It’s hard not to be a little angry when I see the earth’s bounty wasted by greed and ignorance. I tell not of what is, or of what was. I tell of what could be.
So lift your mind and your soul above the mundane—come with me on a journey into the future, and look at what could be. Help me push aside ignorance, bigotry, fear, and greed, and let us dream of the chance that that of which we dream might someday become a reality.
Our only limits are the limits we place upon ourselves. Rules that tell us we have to do it this way, or that way, are just fences. Help me break down those fences. Don’t let those ugly instruments of confinement limit our horizons.
ENIGMA
I first traveled the American Southwest years ago as a child. I walked and hitchhiked from Oklahoma to California in 1938. I think I walked most of the way, sleeping on the prairie and getting my food wherever and whenever I could. I’ve traveled the land many times since in rickety old cars with their engines overheating and their tires going flat, and in buses, trains, small planes, and airliners.
When I first saw the Southwest, I was fascinated by its wildness, and it’s grandeur. Fascination led me to study its geography and history. Now, I travel the land once again, and I see how it has changed. I ride in a new air-conditioned car, stopping at air-conditioned restaurants and staying in air-conditioned motels with luxury beds and remote-control television.
I see its potential to feed people in ways not possible for any other part of our magnificent country.
Hour after hour, the searing blacktop moves a hypnotic pace under the wheels of the car hurtling along at 75 miles per hour, past the water deprived mesquite, yucca, and ocotillo cactus. For miles on end, nothing in animal form can be seen. Then, high in the sky, I see a buzzard, its wings splayed to catch the rising currents of hot air, circling over something—probably a road kill, too flattened by the tires of cars and trucks and burnt by the desert sun to provide a meal even for such an efficient scavenger.
Umber mountains in the distance stand like sentinels against the dusty sky. The dirt between the sparse, wire-like weeds is faintly pink where the relentless heat of the sun causes currents of air to rise in whirling dust devils. Millions of square miles of flat, barren land seem such a waste.
Then, as if by magic, beautiful groves of pecan trees appear. The groves are surprisingly large and immaculately maintained. A barn, and what appears to be a farmhouse, sits off to one side of a grove. People have created this Garden of Eden in what had seemed to be nothing but wasteland. Then, beyond the groves of pecan trees, I see a beautiful vineyard standing row after row. Farther In the distance, I see more and more trees—some pecans and some walnuts.
I asked the man at the service station where they got the water to create this magic. He told me that an aquifer exists under the surface. I will never again see the desert quite the same. Now I see it as a land that will feed the earth’s ever-increasing masses.
With water to irrigate the land, the conditions are perfect for producing food of nearly every type. Where will they get the water? I don’t know. But I do know that need, is the mother of invention, and that the ocean contains an endless supply of water that can be desalinated. The sun, the wind, and perhaps the movement of the ocean itself will provide the power. Rivers empty billions of gallons of fresh water into the ocean daily. That water could be captured, just before it becomes salty, and transferred to where it is needed. All around the earth, deserts exist where sunshine is most plentiful. With potable water, the deserts will produce an abundance of food.
The next day, we traveled through an area that contained hundreds of oil wells with their pumping devices sitting motionless. With oil selling at $135 per barrel, logic tells me that those machines are sitting idle because the wells have been pumped dry.
Cattle graze among the mesquite. As I am becoming convinced that another wasteland is in the making, I see hundreds of wind generators lining the tops of every rise. A power line with the capacity to carry enormous amounts of electricity can be seen extending east in the direction of the megacities of Dallas and Fort Worth. My appreciation for the human capacity to innovate is renewed.
***
This is the land where many tornados originate. It’s called Tornado Alley. Night after night I lay awake listening to the weather station issuing tornado warnings and wondering if my motel provides shelter from those whirling disasters.
***
Our journey from Hawaii to Oklahoma was long and highly emotional. It was a journey to see my older brother and sister who, due to failing health and age, are in the twilight hours of their lives. It was a sad time, but it was rewarding, also. We saw our new great-granddaughter in Phoenix. We have grandchildren and three great-grandchildren living there. I was given a glimpse of what their world will be. As in every generation, they will have problems to overcome, but like their ancestors before them, they will find a way.
FREEZING THE BALLS OFF A BRASS MONKEY
In the days of wooden ships and iron men, it was necessary to keep a good supply of cannon balls near the cannons on warships. But how to prevent them from rolling about the deck was a problem.
The best storage method was to stack them as a square-based pyramid, with one ball on top, resting on four, resting on nine, which rested on sixteen. Thus, a supply of thirty cannon balls could be stacked in a small area right next to the cannon. There was only one problem—how to prevent the bottom layer from sliding or rolling from under the others. The solution was to a have a metal plate with sixteen round indentations, called a monkey. But if this plate were made of iron, the iron balls would quickly rust to it. To remedy the rusting problem, they made the monkey out of brass and called it a “brass monkey.”
