Summer winding down

A cool sheet drapes across the landscape,

Stifling humidity replaced by crispness –

What is this unfamiliar sensation?

Why,  it feels like a bracing chill.

Late summer cicadas serenade the change,

Campouts and cookouts and parades do too.

Time to get in one last hurrah before things

Get even colder and uglier, at winter’s debut.

Once upon the spring we were exiting the misery,

Vacation plans were made and surging joy felt.

Now creaking houses and joints sigh with relief –

A break from hot outdoor activity and maintenance!

The indoor season is almost upon us,

Holidays will march past, a buildup towards

Christmas proceeds, until the grand  finale!

Then a trudge downhill through frigid bleakness.

Spring will be somewhere ahead,

But it is so very hard to imagine

 from the entrance to darkness.

Unable to go back, we must go on.

(c) 2011 Mike Wilson

I may not…

May not have an MFA, but I can sure vent out feelings on paper.

May not have a degree in Chemistry, but whipping up dinner is a breeze;

May not have a masters in Politics, but I can butter up the boss,

May not have earned an M.D. but will treat a cold at the first sneeze.

May not be a rocket scientist, but I can jump-start a car,

May not have earned my veterinary license,  but can diagnose my cat;

May not be a world-class athlete, but fear still sends me running far,

Did not earn any high degree, but common sense guides me and that is that.

 

So forgive the uneducated scribblings of a lower-class dropout,

You see we too have working minds that need some kind of outlet;

Provided with mass-produced blinkboxes, each with a keyboard,

We are determined to type out our vitriol, throw down the gauntlet. 

I may not have an MFA, but you are still reading my BS today…

And thank you for that!

- for real

Time to lighten up the mood a bit.  I got depressed with all the political stuff, and it was reflected in the last writes.  so I offer up this bit of humor:  A fish story with a sci-fi twist.  Enjoy.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Underwater                                                                                                                            

***     I swerved to avoid another obstacle.  These waters were tricky, taxing the collision-avoidance systems to their limit.  But my designers had built well.  Lower-level routines handled simple tasks:  drinking power from the local star, avoiding rocks and logs, and most of all staying hidden from any curious higher-level beings.

     If I had a sense of humor, I might laugh at the clumsy attempts of the resident high-functioners to tempt me to accept their proffered baits, thrown near me with all the finesse of a comet-hurtling leviathan from my home system.    I merely noted the creatures writhing and dying on the metal hooks, the types and sizes of line and fasteners used.  Data collection and transmission was not only my prime function, it was my passion.  I did it well.

     Day after day, I roamed the streams and rivers on this world, being careful not to get trapped in a backwater.  I surfaced to drink power during the day, and at night I wriggled onto the shore, unfurled antennae, and sent summaries to the well-hidden probe just outside the orbit of their Moon.    My purpose was accomplished with satisfying regularity.  Until the day I was nearly captured.

*****************************************

      Joe was euphoric.  It was a beautiful Sunday morning, and he had a spot by the Des Moines River all to himself.  Quickly grabbing his gear, he headed down the levee to his favorite spot.   He had a lure on his line already, so in moments, he was casting upstream.

     ‘What is that?’ he said to himself.  A fish was just circling around, right over there by the bank.   He walked over and eyed it.  Maybe sick?  It was just circling slowly, kind of eerily, over and over.   Joe made a snap decision.  He hurried back to his car and grabbed a shad net from the trunk.  He scampered back to the bank, and indeed, the fish was still there. 

     He held the net over the fish, and brought it down swiftly, in an arc towards the bank and himself.  The fish rolled into the net – and then suddenly thrashed violently. 

     Darn.  Usually these things tire out after a minute or two.   Not this fish.  It was even breaking strands of the net.

*************************

       I did something heretofore only known to inferior flesh creatures.  I grew careless.  My quick calculation had estimated a 96% probability of this location being unoccupied at this point in time.  I had not performed a deeper calculation -  the necessity to recharge and purge propelling channels seemed overriding.  So I had simply surfaced near the shore, and executed the maintenance routines.  I did not reckon on that human being there.

***************************

      Joe said “Hot Damn,  this is kind of exciting!” out loud.  Then he half dragged the net, with thrashing fish underneath, up the levee and towards his car.  There was a five-gallon bucket in the back seat.  Maybe he could get it under that, and save his net!

