admin

Golden Apples

Planned obsolescence, a one-way trip, will be the demise of the Parker Solar Probe. It will burn up. But that’s ok; it’s all part of the plan. NASA’s probe will collect information on the Sun’s corona. The information to be gathered and beamed back to Earth is important to our understanding of solar processes.

The probe will make 24 orbits of the Sun over seven years. In its final seven orbits the probe will swing out past Venus and then slingshot back in towards the Sun to descend further through the heat of the Sun’s corona on each of its final orbits. Eventually it will pass within 3.8 million miles of the Sun’s surface.

The corona is the upper layer of the Sun’s atmosphere, extending millions of miles beyond the visible surface of the Sun, the photosphere. Photons released by nuclear fusion deep in the interior of the Sun are emitted by the photosphere, giving light. The corona lies millions of miles above this but is curiously hotter than the Sun’s surface. Solar winds generated in the polar and equatorial regions of the Sun lash out from the corona and send massive amounts of electrically charged particles streaming away from the Sun. These winds and other solar activities are the solar weather which reaches across the 93 million miles between the Earth and the Sun and can cause havoc on Earth. The particles of the solar wind travel at speeds over one million miles per hour and can cover the distance between the Sun and the Earth in about ten days. This is much slower than the light from the Sun which can cover that distance in about eight minutes.

The most visible aspect of the solar winds is the generation of aurora, curtains of glowing colors of light, that appear near the Earth’s magnetic poles. In the northern hemisphere, these displays are often called Northern Lights. They shimmer in the Earth’s upper atmosphere when the particles of the solar wind hit the lines of the Earth’s magnetic field. The strongest of these solar winds can also destroy the electronic capability of satellites. The winds can wipe out power grids on the Earth’s surface plunging cities into blackouts which can last for days. When the bursts of energy that generate the solar winds are detected, warnings can be made so that delicate equipment can be turned off or otherwise protected. Life on Earth is protected from the charged particles of the solar wind by the Earth’s own magnetic field. But astronauts above the Earth, or perhaps on a mission to Mars, or living on the moon, are not protected from the massive stream of charged particles.

The Parker Solar Probe is helping us to develop a deeper understanding of the fundamental processes of the Sun. By studying the data received from the probe, we will be able to better forecast solar weather and protect life and property. This knowledge will also provide important information regarding how to protect astronauts when we go out to build colonies off Earth.

Recently the probe reached a milestone on it mission; it began its second orbit of the sun. Important data has already been sent by the probe and received by NASA scientists. On the second orbit, protected by its 4.5 inch carbon-composite solar shield, the probe will pass within 15 million miles of the Sun’s surface. It will go deeper. With each orbit it will transmit more data on the solar wind, and it will continue to find information related to solar eruptions which accelerate particles dangerous speeds, and will plumb the mystery of why the corona is several 100’s of time hotter than the surface of the Sun. The probe will descend deeper and deeper into the heat to discover the depths of the plasma of the Sun’s corona.

These are the golden apples of the Sun, to gain knowledge, to know, to understand.

The picture is based on NASA imagery.

Information on the Parker Solar Probe found at https://www.nasa.gov/sites/default/files/atoms/files/parkersolarprobe_presskit_august2018_final.pdf .

Golden Apples of the Sun based on collection of Ray Bradbury stories of that name and from W.B. Yeats The Song of Wandering Aengus

(*Just_a_Note) – GIORDANO BRUNO

The most recent lunar eclipse on 20 January 2019 included the sighting of a meteor crashing into the disk of the full moon. The flash of the purported crash was captured by Jose Maria Madiedo, a Spanish astronomer who filmed the eclipse. After he reported it others verified a similar sighting.

On June 18, 1178 a similar sight was seen on a crescent moon. That event was recorded by Gervase of Canterbury, “the upper horn of the new moon seemed to split in two and a flame shot from it. From the midpoint of this division a flaming torch sprang up, spewing out, over a considerable distance, fire, hot coals, and sparks.” The description has been thought to have been the creation of the crater Giordano-Bruno. But that crater is estimated to be at least a million years old. The event seen by the monks is now thought to have been an earthly meteor that happened to be juxtaposed over the moon as it flashed through the sky.

In both these instances an “on-the-moon” survey would answer the question. In either case viewing the moon is a worthwhile past time in summer or winter.

