Nelson Mandela - A Small Tribute to a Great Man

 

I noticed that all US flags were at half mast the other day (December 7th) and then remembered it was Pearl Harbor Day. On December 8th, they were at half mast again and I wondered why, but I hoped it was in tribute to Nelson Mandela. And it was and I was pleased and proud that the US was honoring a great man with this simple, conjoined effort.

When we visited Cape Town, South Africa a few years ago, we made it a point to take the little ferry boat to Robben Island. There we boarded a bus that took us on a tour of the desolate, barren, dried out place that Nelson Mandela called home for 18 of his 27 years of incarceration. Ex-political prisoners who had been imprisoned at Robben Island served as our hosts and guides.

We saw the limestone quarry where political prisoners labored, piling rocks and moving them from one place to another. No meaningful work allowed … just useless labor.

We saw his cell … tiny, cold, hard, gray concrete overlooking a concrete courtyard. He described it in his autobiography Long Walk to Freedom:

“ It overlooked the courtyard and had a small eye-level window. I could walk the length of my cell in three paces. When I lay down, I could feel the wall with my feet and my head grazed the concrete at the other side. The width was about six feet and the walls were at least two feet thick. Each cell had a white card posted outside of it with our name and our prison service number. Mine read, “N. Mandela 466/64,” which meant I was the 466th prisoner admitted to the island in 1964. I was forty-six years old, a political prisoner with a life sentence, and that small cramped place was to be my home for I knew not how long.”

No contact was allowed with the outside world. No visitors. It was dirty, dank and the prisoners were subjected to indescribable and constant humiliation. How does a man tolerate the intolerable? How does he tolerate it day after day after day and still be able to forgive his persecutors and strive for his ideals of peace and equity in a country that stole 27 years of his life?

There is so little greatness among us. After we mourn his passing, we must strive to honor his legacy.

Text Me

 

We do not have an iPhone or an Android or anything close to a smart phone. We have an old-fashioned (more than two years old) dumb phone and texting is a chore. You know how it works, the “1” key is A, B or C depending upon how many times you press the “1” key in quick succession. You have to switch between upper case and lower case letters and punctuation is a whole new button grouping. I watch my sister texting on the mini-keyboard of her iPhone and she breezes through a message in seconds. Me … I spend as much time looking for the letter “s” as she does to type and send a full page document. Our nephew says e-mail is old-fashioned and way too slow.

So … why no iPhone or at least a phone with a keypad … besides the fact we're cheap? Well, when you only plan to be in a place for a short period of time, the options are limited. You can't buy a 2-year contract and without a contract, rates and actual phones can be very expensive. In Australia, for instance, you have to be a resident with an actual address plus have a bank account in order to get regular phone service. Otherwise, you're relegated to very limited, expensive, buy-by-the-byte phone and internet service. We have a collection of dumb phones from several different countries. Rarely does a phone from one country work in another and the phone service is different in each as well. Sometimes we've been able to simply buy and switch out SIM cards, but more often than not, the $10 go-phone we purchased in Panama along with leftover minutes do not work in Ecuador and the Ecuadorian phone does not work in New Zealand and … you get the picture.

All that aside, since it wasn't really my blog topic anyway, I just read that there's a U.S. National Texting Championship coming up. Last year's winner won $50K. The Wall Street Journal reported that more than 250,000 people compete in the qualifying on-line competitions which test speed, accuracy and dexterity. We're not talking an Olympic event here, but wow! Who could have known? Certainly, not us boat folks. These kids (ages 16-24) compete while blindfolded, with hands behind their backs (really?) and then have a Text blitz where they are required to copy random phrases displayed for only a few seconds. According to the Huffington Post, 42% of teens say they can text with their eyes closed. I can't even open our phone with my eyes closed.

I might add that the US is losing serious ground in education compared to kids around the world, but heck, who cares as long they can text fast.

First Snow - A Tribute to Snowflake Bentley

I'm not crazy about snow. We're sailors … not skiers nor snowboarders nor ski-mobilers. Snow is cold, wet and many times needs to be shoveled. It makes driving hazardous. All that said, there's something about the first snowfall of the year that's nostalgic and uniquely beautiful … like each snowflake itself.  

bentley's snowflake

I remember reading that the anthropologist, Franz Boa, postulated that Eskimos (translated into current PC, that's the many dialects of the Yupik and Inuit languages) had over 1,000 words for snow. That theory has certainly been contested over the years. I wonder if the Inuits have a word for “lazy” snow … because that's my favorite. Watching big, individual flakes float down lazily before your eyes is mesmerizing. It's a good time to go outside, stick out your tongue and let the snowflakes just melt there. It's magic. Once snow accumulates a bit, it weighs heavy on the tree boughs and muffles sound. A comforting, welcome silence settles over the shimmering, white neighborhood.

snow bending boughs

After visiting the tiny museum in Jericho, Vermont in early October, I've been thinking about Snowflake Bentley quite a bit. Snowflake Bentley, aka Wilson A. Bentley, native of Jericho, first proposed the theory that no two snowflakes were alike. He was enthralled with snow and frost. His photographs of snowflakes to document their unique crystal formations was a lifetime passion. Obviously done outside in icy cold weather, he pioneered in the field of photomicrography. I've never tried photographing snowflakes or frost. This year, I might.

snowflake bentley

I found a CalTech website on snowflakes that's incredibly informative and fun. You can learn something about snowflakes, find out why snow is white and/or download snowflake wallpaper.

caltech snowflake

Snowflake Bentley, by the way, is also a wonderful children's book about the snowflake man. Exquisitely illustrated, it's magic for adults, too. I might just get one for someone special this winter. It’s out of print, but available used on several used book seller sites.

A self educated farmer, Bentley attracted world attention with his pioneering work in the area of photomicrography, most notably his extensive work with snow crystals (commonly known as snowflakes). By adapting a microscope to a bellows camera, and years of trial and error, he became the first person to photograph a single snow crystal in 1885.

He would go on to capture more than 5000 snowflakes during his lifetime, not finding any two alike. His snow crystal photomicrographs were acquired by colleges and universities throughout the world and he published many articles for magazines and journals including, Scientific American and National Geographic.