      He made it right up to his rear passenger door, and was reaching out with one hand to open it.  The sky suddenly erupted in a medley of colors around Joe, and he passed out, sinking to the ground. 

   ***   I finally  freed my vessel from the crude trap, and propelled myself unsteadily across the strange surface back to the edge of the stream , before safely submerging.  That had been close – my entire mission was jeopardized.   Fortunately an orbiting assistor came to my rescue!   After subduing the interloper, it left in a hurry.  No need to unduly alarm the local populations.***

      Joe awoke a few moments later.  The net lay near his feet;  it appeared unbroken.  But that fish was nowhere to be seen.   He rose shakily, and walked up and down the bank, looking on the ground and in the water.  Nothing could be seen.  Joe had a headache;  he finally decided it was time to get home.  After all, it wouldn’t do to be late for his lunch date today.   He thought to himself,    I shouldn’t have drank so much last night!

     ***I hovered near the bottom of the river.  And reached a decision to wait until darkness came to this longitude.  I would take no more reckless chances this research cycle.   That last time had been a close call.   I made a special note to warn future explorers of the clever dangers these natives presented to the research corps.  My timing  pulses seemed to decrement rather slowly, or so it seemed at the time  ***.

The End

Candidates

Speeches

Taxes

Anger

Joblessness

Hopelessness

Depression

We are in a pickle

Promises

Buzzwords

Stump

Speeches

Effective

Leadership

Lies

Half-truths

Nontruths

Decline

Desperation

Depression

Starvation

Obliteration

Will

The

French

Save

Us?

Well, the world is still turning.

People are still grocery shopping.  The Quik-trips and Casey's are still buzzing.  The Dollar store was crowded as ever last Saturday.  The grocery store parking lot was the usual madhouse.  The state fair is gearing up, with every kind of trailer, food stand, and contraption known to man. 

People are still going out to bars, having sex or getting jilted, or getting into trouble, or out of it.  Parents still hold dreams of greatness for their children.  The children still dream of amazing futures.  Plants still flower, go to seed, die and new ones pop up around them. 

My tomatoes and potatoes have not stopped producing.  The car still runs.  My body still works, although it is pretty creaky in the mornings.  Nothing new there.

So S & P downgraded the debt.  Who cares?  Life goes on.  Who are these faceless raters anywhay, and why should anyone give a s*** what they think.  I don't.  I'm going to go on living!

Financial Gyrations

My finances improve suddenly,

Unexpected good fortune

Helps me pay some things off.

Still eager young counselors

Call and want to help,

Tell me how to spend

All too meager earnings.

Washington, DC is in turmoil,

The experts disagree on how

To pay off the national debt.

They just make things worse.

I do not trust experts anymore.

My gut is just as good,

And the bigger it gets,

The more accurate it is.

Perhaps I can ignore advice,

Follow my own protrusion,

Pay any resulting penalty.

Cannot be any worse than

That mess in D.C.

And it might even turn out better.

07-25-2011

       I walked into a southeast side grocery store today, and encountered a surprise.  Amidst all the displays and piles of confections and breads on sale at the door, a diminutive voice sallied forth.  “Get your corn dogs here!  One dollah, one dolla for a dog, right here, right now.  One dollah for a dog, right here.”   I had breezed past her on my quest for Folger’s instant, but her insistent voice compelled me to look.  She continued on, her voice lilting up and down the scales, compelling ears to twitch, heads to turn and eyes to look.  What persistence.  I think, ‘She would have been right at home in New York’s little Italy around 1900!’  Here she was in a 2011 Hy-vee, just another marketing gimmick that walks and talks.  Could she be a robot?   Finally some Hispanic dudes walked over to her, and her continuous pitching ceased.  She hastened to complete their order.

     Hy vee has everything they can lay their hands on in their stores.  Produce, pre-prepared salads and dishes, bakery items in stacks placed strategically throughout the store.  (To be fair, so do Dahl’s and other area grocery superstores in this area.)  Every kind of food item one can imagine.   And now they have living icons from the past, right by the main door.  Amazing.  Their time machine must be next to the bottle machines.  Come to think of it, I always wondered what that telltale glow was from time to time while cashing in bottles.  And here I thought it was the glare of backroom fluorescents.   Silly me.   (But I’ll let someone else ask them where their transporter room is.)    The times we live in.