As interesting as these events are, an important aspect of the history of science is caught in the web of the craters of the moon. Giordano-Bruno was an outspoken Italian philosopher in the second half of the 1500s. He was a proponent of an infinite universe (1584) which was at odds with the teaching of the powerful universities and church movements of the time. For his trouble to shake the minds of the youth into new paths of thought he was burned at the stake on February 17, 1600.

Art work based on a photograph of the statue of Giordano Bruno by Ettore Ferrari, in Campo de’ Fiori in Rome. Photograph by David Olivier., Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=923033.

Meteor Crater

In December of last year Science News reported on the discovery of a crater under the ice in Greenland. It is thought to have been caused by a meteorite nearly a mile wide. It was discovered during a scan of the thickness of the ice in the polar regions. The researchers were drawn to look more closely at the area due to the rounded edge of the ice over the crater.

In 2001 I was taking a commercial flight from California to the east coast. As I often do I took out the airline magazine from the seat back pocket and looked at the map of all the airline’s routes. As my trip took me via Dallas, I realized that the route would take us over Winslow, Arizona. This meant we might be flying over America’s most accessible meteor crater. I asked the flight attendant if she would ask the pilot to let us know if the crater could be seen from the airplane. About half an hour later the pilot announced that if we were to look out the windows on the right side of the plane we could see the crater.

There far below us with a clearly raised edge was an obvious crater in the Arizona desert. It was by no means tiny even at our perspective from thirty-some thousand feet. It was roundish, with a particularly squared-off shape. You could clearly see that it was a depression in the Earth.

Years before I had been there to see the crater, and had taken the opportunity to walk down to the crater’s floor. In 1971 I was driving to California for a stint in the Navy. My route west took me along I-40 which passes the Meteor Crater. I needed a break from the highway, and I was curious about what the crater looked like. It was summer, and it was hot. When I entered the visitors’ center and was purchasing a ticket the man at the counter asked if I was in the military and when I showed him my military ID card he waved me on through. I asked him if I could hike down into the crater. He said that if I wanted to I would have to hurry because it was at least an hour’s hike down and back. As I walked towards the door to the outside he called out to me, “Take plenty of water. And look out for snakes.” Good advice to a down-east boy on his first trip to the desert. The path was over a quarter mile long and rocky and steep. When I finally reached the bottom, I stood on the crater floor and looked up at the rim towering 500 feet above me. It had been windy and hot when I stood on the rim. On the crater floor there was no wind, and it was hotter. I don’t remember as much of the hike down into the crater as much as I remember the hike back out. I didn’t see any snakes, but I kept thinking that I should have carried more water. The path up was a scramble in the loose sand and rocks that easily gave way under my feet. When I reached the rim, I was hot, tired, and thirsty.

But it was a good hike – if only that I could say that I had done it. It’s not something they allow visitors to do anymore and probably with good reason. The crater can be a trap. It was simple to get down into it, but not so easy to get out of.

At over a half mile wide the Arizona crater is impressive in size but it doesn’t even crack the top ten of known impact craters on the surface of the earth. But most of the known craters are not as visible or accessible as the one in Arizona. They are hidden by millennia of erosion or they may be under water. The largest known impact crater is Vredefort crater in South Africa. It is 118 miles across and was created by an impacting celestial body that was approximately 3 to 6 miles across approximately 2 billion years ago. This crater is more than twice the size of the Chicxulub crater which is theorized to have been the finishing blow to the reign of the dinosaurs 66 million years ago. The recently discovered but undated crater under the Greenland ice sheet is 19 miles wide. Another crater in Greenland reported in 2012 in Space.com is estimated to be three billion years old and the oldest known impact site on Earth.

But back to Arizona. In the early 1900’s attempts were made to find the meteorite that crashed in to what is now the Painted Desert of Arizona. The object is estimated to have been up to 300,000 tons. The mass of the meteor and its speed likely caused the meteor to vaporize in its explosive impact. When you are on the rim of the crater its not hard to look up and imagine what the object might have looked like as it streaked across the sky and then exploded just before impact, carving out the crater. Soil and plants and rocks and rubble were heaved upward and outwards.

