what were normal activities. It’s been hard to convince myself to get going and do things. The Blog has been one of the victims of my apathy, but I’m working my way through it.

I haven’t been traveling or doing much photography. I have, though, recently done a little more writing on my life stories. This post contains three of my stories from earlier years; one from high school, one from college, and one from hillclimbing days.

1978 solar eclipse visible from central Oregon. A photo of mine similar to this one was published in Sky and Telescope Magazine.

One of the Reasons I Became a Teacher

As a freshman at Montclair HS in SoCal I was very active in the science club and even wanted to be an astronomer as an adult. Two field trips I vividly remember were a lunar eclipse and a visit to Griffith Park Observatory opened to the public in 1935. 

Not Griffith Park Observatory, but the Keck Observatory on Kitt Peak near Tucson.

The first trip was to Griffith Park in Los Angeles (famously used in the 1955 movie “Rebel Without a Cause” staring James Dean, Natalie Wood, and Sal Mineo). It was a fantastic place to visit with all kinds of firsts for me. I saw my first large telescope (a 12" Zeiss refractor), first Foucault pendulum (used to demonstrate the earth’s rotation), and saw my first planetarium show. I can vividly remember the sights and sounds of the whole complex. That experience certainly increased my desire to become a professional astronomer.

Lunar Eclipse in April of 2014

The lunar eclipse trip did also. I believe it was a Friday night when I was picked up by Mr. E.P. Gossweiller (my general science teacher) and Mr. Orville Peterson (head of the school’s science department) at about 9:00 pm. We drove into the mountains for about an hour to a spot where we’d have a good view of the moon as it gets covered by the earth’s shadow. We watched with a small telescope and binoculars while we drank hot chocolate. It was a great and memorable experience—the kind I later wanted to give to students. [Oh, BTW, the dream of becoming a professional astronomer died in advanced maths class.]

Solar Eclipse of August 2017 Photographed from Salem, Oregon.

Defeating the Undefeated

At one of the speech tournaments that the Linfield College Speech Team attended when my partner, Mike Harrell, and I were seniors was the New York City College tournament. Early in the tournament we were matched against a superior team from Harvard who had an unbeaten record on their affirmative case about reducing US foreign policy commitments. We knew their reputation and their record, after all, it’s hard to hide when you haven’t lost an affirmative case all season (they weren’t as good on the negative, though). As we started the debate and listened to the affirmative case Mike panicked. He was supposed to be first negative speaker, but he whispered to me, “I don’t know what to say—I’ve got no arguments against their case.”

Sam Donaldson one of my top Canby HS debaters, 1986.

Stacy Shiver, one of my top debaters at Brookings Harbor HS, 1984.

I didn’t know what to say either, but I told him I’d take his speech and he could be second negative speaker. Just before I got up for my ten minute speech I told Mike, “You’re job is to figure out how to beat them!” I got up and babbled on for eight minutes without saying anything significant or coherent. The second affirmative speaker pointed out to the judge how weak my arguments were and the judge agreed—I got the lowest speaker points I’d ever received.

As he got up to give the second negative speech, the one that should have been mine, Mike said he had an idea. In his speech he brought up one small logical flaw in the affirmative case that undermined all their assumptions. It was a small point, but the affirmative case completely fell apart. We won that debate and ended up in the top two in the tournament. The team we beat never used that affirmative case again.

The End of My Car Racing Career

VW Golf GTI 1988

It was probably 1989 or '90, a few of years after we moved to Canby, that the Big Crash happened. We were racing our red VW GTI in the Larison Rock Hillclimb (off Hwy 58 east of Oakridge) and making a good show of it. Each day of the hillclimb each car got two runs on the closed two mile mountain road with lots of turns and several hundred feet of elevation gain. I was entered in the Stock Class (unmodified) for my size vehicle. Anne didn’t drive in this race, she was the head timer for the races which had several check points with observers. On the third run I had set the course record for my class car—it was a good racing year and I had set several class records on other courses.

As I got ready for my fourth run I planned where I could pick up a few seconds on my own record. About half way though my run I knew I had picked up time and pushed harder at one of the fastest turns on the course. I made my error as I exited the left-hand corner—I lifted my foot off the gas as the car started to skid toward the right edge of the road and the forest below. What I needed to do was keep my foot in it (stay on the gas) and power through the skid. Instead, I tried to steer through the skid and pulled the car off the left side of the road into a ditch and dirt bank. It was better than hitting the trees sideways at 60+ miles an hour, but I still ended up on my nose (the car’s front) after plowing up about 40 feet of ditch.

I was shaken but not hurt—the car had racing seatbelts (harness) and I wore a helmet. The car was another matter. The front wheels dangled from the suspension barely attached to the car and there was little left of the front end. The engine wasn’t too damaged, but was pretty useless with no front wheels.

My first thought, after checking that I had all my parts, was to let Anne know I was okay. Her story was that as timer of the race she would get reports of a car’s progress through the course—“Car 20 though turn 4,” and so on. On my run she heard, “Car five though turn 6,” then nothing else. At this point she knew I had f**ked up and something was wrong with the family car. I told the first of the rescue crew, “Tell Anne I’m okay!” And that we’d be walking home.

There are several take aways from this story. It was the last hillclimb I ever entered. It wasn’t a good idea to risk the family car. It cost over $5000 to repair the damage to the GTI. I then took up golf seriously—much safer.