Once upon a time in Des Moines...

The Foursome met every week at the same Chinese restaurant. Nothing was thought to be unusual about this, but if anyone took the time to look at these four, they would notice something distinctly unusual.


     These four discussed topics of every description, and if anyone would listen in they might be amazed. World affairs, national politics, musical groups, kinds of wine, car problems, you name it, they discussed it. They entertained themselves, and usually anyone who happened to listen.

     In between words, their eyes sought and ears listened. If some nearby diner muttered, “hell, no,” they would pick it up. Those that might say, “he’s got a point there,” would also be heard, scanned and recorded by unseen apparatus. Yes, this restaurant was a perfect data harvesting site for the foursome from far beyond.

     They would chuckle and tease each other, and then go up for more plates of food. They would pour tea and propose points of view. Any outside reactions were impressed upon hidden memory apparatus. And every week, the four would beam encoded summaries deep into outer space.

     The one who blew it wide open, so to speak, was a guy trying to text into his new smartphone. It was an ultra-high-frequency kind. When he would sit near the foursome, he could not effectively text or call out. But whenever he sat or moved anywhere else in the place, or even outdoors, his phone worked fine. When he went out to eat with his buddy one Sunday, he purposely sat next to the regular foursome.

     Once seated, and provided with drinks, he moved closer to his buddy.

     “Now, watch this. I try and send you a text, and…nothing,” says George.

     His buddy, Don, nods. “Okay, and?”

     George moves his chair back a few feet, leans back, and tries again. The text goes through, and Don’s phone warbles.

     “Well, I’ll be darned. You sure it isn’t just a bad spot?”

     George put his finger to his mouth, and then whispers, “Yes. I’ve tried it in other spots. It’s…” and he nods his head towards the table.

     The apparent leader, a portly man with a cap and dark glasses, looks right at him, then looks away. He mouths something to the others. They glance at George and Don, then away, acting nonchalant.

     Alarmed, Joe whispers to don, “Let’s go, now!”

     Don blurts out, “But we haven’t eaten yet.”

     Joe glares at Don, waves him up, and heads out of the dining room. Finally, Don follows, throwing a glance back at the Foursome. They are all looking at him. He shudders, and hurries out.


     They try and drive out of the place, but a funny shadow has surrounded their car, and it is moving slowly. Joe floors it, finally breaking free. He zooms away down Ingersoll Ave, narrowly avoiding several cars. Back at the parking lot, a fifth entity looks after him, scowling. It thinks to itself, ‘We will have to get that arresting field checked out.’

     Moral of the story: Even if your neighboring table seems odd, don’t listen to them, and don’t stare at them. It may be the last thing you do!

End of the Space Shuttle program





     Not much can be added to the litany of woe that is sounding over the end of the Shuttle program. Although not all the voices are sorrowful. The Shuttle was an expensive program that did not quite live up to its promised potential. Still, it did achieve many things.


     We were able to retrieve and repair satellites, most notably the Hubble Space Telescope. The Shuttle carried aloft entire Spacelabs. Later we constructed an entire space laboratory, the ISS, in low earth orbit. 135 launches of a major space transportation system would be a notable achievement for any nation. It was so for the USA. It was also a way to show that Americans had prowess in science and engineering: “The Right Stuff” as that 80’s movie said. Although it may have been expensive and cumbersome, it was a big step in the right direction: out to the stars.


     Now that the program is ending, what do we have in the lineup coming next? No one seems to know for sure. There are the private space companies, like SpaceX, working on a transport capsule. But they supposedly have years to go. Boeing has proposed some kind of crew capsule. Lockheed-Martin has released drawings of a four-man capsule. There have been a lot of pretty pictures and noises, but so far, no clear front-runner. The Russians with their Soyuz have a monopoly on the space transportation business, it seems.