In 1994 I was again standing on the rim of the Arizona crater. I could look up and imagine the bright light that suddenly appeared in the sky and with a thunderous roar exploded in front of me. Of course if I had been standing there 50,000-some years ago I would have been vaporized as well. What is a safe distance from such a blast? Miles and miles I am sure. And even if I was at such a distance to only feel the earth tremble and to see the blinding flash on the horizon and to have been knocked to my knees by the pressure wave from the explosion, I am sure that it would have left a searing mark on my memory. The mark I carry now is one of looking up from the crater floor towards the rim and realizing that the best path for me to take was upward and out before the night fell. And I was wishing I had brought more water.

Information on the craters mentioned above may be found at:

Regarding the Vredefort site, https://geology.com/articles/vredefort-dome.shtml

The recently found crater in Greenland was reported in the December 8, 2018 Science News, https://www.sciencenews.org/article/impact-crater-greenland-asteroid-younger-dryas

In 2012 Space.com reported on what is the oldest known impact site on Earth, https://www.space.com/16366-oldest-meteorite-crater-earth-found.html

The home page of the Arizona Meteor Crater is https://www.meteorcrater.com/

Le Grand Kilogram

“The world is changed.” – opening narrative, “The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring”

The international kilogram mass, or Le Grand K, will no longer the world’s standard. There will no longer be a physical object protected from human touch and wayward air currents under triple bell jars. Now the standard mass for the kilogram will be defined as something ethereal.

I think the first time I heard about “Le Grand K I was in 3^rd grade. An article in my Weekly Reader spoke of a weight stored in a vault outside of Paris. I was fascinated! Since the time I was small, I had seen weights used on scales at feed stores and general stores in old rural North Carolina. They were handled by hardy men and women as they talked about the weather and their families. They moved them onto and off the scale-balance with careless ease as they weighted out feed or flour or nails. But this weight in Paris was completely different. This was a piece of metal that had been carefully made and even more carefully protected. It defined, for all other weights in the world, what a true kilogram actually was. It was handled not with bare, sweaty hands but only with gloved hands. It was covered in a glass bell jar. That bell jar was covered by another, larger glass bell jar. And that bell jar was covered by a larger, third bell jar. Le Grand K did not hang on a nail on the wall next to the scale. It was in a vault, kept behind closed and locked doors.

But over the years corrosion and dust and decay have affected the weight of this world standard. There had to be a better way. So now, all these years later, the old metal standard is just a museum piece. Perhaps if I wander far enough I may find it in a flea market in some distant corner of Europe. It is now detritus of a past age.

There is no longer a physical presence of a defining Kilogram. There is no more tactile experience of grasping the bell jar and lifting it away, being careful not to hit the precious mass. There is no more grasping the mass with gloved hands or padded tongs and feeling the weight of that mass pulling against bone and sinew and muscle of the hand and arm. Now it is ghostly. Now there is an ethereal determination of the pull of something that we cannot readily see as we would the weight.

The device now used to determine the mass of the test object measures electricity. For the test object, the question, “How much does this weigh?” is answered in a vacuum with the soft vibrations of electrical current and the resistance and magnetism of a conductor. There are two forces to be measured. The first is a measurement of value of an applied electrical current in a conductive coil in a Watt-Balance. The second is a measurement of induced voltage in the coil while moving through a stationary magnetic field.

Each of the measurements can be converted into the units of power (watts) by a known and proven mathematical formula, hence the name of the device, the Watt-Balance. The mass to be measured is placed in a pan which pulls down against the stiffness of a conductive, metal coil. A current is applied to the coil. This current stiffens the coil until the upward force in the coil balances the downward pull of the mass being measured. The value of the current required to balance the mass is recorded. The current is then turned off, the subject mass is removed, and the coil is now tested. The coil, a conductor of electric current, is passed through a magnetic field of known strength at carefully controlled, constant velocity. The value of the induced voltage in the coil is recorded. Based on the values of the measured current from the first stage and the value of the induced voltage from the second stage, two mathematical equations can be compared. Through this process the mass of the item being measured can be established with an extremely high degree of accuracy.