Our first VW Rabbit GTI in an autocross race, 1983.

NEXT: I'm looking forward to getting some good photos on a short trip to central Oregon.

 

The January Arizona Trip

In late January we traveled to Phoenix and Tucson 

to get out of cold wet Oregon, to visit Anne’s sister, Bev, and her family, to do a little touring, and play a little golf.  Though on our eight day trip we were only moderately successful in accomplishing our goals, the trip was uniquely interesting.  

Catalina Mountains near Tucson

Family came first.  We spent three and a half days with Bev and Noel and for the girls it was non-stop visiting.  One evening we spent at our niece Stacie and her  husband  EJ’s getting to know our grand-nephew and grand-niece, Stavros and Alex.

A boy for you and a girl for me.

Although we did play golf twice in Phoenix, at Painted Mountain GC and Toka Sticks GC, the weather was not what we had hoped for.  In Scotland it would be called jumper (sweater) weather. 

In Phoenix it was just called damned cold--below freezing at night and barely into the 50s during the day.  Except for the cactus and other desert flora, the over-seeded grass, the signs about being wary of crawling critters, we could have been playing in Scotland.  Then the weather turned nasty.  On Saturday, Anne and I wanted to have breakfast at a local diner we had heard about, The Farmhouse Restaurant, in Gilbert.  

We knew it had rained overnight, but when we found half the streets on our five mile trip from Chandler to Gilbert flooded we realized it had been a record rainfall.  The Farmhouse was crowded with others trying not to be too discouraged by the weather.  Breakfast was worth the trouble to get to, especially the sugary cinnamon roll.  The sellers at a local Saturday market were more disgruntled 

as they tried to keep products and produce dry in the pouring rain. 

In Tucson, the last four days of our trip, the weather was a little better for some of the things we wanted to do, but then for other things the weather was shiite.  We did play golf at del Lago Resort GC about 15 miles south of town.  

On this round at least the weather was shirt-sleeve warm (though Anne still wore a jumper).  We did manage a good visit to the Arizona-Sonoran Desert Museum southwest of Tucson.  This zoo, natural history museum, and botanical gardens with its restaurants and cafes, gift shops, and aquarium was established in 1952.  

The main features are desert plants in special gardens, a walk-in aviary, a hummingbird aviary, a small natural environment zoo (Mexican wolf, black bear, mountain lion), and a new aquarium.  

Very few birds were about, and those that were seemed to huddle with fluffed feathers against the cold.  

In town, at the Tucson Botanical Gardens, we got out of the cool when we entered the humid 85° temperatures in the garden’s butterfly and tropical flower exhibit. 

Two-hundred-fifty butterflies of 40 different species fluttered around various orchids and other tropic blooms, 

while outside half the plants of the gardens were covered with tarps to protect them from the cold nights.

Because of the poor weather prospects, we had already cancelled one of our planned activities--a night sky observing program at Kitt Peak National Observatory in the mountains southwest of Tucson.  We decided instead to take a 1:30 PM tour of the largest telescope at the facility.  We started the day with a visit to the San Xavier del Bac Mission, known as “the White Dove of the Desert,”

which was on our way to the observatories at Kitt Peak.  The Spanish Catholic mission, established in 1692 by the Jesuits (later run by Franciscans), is a white Moorish-inspired design in the settlement of Tohono O’odham.  It was nice to be able to visit the lovely interior 

since it had been closed for worship the last time we visited.  

Forty-five minutes after leaving the mission we started the eleven mile climb from the base of Quinlan Mountains to the observatory visitor’s center at 6875 feet elevation.  

Observatory in swirling clouds from the base of the mountain.

The Kitt Peak National Observatory complex was started in 1958 on land leased from the Tohono O’odham Reservation.  The complex now consists of 22 optical and two radio telescopes, including the Mayall 4-meter telescope, the WIYN 3.5-meter telescope, the McMath-Pierce Solar Observatory (the largest in the world), and one of the Very Long Baseline Array radio telescopes.  

The solar telescope is odd triangle-shaped building.

As we drove up the mountain the weather got wilder and wilder.  At the top we discovered that we were the only visitors to the mountain (besides resident astronomers who were desperate for the weather to break).  We did get a private tour of the Mayall telescope by Vance,

a retired engineer, but we had to get a special permit to drive to the scope since at 30° in heavy cloud and 60-80 mph winds it was considered too dangerous to walk the 400 yards up to the telescope.   Vance gave us a splendid tour once we got inside the observatory.  

The Mayall 4-m telescope.

It wasn’t a great day for photography--after the tour I could only last about five minutes out in the freezing conditions even though the sun poked through the clouds--but it was a wild and wonderful experience.

Rural Arizona on the way back from Kitt Peak.

Our purpose for the trip had been to visit Anne’s sister and family, to visit the desert gardens and Kitt Peak observatories, to play golf, and to get warm.  We did three of the four--I guess that’s not a bad trip. 

SPECIAL NOTE: I’ve been slow getting this post of the blog published because both Anne and I have been very busy doing the final proof of our fourth golf guide.  Golf in Scotland: the Hidden Gems is a revised edition of our first (2005) golf guide.  It’s a completely new format with the addition of 34 new golf courses, numerous pubs and eateries, and includes recommended B&Bs and Guest Houses.  The book will soon be available from our website and from Amazon as a print or Kindle edition.