It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like a Spaceport

Spacecoast, Florida



So They've got two aging shuttles lined up on the pad. The next launch is scheduled for October 10 at 12:43 AM...I may take the old Ford van and a cooler and sleep on the Banana River to be there for the launch.

They will be upgrading the Hubble telescope by a factor of 10 to 70...They have already looked back 13 billion years and concluded that the universe is expanding and that the rate of expansion is accelerating for reasons that we can't begin to understand.

Horatio:
O day and night, but this is wondrous strange!

Hamlet:
And therefore as a stranger give it welcome.
There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio,
Than are dreamt of in your philosophy

Mrs. Phred finds me staring at the ceiling and asks if there is a problem. I tell her that my heros (Neil Armstrong, John Glenn, Chuck Yeager, Scott Crossfield and other giants) are all dead or over 80. I tell her that the shuttle crew were having their diapers changed when I was flying missions...

Mrs Phred is immediately thoughtful ...she starts in about how life goes by in an eye blink...I realize that you should never ever scream "WE'RE ALL GOING TO DIE!" to the women and children...or compare human lifespans to geologic time...

I tell her that there will be a tunnel and a bright light at the end and all her friends and relatives will gather to welcome her...she likes that so I suggest that she might consider being a Muslim and claim her 72 nubile young male virgins at the end...

Anyway...it's crappy that the real deal guys are either very old or dead...

Blood Pressure 115/74

Tampa, Florida

I make my annual visit to see my Doctor. She's pleased with my weight, low cholesterol level and blood pressure...we don't discuss smoking or digital rectal exams anymore. When I tell her that I hope to see her again next year we agree more sincerely every time.

I've cleared up the water in Mom's pool by shocking it with five gallons of chlorine.

My little sister and her husband, Jay, come over for the party. I bar-b-que steaks. It's nice to see Mom smile. She especially laughs about my hat, which is popular in the pool today.

This is my little sister. I ask Jay if he has any residual effects from the AK-47 wounds. He says he still has some numbness in his arm and right hand. My regular barber gives me a $1 senior citizen discount on my haircut so I bump his regular tip $1.

I do some googling about Puerto Rico diving for the trip next week. There's a guy down there who's looking for a dive buddy. I don't e-mail him...finding your dive buddies online my not be the best way...For example, here's a birthday greeting quote from an online friend...what a character he must be...I'll have to look him up in England next May for dinner at the Joogleberry...with a name like Joogleberry its got to be good...

" It takes every drop of energy just to run my brain
Took a long time to learn that it's just a waiting game
Some people call it depression, I call it a song
Don't worry 'bout me, I'm not going to be around all that long "

Victory Slips Away

Tampa, Florida

I go out to play tennis with Mrs. Phred this morning and tie it up 5-5.....This is going to be my day, I think...I revolve saying 5-5....5-5...savoring the moment....the 8 AM Florida heat and humidity leaves me dripping with sweat...Mrs. Phred seems cool as a cucumber...

She takes the next game 6-5 and I start dreaming of a tie-break....We go back on forth...ad-in, deuce, ad-out, deuce...Finally she puts me away 7-5....I dream of future victories....I've never won five games before...we've been playing 20 years...this is my best...it augurs well...

Tomorrow, I hit what is considered official retirement age of 65...what to do?
We look at newer, bigger recreational vehicles....no, maybe not...Maybe the Federal Reserve has an opening for a shrewd chairman who has actually studied macroeconomics.

We saw " Burn after Reading" last night...another dark comedy by the Coen Brothers...funny to laugh out loud when people are being sequentially killed, but the Coen Brothers have a talent....then to St. Pete Beach for rum-runners and coconut shrimp on the "million dollar" pier ....a strong tropical wind off the water and a typical Florida light show of frequent nighttime lightning strikes in a big cumulus nimbus line off the dark gulf....I was just reading about this Englishman who was paralyzed by a lightning strike in WW1 on the right side, then 20 years later in Canada he was paralyzed on the left side by another strike, then just as he was learning to walk another bolt got him on both sides, then he died and another strike spit his tombstone...what are the odds?

Interstate 275 has been upgraded here with overhead LED signs and we get a warning twenty miles ahead on the way home that a crash has blocked all three lanes at Kennedy Avenue...how nice...we divert...I make another contribution to Obama's campaign this morning...

Dinner at Frenchy's

Tampa, Florida

I notice that the days are growing shorter. After the strokes, the cute blond Jewish neurologist asks me some key questions to judge my loss of cognitive ability. I count backwards from 100 by sevens for her. No problem. "What season is it?", she asks. Momentarily stumped, I offer Spring as a tentative answer. "Was it hot when you came in?", she wonders. "It's always hot in July in Florida", I tell her. It's still hot in mid-September.

Now I practice answering the question of seasons. You won't catch me again. I believe that the season changes on the solstice and equinox. Soon it will be Fall... I think. The sun will sink below the Equator. I have faith that it will return if we make the proper blood sacrifices in the dead of Winter.

Two of my college students, Steve and Mike, go to dinner with us at Frenchy's on Clearwater beach. They bring along Argie and Jill, wives and old friends and two of Steve and Jill's lovely children. The restaurant overlooks the Gulf and sits on a wide white sand beach. We sit on the patio and watch the incomparable Florida sunset.. The live band is a Johnny Cash sound-alike...

Because you're mine, I walk the line

We stoke up on she-crab soup and pina coladas...on the way back to the car we practice lowering our voices and singing...

I shot a man in Reno, just to watch him die

It's always wonderful to reconnect with old friends.

Ice Cream, Hot Dogs and Marshmellows

Holly Point State Park, North Carolina

The park offers swimming in a cool lake. It's heavily wooded. I've been doing some painting for my daughter-in-law and generally trying to be useful. The little ones camp with us in the Park in relays. Grandchild number five found my kneepads and likes to wear one as a helmet.

Tropical Storm Hannah swept though last night. We had a great roaring fire in the rain and toasted marshmellows (can you see raindrops and toasted marshmellows descending from the heavens?). We swam in the rain and watched the storm bands sweep though. The girls (numbers two and three) appointed me as the monster so I ran them down and dragged them shrieking by the heels to deep water.

We looked at nearby Chapel Hill. It's a big University with an abundance of the older homes that we both like. Maybe we'll look there for a stick home someday (People who live in RVs call homes without wheels "stick homes"). We'll head back to Tampa tomorrow at about 4am. It's been five months plus since we left on this trip. The BBC wants me to write about my travels and provide pictures. I'm negotiating for complete creative control with Rich Blayden, the BBC Post Senior Editor. I'm also holding out for Waldorf salads.

The little ones dropped my laptop on the floor last night as Hannah stormed about. They seem to get super-energetic when fed massive amounts of hot dogs, ice cream, marshmellows, chocolate and Graham crackers. The strange thing is, it started working again after being dead for several weeks.

By noon the skies had cleared....Maybe I'll slip up here in my old white Ford Van and do some more painting in October or November.

We could be in Tampa tomorrow, but I'd like to stop at Ginnie Springs and dive the caves and float down the Santa Fe river. Hurricane Ike should arrive about the same time we do. It's a nice one (Cat IV).