The Washington Post article on the redefined kilogram may be found at https://www.washingtonpost.com/science/a-massive-change-nations-will-vote-to-redefine-the-kilogram/2018/11/15/b5704b0a-e6c7-11e8-b8dc-66cca409c180_story.html

The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) information on the Watt-Balance (Kibble-Balance) may be found at https://www.nist.gov/si-redefinition/kilogram-kibble-balance

(*Just_A_Note) – Chang’e-4 cotton seed sprout

On Tuesday January 15, 2019 the China News Agency, Xinhua, reported that the Chnag’e-4 experiment of growing plants on the moon had ended. Seeds of cotton, rape seed, and potato cuttings as well as eggs of the fruit fly had been carried to the moon in the recent landing of Chang’e-4. They were part of an experiment to see if terrestrial plants could be coaxed to grow in an enclosed and protected environment on the surface of the moon. The experiment was enclosed in a heated canister. Sunlight to stimulate plant growth was directed into the canister through a tube. Cameras were included in the canister to record the plant growth. Within days of the landing on the far side of the moon, the world was excited to learn that one of the cotton seeds had sprouted and its small stalk was the first plant to be cultivated on the moon’s surface. However, it was the only plant in the experiment to germinate and grow. The plant did not fully develop. Now that the lunar night, during which the dark side will not receive sunlight, has begun in the current phase of the moon, the experiment has been terminated.

The full article may be found at http://www.xinhuanet.com/english/2019-01/15/c_137745505.htm

(Just_A_Note) postings are short articles regarding current, noteworthy events in science and being outdoors.

to speak of many things – of Streams and the Chesapeake

Have you ever seen the Chesapeake Bay? If not, you need to. It is the largest of the several major salt water estuaries on the east coast of the United States. Others include Narraganset Bay in Rhode Island, and the Pamlico Sound in North Carolina. If you take out a map of the United Sates and look at the east coast, these estuaries look like large lakes attached to the Atlantic Ocean. This is of course what makes an estuary an estuary. There is a continual water exchange between the ocean and the bay or sound. The lower reaches of the bay or sound are tidal as is the ocean. And the upper reaches of these bodies of water may show some tidal rise and fall, but the rise and fall of water on the shoreline is just as often due to wind. However, looking at these waters on such a large-scale map is not the best to way to view them. You need to get up close.

When you look at the Pamlico sound closely you can see that it is fed by rivers that flow from the inland areas of North Carolina and Virginia. The Trent River, the Neuse River, the Tar River, the Pamlico River originate far up-state and pass through towns and farms as the deliver water to the Sound. This is an important aspect of all estuaries. Even though they are salty and brackish from their exchange of water with the Atlantic Ocean, and even though they support fishes that travel back and forth from the ocean in their life-cycle, their sources of water are the streams, and creeks, and rivers that flow down from areas deep inland. The streams that flow into each of these rivers, together with the land they drain, are the river’s watershed. The Chesapeake Bay is fed by several major rivers. They include the Potomac flowing through Virginia and Maryland, the Susquehanna whose watershed is in Pennsylvania and New York and Maryland, the Patuxent in Maryland, the Choptank through Delaware and Maryland, and the Rappahannock River and the James River in Virginia. Again, these rivers flow through towns and farms and in the case of the Chesapeake though major urban and industrial areas.

These watersheds not only carry water to their estuary from the land, but they also carry pollutants. The land that is drained by the streams and rivers of the watershed is the source of the pollution. The pollution, whether debris from erosion or chemical pollutants, degrade the productivity of the estuary. The estuaries have a major role in the success of the fishing industries that depend on their waters for the fish and crabs they harvest. The estuaries provide a habitat for the life-cycle of some of our favorite sea-foods. But don’t look at the center of the bay or sound for this, look at the edges. Get up close to the seagrass beds and the marshes that line the banks of the estuaries – or use to line the banks of the estuaries. In these shallow waters that you can wade into, tiny crabs and fish hide and grow until they are ready to move out into deeper waters of the estuary.

It’s the clarity of the water that is important. The clarity allows for the development and success of seagrass beds. These seagrasses which use to thrive in vast meadows in the Chesapeake Bay collapsed in the 1950s through the 1970s. These fields of underwater grasses which grew near the shore were the home to many of the creatures on the lower end of the food chain and the nursery for the important recreational and cash fisheries that the Bay supported at one time. The much loved Chesapeake Blue Crab and the famed striped bass (rock fish) started their lives here. Without these beds of seagrass the fisheries were disappearing. What caused the grasses to disappear? Uncontrolled development. Development on the share of the Chesapeake but also and more importantly development throughout the watersheds that fed the Chesapeake. From the lawns and farms that were fertilized and on which weed killer was sprayed came the pollutants that were leading to the failure of the seagrass. Weed killers worked against the seagrass, and so did the fertilizers that washed off the lawns which encouraged the growth of algae in the water. The algae blocked the light that the seagrass needed to grow, causing the seagrass meadows to disappear.