Few landlubbers realize that brass contracts much more and much faster than iron when chilled. Consequently, when the temperature dropped too far, the brass indentations would shrink so much that the iron balls would roll right off the monkey. Thus, it was then quite literally “cold enough to “freeze the balls off a brass monkey.”
And all this time, you thought that was just a lewd expression, didn't you?
JES FER FUN
A play on extreme colloquial between two frins in possum hollar. Jes thot ye might get a chuckle.
This’el interduce ye ta the langwege that wuz spoken by mo’n haf ar population a hunnered years ago. Now don’t be so quick ta turn up ye noze, Yore gran-pa probly talked lik this.
Joe! Aint seen ya fer a wile. Hows ya ol lady?
Sh’s jes fine, how’s yorn?
Finer’n frog hair. Whur ya goin with that loada corn?
I’ma goin inta town.
When ya cumin back?
Bout noon I recon.
When’er yawl acummin over?
Whacha doin this evnin?
Nothin planned; jes settin around chewin th fat I gess.
Then we’ll be over bout sundown. Can we brang sumthin?
Nah there’s plenty in thu cellar. We’ll jes open a jar.
To my editor, I thank I can probly spel thisn better’n yu can.
FOLLOW THE PATH
My earliest memory isn't really a memory at all—it's more like a dream.
In my dream, I’m a child digging with one of Mother’s teaspoons in a sandy path that leads from our house to the dirt road. The road is not really a road, just two tracks in the grass made by wagons. The day is warm and along the path flowers are blooming, bees are gathering the nectar, squirrels are playing, and birds are singing in the trees.
I look with the eyes of a child, and ask, “Where does that road go?”
“That’s the road you must follow to reach your destiny,” a voice replies.
“But where is my destiny?”
“That’s a secret I can't reveal. But I can tell you, that to reach your destiny, there are rules you must follow. You may travel anytime, but once you pass a place, you can never return. The road will split in places and lead away in three directions. Each road is differ
ent. One is narrow and misty. The other wanders through hills and valleys. The third is wide and easy to travel, but on that road the land is flat and dull. You must decide which road to take. You may delay while you consider, but once you begin to travel, you can never go back.”
“May I stay where I am?”
“Yes, you can stay where you are, but you can’t reach your destiny unless you follow your road.”
“Why can’t I go back?”
“A place is only that place, at that time. A time changes, the place changes. If you remain where you are, you will change as the place changes, and you won’t notice that the place is changing because you are changing, also. But you cannot reach your destiny unless you follow the road.”
“May I look back and watch the place change?”
“No. When you look back, you’ll see the place in your memory. Your memory will not change unless you go back. But if you go back, you won’t be able to find the place you left, because it isn’t there. The place you left exists only in your memory. It’s good to remember the happy times, but it’s a mistake to try to relive the past. If you go back, you’ll erase your old memories and replace them with new memories. The new memories are not always good, but good or bad, they become a part of your journey—and that can lead to difficulties.”
“When I reach a crossroads, how will I know which road to take?”
“You won’t know, and there is no way you can know. You must consider your options, and then decide which road to take, and move on. If you try to come back to take the other road, the road will have changed while you were gone and you still won’t know where the road you didn’t follow would have taken you. The road you take will always be the road to your destiny.”
“What will happen if I always take the road to the right? That way, I’ll eliminate the difficulty of making a choice.”
“You can do that, and some people do, but they just go around in circles getting nowhere, and then nowhere becomes their destiny.”
“Perhaps I should always take the road that goes straight ahead.”
“You can do that, also, but if you always go straight ahead, you’ll eventually return to where you started, and the starting place will be your destiny, and all you will have done is gotten older, gone to a lot of trouble, and wound up no better off than if you had stayed where you were in the first place.”
“Then what should I do?”
“I can’t tell you what to do—no one can. Many will criticize you, regardless of what you do, and they’ll tell you what you should have done. But if they had to consider all of the things you had to consider before you made your choice, they would not have been able to tell you what to do. There is a difference between hindsight and wisdom.”
“Can you counsel me?”
“Yes, the journey is simple: Just follow the road. The road will change as you change.”
The voice continued, “Now you are the child looking down the road, which is only a two-lane path through the grass, but soon you’ll become an adolescent, and your road will be a paved highway with fast-moving vehicles. More time will pass and you’ll become a young adult and your highway will have become a freeway…But don’t let that word ‘free’ fool you. Nothing is free. For everything you get, there’s something you must give. The freeway will be crowded with fast-moving vehicles. Crossroads will come up very fast. You won’t have much time to make up your mind. Nevertheless, make up your mind, take a road, and don’t look back.
“When you are mature, the roads will be bigger, better, and faster, but they will still be just roads, and you must decide on which to travel. At last, you will be seasoned, and wise. People will ask you, ‘Which road should I take?’ You can’t tell them, because you don’t know their destiny. They must make their own choices.
“After you’ve grown old, you’ll have done a lot of things, been to a lot of places, but you still will not have found your destiny. There are more crossroads coming up.”
***
The dream passes.
