(image from Wikipedia)
In a story I might have told before on this blog, I was driving through Nevada in the summer of 1995 when I stopped on Highway 50 (the one I discussed here) at dusk & lay on the very warm hood of my rental car & watched the sky turn black. Amazingly I could see quite clearly for the first time this thing called "The Milky Way" I had read so much about. But what was really stunning was that, at a rate of one every two or three minutes, I could see shooting stars.
At first I though I was just tired & maybe even imagining, as I had been driving all day. If I stared enough into a section of the sky, it would seem like a star would become dislodged & leave a tiny trail as it disappeared from the darkness. There would have been a time when humans, looking up, would have found this commonplace, maybe even imagined stars lived & died as they did. It was a beauty that I couldn't believe I hadn't seen before.
Lying there, in some quiet Nevada valley on a lonely highway, I almost fell asleep, when the only other car on that road (for over an hour) zoomed past me, & the driver leaned on his horn. Because the temptation to be an asshole is everywhere & always a strong one.
This doesn't explain why I'm doing a show about meteors today. But maybe it explains why I love them.
Please listen this afternoon, noon to 2pm Portland time, on 90.3+98.3fm in town & online at Freeform Portland dot org. The show won't be anywhere as lovely as a meteor but it will be just as ephemeral.
At first I though I was just tired & maybe even imagining, as I had been driving all day. If I stared enough into a section of the sky, it would seem like a star would become dislodged & leave a tiny trail as it disappeared from the darkness. There would have been a time when humans, looking up, would have found this commonplace, maybe even imagined stars lived & died as they did. It was a beauty that I couldn't believe I hadn't seen before.
Lying there, in some quiet Nevada valley on a lonely highway, I almost fell asleep, when the only other car on that road (for over an hour) zoomed past me, & the driver leaned on his horn. Because the temptation to be an asshole is everywhere & always a strong one.
This doesn't explain why I'm doing a show about meteors today. But maybe it explains why I love them.
Please listen this afternoon, noon to 2pm Portland time, on 90.3+98.3fm in town & online at Freeform Portland dot org. The show won't be anywhere as lovely as a meteor but it will be just as ephemeral.
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