Individuals and communities, as well as the states that border the Chesapeake Bay, began to take actions to clean up the problem. One of the actions that was taken was the imposition by the State of Maryland of a stormwater fee, also called the “rain tax”. This was in response to an action by the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) through the Clean Water Act to develop methods and funding to clean up the Chesapeake Bay and to protect the Bay from further damage. The law required the states that have watersheds that drain into the Bay to develop local measures to protect the Bay. This included Pennsylvania, Delaware, New York, Virginia, Maryland, and the District of Columbia. Only Maryland established a stormwater fee program. Under the program land owners were assessed a fee based on the impervious, i.e., paved, hard surfaces, that did not allow water to seep into the ground. Rather the rain ran off the hard surfaces and into the streams of watersheds that fed the Bay.

The basic question is does the Bay still need protection. The basic answer is yes.

The Bay showed improvements based on an annual rating. The water quality had improved. Clarity improved and seagrass beds were improving. Other important factors had also been showing improvement over the last decade. However, in 2018 the Bay fell to a grade of D-plus. This was the first decline in quality in the last several years. The decline was blamed on the amounts of heavy rain that had fallen on the east coast watersheds that year. More pollutants including particulates (soil and debris) had been washed from the watersheds into the Bay. There the pollutants will again effect the clarity and productivity of the Bay.

So – again – does the Bay still need protection? Yes!

For more information on the Chesapeake Bay and the Stormwater fee please visit the Chesapeake Bay Foundation at http://www.cbf.org/about-cbf/locations/maryland/issues/stormwater-fees.html#taxes

The 2018 State of the Bay report may be found at http://www.cbf.org/about-the-bay/state-of-the-bay-report/

The picture of the Blue Crab is derived from a photograph taken from the Chesapeake Bay Foundation website. Credit for the photograph is Jay Fleming/iLCP.

Imagining the New Year

New Year’s Day for me was not 1 January; it was 6 January. I consider New Year’s Day a movable feast. It’s the day after the turn of the year on which in the morning I can get out to one of the places I like to hike and there to imagine the world. While walking in the beauty of a sun-lit field I reflect on the past year and ponder the future. I imagine the future as a world with clear skies and balance.

When I imagine the future, I see it as an expanding microcosm with me at the center. Why am I at the center? It is not an over-blown ego, rather it is because I am the actor; I am the person, the entity, that has the power of imagining my place in the future and then taking steps to make it happen. I do not have power over nature or over other people, only some over myself. Perhaps I might have some influence on others. I can ask the most important question of all, “How can I help?” As the world moves to a population of Eight Billion, it will be in motion. There will be more migrant caravans, there will be changes in patterns of weather and wildlife, there will be changes to the average temperature, and the harvest and the sea will change. There may be multiple causes, but all will drive the movement of the burgeoning world populations as they seek safety and food and a meaningful life. How can I help?

A hawk rose from the stubble of the mown field and slowly flew to the distant trees. It perched high to catch the warming rays of the rising sun. I saw a quick flight in the tall grass and then a burst of energy to the high branches of a nearby tree. Eastern Bluebirds were searching for insects in the grass and then flew to the tops of trees where the morning sun was energizing creeping and flying insects that are around this time of year. Even though it was just after the turn of the year, it was like summer. The weather was cold, below freezing. But as the sun came up, it brought light to infuse everything with a brightness, causing the sky and the morning frost to sparkle.

A flock of blue Jays, oddly silent, flew around the chestnut trees, racing each other from tree to tree. They would drop to the ground to investigate something and then return to the lower branches to watch me and the hawk and the Bluebirds. A balance of movement and light and quietness.

This is why I come to these places. I come to see what the world is doing. I come to reflect on my place in the world and in the family of humanity. I come to think on what I can do/should do to help improve what I can, and try to improve even what I can’t. Reinhold Niebuhr spoke to knowing the difference between what a person can accomplish and what they can’t. There is serenity in that, and wisdom, but to fulfill my place I need to act, even when I know that I may not reach my goal. Today the sky was clear and bright; tomorrow it may be cloudy. But the purpose on which I act is a constant source of light. I need to rise to it.

I see one of the Bluebirds fly up and settle in the branches near the top of a china berry tree. The little bird’s red breast is turned to the morning sun. It sits quietly and perhaps reflects on its own purpose. And perhaps it has a knowledge of whether it is possible. It suddenly launches and flies to another tree.