Now I’m three years old, sitting on Mother’s lap. Father is driving a 1925 model “T” Ford truck loaded with furniture. We’re traveling on a sandy road through a stand of oak trees with grass growing all around. The journey to my destiny has begun, and I’m wondering: What's on the other side of that bridge? What's beyond the turn in the road? Is that our house on the other side of those trees?
THE FUTURE IS NOW FOR THOSE WHO'LL SEE
Everything we need has been provided. We must honestly ask the questions and sincerely seek solutions. To succeed, we’ll first have to get past the limiting factors of self-imposed ignorance, bias, prejudice, and superstition.
To illustrate the difficulties we face with overcoming these problems, we should consider the difficulties we would encounter in trying to convince a Neanderthal man that the Earth is round and that it orbits the sun.
The ancient Sumerians understood the solar system at least eight thousand years before the birth of Jesus. Egyptians used that knowledge to build the pyramids. Prehistoric Greeks also knew the workings of the solar system. They named the planets and worshiped them.
Monotheistic religions taught that Earth is the center of God’s creation and that the sun orbits the Earth.
The rise of Christianity was a major factor in the fall of the Roman Empire; the Crusades contributed to the destruction of the centers of learning in the Arabic world. The war between Christians and Muslims began in the seventh century, and the subsequent book burnings throughout Europe contributed to the period known as the Dark Ages. The Spanish Inquisition began in 1478.
During the period of the Dark Ages, learned men were imprisoned, and some were put to death for noting that the sun does not orbit Earth. The teachings of these men, even though true, flew in the face of Christianity and could not be allowed. Knowledge is no longer limited by religious belief but by self-imposed ignorance.
I view the world as being poised on a pinnacle. To the right is an abyss of ignorance, destruction, and despair. To the left, where knowledge and reason prevail, there is a bright new future where all things are possible.
I opt for the bright new future and would like to point out some of the possibilities that can be obtained by overcoming fear, ignorance, and prejudice. All needs can be overcome because everything we require is available.
WHY IS THE DESERT DRY ONLY ON ONE SIDE OF THE RIVER?
In many places, stark contrasts in how men live exist, even though they live right next to one another. I don’t know the answer to this question, but I would like to present it to you to consider. Why is the desert dry only on one side of the river? Should you find the answer, would you please tell me what you’ve found?
In the early summer of 1992, my wife and I were driving southbound along the Rio Grande River in Texas. The land on the Texas side was in cultivation, producing onions, grapefruit, aloe vera, tomatoes, and other crops in abundance. Mexicans worked in the fields, growing and harvesting onions and hauling them to the market. The onions were loaded so high on the trucks that at every turn some fell off and ended up in piles along the road. We were amazed at the hundreds of pounds of onions lying beside the road, going to waste. We stopped and examined some of them. They were big onions. I tasted one. It was of exceptional quality. What a shame. We calculated those onions would be worth hundreds of dollars in Hawaii.
Across the Rio Grande, where the workers lived, the land was barren and dry. I saw no greenery; instead, I saw shacks with dogs and goats in the yards, no shrubs or flowers and no lawns. Some homes had small, poorly maintained gardens that were dried up and lay in waste. These were the homes of the laborers who risked their lives to cross the river to work in the fields owned by the gringos.
I stood beside the car and looked across the river, wondering: Why would these Mexicans swim the river to work on the Texas side, instead of planting crops on their side. What is different? The climate is the same. The air and the sky are the same. The land is the same. Th
e water in the river that borders both lands is the same. Even the people growing the crops are the same. They obviously knew how to grow the crops. So why do they risk their lives to cross the river to work in the fields of the Texans? Why don’t they plant and work in their own fields? What is the difference?
Then I remembered what I had seen in California, years ago, when I attended college in Compton in 1944. Compton was one of the prettiest little towns in southern California. The streets and sidewalks were clean. The houses were mostly painted white with green trim. They had white picket fences and green lawns with trimmed shrubs and flowers everywhere. The town had a park where bands played in the evenings. Children played and lovers strolled along the pathways among the trees and flowers. It was a magical place.
Four miles north of Compton was a town called Watts. The streets of Watts were filthy. Rubbish and trash collected in the streets. Houses were unpainted. The trees and shrubs were either dead or dying. No lawns, just dirt. No flowers in the flower beds, just weeds. Dogs shared the yards with wrecked cars. Buildings in the business district were gaudily painted, sporting garish neon lights to advertise their wares. Whores, pimps, drug pushers, and gangs of young thugs roamed the streets. It was a mean and ugly place.
The population of Watts grew faster than the surrounding towns. Watts spread into the other neighborhoods. It spread like cancer. In the areas where the cancer spread were unpainted houses with broken windows covered with cardboard. There, too, the yards were filled with dogs and wrecked cars. The pimps and the whores had moved in. Bands of young hoodlums roamed the streets. The pretty towns died. Why did the towns die? The land was the same. The climate was the same. The sky, the air was the same. Why? Why is the desert dry only on one side of the river? —Just wondering.
Brief Moment in Time Page 13