     The International Space Station should not be simply abandoned by NASA. They should at least fund and develop some kind of baseline booster/capsule technology in the event that nothing else is available. It is unconceivable that we can abandon this large complex without some kind of way there and back. Let the private companies embellish the baseline configuration how they please (and pay for it, of course). But it takes the government to make a large project like this go forward, like it or not. NASA could build, test and launch a test flight of the baseline rocket, with a crew. From there, the private companies could take over, flying different configurations of the baseline. They could certainly participate in the development of Baseline itself, and then diverge as needed for different priorities and missions.


     The Baseline should use existing Orion/Ares research data and hardware, to save money. It should not take very long to get a simple system of transporting a small crew back and forth. In 1967, after the first Apollo burned up on the launch pad, NASA redesigned the entire capsule and flew it around the Moon and back in two years’ time! Surely we can do as well today?


     Even if some would like to abandon outer space entirely, this would be fiscally foolish, in light of that 100 billion dollar investment we have circling up there. This is a plea for someone, anyone to consider getting a Baseline crew rocket and capsule built, tested and flown, and then the “keys” handed over to the private companies to configure as needed. We can and we should do this. Thanks for reading.

 

So what is a struggling author to do during these hot daysof summer?  Publish, publish, publish.
Here goes another one  ;-)

New Story Collection Available


“Mirror Worlds”

Science Fiction and Horror collection

By a local Des Moines author

Check it out online:

www.createspace.com/3633147

6 “ x 9” paper softback edition

www.amazon.com/dp/B0057cszp8

Kindle E-Book edition

Thanks for taking a look at them. 

Times

Once upon a time, settlers came to this land.

They drove out the occupants that were there.

They hacked out an existence and an economy.

They started operations like fish hatcheries,

shoe stores, butchers shops, and the like..

They tamed a new world for their kids.

Their kids struggled to cope in this world,

Pulled together from ancient religions,

A mishmash of beliefs under twin banners,

Capitalism and Freedom forever.

The kids went to war, and some made it back.

They raised up a generation used to modernity;

Electricity and automobiles and telephones;

But they had to endure, too.

A depression and a war later, their kids were born.

These kids had a new playground:

The entire civilized world.

This generation made colorful patterns ,

Started unique boutiques, challenged status quo.

The world changed again.

Their kids are mostly wedded to technology.

All except the ones who want to tear everything

Down and start over.  Why?

There is no accounting for human nature.

At our heart we are still stupid apes,

playing with shiny objects,

until we get hungry and start fighting.

Some things just never change.

Vacation time is coming

Ah, the delicious sensation of anticipation!

All the things I can do with two weeks:

Fish

Swim

Travel

Party

Work on the house and yard

Repair the car…

Perhaps find a partner,

Get lucky,

Once,

Or many times!

Anticipation alone has been a

Supercharged rocket fuel,

Sending my mind to

Dizzying heights –

I travel to outer space on hope.

Then the day arrives.

I am officially on vacation.

Where are the brass bands? 

The screaming fans?

All my grandiose plans

Must be individually set in motion,

One by one,

By myself.

There is no one else that can do this.

I am responsible for my own fun.

Time to stop typing and get on with it then!

 

Farewell, Dad – we will miss you.

     He lived from October of 1923 to May of  2011.  He went through some of the most difficult years in world history, and came through, not wholly unscathed or unscarred.   He managed to raise a family while working two jobs most of the time.  Although not perfect, he was a very honorable man.  He stood by his kids no matter what, or so it seems to the author.   To the very end, he was supportive of my projects, my hopes and dreams.  He used to say,  “I’m in your corner -  I want to see you win.”   He always wanted our happiness and prosperity, no matter what. 

     He will be often thought of, and often missed.  He is in all of us offspring.  It is hoped that he can rejoin all of his friends, and his first wife, in a better place.  

     In recent years, his health had declined.   The last time I saw him was last fall, around September 2010.  He looked tired, and his arms were bothering him.  But he was eager to discuss family genealogy information, and helped me find a few new ancestors.  He also helped correct some errors in a family poetry booklet I made – it could be said, that book was co-authored by Dad.   It was still a shock to me that he left us on this day, a Monday in May, when the outdoors is exploding with beauty.   I planted some tomatoes in his honor, and I am hopeful that I can help sponsor some kind of greater memorial to Dad.  He certainly deserves it.

In Fond Memory   - Lewis B. Wilson, Jr.    1923-2011