The serenity prayer by Reinhold Niebuhr can be found at https://www.beliefnet.com/prayers/protestant/addiction/serenity-prayer.aspx

The picture of the child is based on a photograph at wallpaperbetter.com.

China brings light to Lunar Incognita

This time the dragon jumped over the moon.

China has landed the fourth in a series of lunar explorers named Chang’e on the far side of the moon. The name is for the Chang’e, the mythological goddess of the moon. The far side, also know has the dark side, has been relatively unexplored. This is the first soft landing on the dark side of the moon, and it includes the rover, Yutu, (“jade rabbit”) to explore the surface which for nearly all of human history has been hidden from view.

The first three missions of China’s lunar exploration tested their ability to attain orbit and achieve a soft landing on the moon. An additional mission placed the satellite Queqiao (magpie Bridge) (That beautiful story will deserve an article of its own.) at LaGrange point L2 to enable communications with Chang’e 4 and the lunar rover.

Lunar Incognita has become Lunar Sciamus, the moon that we know. This is a very rudimentary translation. This rough translation is in the plural tense because it is all of humanity that will be able to know the moon and to understand its formation and its promise. The landing site of Chang’e 4 is a large plain known as the Von Karman crater which is located within the South Pole Aitken (SPA) Basin. The rover will study the surface of the far side which is thought to be significantly different from the surface of the near side, the side that can be seen from the Earth. According to a BBC article on the mission and landing, the SPA crater is one of the largest known impact craters in the solar system and the largest on the moon. The Chinese science team wants to study the massive sheet of melted rock that filled the crater.

In 1969 when astronauts first stepped on the moon, we memorialized the event. There was a plaque attached to the lunar lander descent stage that was left on the moon. It reads “Here men from the planet Earth first set foot upon the moon. We came in Peace for all mankind.”

And now what was hidden is being revealed. And the hope is that all of humanity will benefit from what is discovered. Is it worldly riches? Perhaps, it will likely become a stepping stone to creating a forward location – like a base camp at the foot of Everest – for humanity’s new stage of exploration of our solar system and beyond.

China has made a great leap in helping humanity establish this wider presence. The lunar rover rolled off the lander two days after Chang’e 4 had successfully reached the moon’s surface. Future planned missions will collect and return samples of the moon’s surface.

This success is part of a broader achievement that continues to look forward into the future. Wu Weiren, chief designer of China’s lunar exploration program is quoted in China’s news agency as saying, “We (humanity) have a responsibility to explore and understand [the moon]. Exploration of the moon will also deepen our understanding of Earth and ourselves.”

There is, perhaps, a future of people living and working and spending their lives on the moon or on other planets and moons of the solar system. Each of them will have a role in bringing a bright and strong future to all of humanity.

Our highest congratulations to our friends in China for an extraordinary achievement.

Information in this article is based on:

China News Agency article by Xinhua writers Yu Fei, Quan Xiaoshu, and Xie Jiao,

http://www.xinhuanet.com/english/2019-01/03/c_137717597.htm

and BBC article by Paul Ricon

https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-46760729

The Wreck on Bogue Banks

I first saw it in the night. A large shape laying in the trough of the waves of the retreating tide. It was windy, and the sea was running high. The troughs of the waves were deep. The large, black shape lay in the water about 50 yards off shore. It looked big.

I was star gazing off the deck of the rented cottage on Bogue Banks, North Carolina. I looked up at Orion and his nebula. I watched Canopus, the navigator, rise and then set on the southern horizon. The moon was full and reflected off the face of the running waves. I turned my glasses to the waves to see what might be out there. I was startled when I saw a black mass rise above the surface of the water and then submerge. It was truly big. I estimated it to be no less than eight-feet long above the water with what appeared to be a humped back. Was it a shark? But there was no fin. A dolphin perhaps? But again no fin. What creature could have this shape? But it did not seem to move. It lay in the water and let the waves pass over it seeming to rise in the trough and to disappear as the crest of the wave passed over it. My mind imagined all sort of creatures, mythological as well as real. But what would venture into the surf and lay there?

The next morning when the tide was high I went out to the beach to see if anything with fins or limbs had washed up in the night. There was nothing there. And there was nothing to be seen in the surf. The next low tide was in the early afternoon. We were having cousins over for lunch, and I planned to ask them what they might have heard about something in the water, whether creature or fish tale, since they were familiar with the goings on in the area. I planned to broach the subject privately with one or two of my cousins rather than ask the entire group. Before I had a chance to ask, I heard someone say, “Look, there’s a turtle in the surf.” We all went out onto the deck to get a glimpse. We could see a dark shape about 100 yards away. It would appear in the troughs of the waves and then submerge as the wave crest passed. Was this the creature that I had seen in the night? Was this the mystery solved? But we all noticed that what first appeared to be motion was the wake of the passing water. This shape did not move.

Then the thought struck me. The question was not what it was. The question was where was I?

I did a little research and realized that the deck I stood on was on the location of the old Iron Steamer Pier at Bogue Banks. Just offshore was the grave of the Confederate ship SS Pevensey, an iron-clad blockade runner. She had been chased inshore by the Union vessel SS New Berne in June 1864. The Pevensey broke and sank there. Parts of her boilers and machinery remain on the bottom about 150 yards off-shore. The Iron Steamer Pier had been built over the site of the wreck since the sunken ship made a good artificial reef which attracted fish. The pier and adjacent motel lasted through storms and hurricanes for more than 50 years. The pier was finally broken by the surf and wind of a hurricane and then closed for good in 2004. Since then the land was developed, and beach cottages, similar to the many that line the Banks, were built on the site. The old sea wall from the pier forms the sea wall for the properties.

The edges of the submerged ruin were exposed by the falling tide and appeared as a dark shape that would rise and fall as the wave trough passed over its resting place.

So it was not a creature or a myth that lay and rose and fell in the troughs of the waves at low tide, but the ruins and ghosts of a broken ship.

Additional information on the wreck of the SS Pevensey and the old Iron Steamer Pier may be found at http://pineknollhistory.blogspot.com/2015/07/iron-steamer-pier-retrospective.html. That site is also the source of the picture of the ship.

Leaf Story

Yesterday I spent the better part of the afternoon outside. What I was doing was not as enjoyable as a good, long hike in the autumn woods with the crunch of leaves beneath my feet. There was the crunch of leaves, but I was raking them and moving them. In my small city, we can rake the leaves to the curb for pickup by the city. It’s nice to be able to do put the leaves at the curb instead of bagging them. That is one of the reasons I enjoy living in the City of Fairfax.

But I remember the time in which the cool Fall air would be mixed with the rich smell of burning leaves. In the Fall, in towns where I grew up, small piles of leaves would dot the yards. Those small piles were often burned in place by the property owner. Or the leaves might have been swept to the curb or edge of the street to be burned. Sometimes a brick bbq pit would be used as a leaf furnace. Every yard had a least one, round, burn circle somewhere in the back. But those days are behind us, and for good reason. The smoke from the many piles of leaves, especially as towns grew and suburbs sprawled, became a choking haze over the houses and the city. The Fall air is cleaner now, and I do not miss the times of dense smoke. But I can remember the sights and the rich, sweet smell that rose up from the fires of our small piles of leaves and fallen twigs.

They were like camp fires. We would gather around the pile and watch as the tongues of flame crept through its depth. We would then stand guard to make sure the fire did not go beyond the pile of leaves and its burn circle. There was always a bucket of water at hand in case the grass began to burn, and maybe a hose if one was available. It was a family event. My parents or my grandmother would be around, and my brother and my cousins and I would poke at the small fire and stare into its flame. We would talk about our lives and dream aloud of our future. It was a time together.

The finest picture I have seen of this is the one by John McCutcheon which he drew in 1907 for the Chicago Tribune. A young boy stands and stares into the smoke while his grandfather relates a tale of years gone by. The language has fallen into disuse, but I believe the sentiments expressed are strong and valuable and worthy of remembering.

There were people who lived on these lands long before the Europeans came. They and their children held the land as sacred. They knew and kept the value of family. They respected the people that had lived on the land before them and who had passed forward the land rich with life. These people also looked with hope into their future.

John McCutcheon’s cartoon and text are no longer published. But each year about this time after I have been raking and preparing the garden with an eye to Spring, I take out my yellowed copy of the art with its history and read it again. And I thank all of the people that lived on this land before and who worked to care for the land and the water and the air so that it might remain a place of beauty. It is a place to remember.

The story of John McCutcheon’s art titled “Injun Summer” can be found at http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/politics/chi-chicagodays-injunsummer-story-story.html