A Commemoration and A Celebration

[Bahaichap]

JFK's assassination 43 years ago today(22/11/63-22/11-06) and his "we will go to the moon" speech at Rice University on 12/9/62, caused me to reflect on my own experience, values and beliefs. The result was the rather long(three A-4 pages) prose-poem which follows:
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THE CONSPICUOUS AND INCONSPICUOUS

Nine days after I began my pioneering life in Dundas Ontario the then President of the United States, JFK, made a speech at Rice University. On that day, 12 September 1962, he said: "We choose to go to the moon in this decade….not because it is easy, but because it is hard." Kennedy cited accelerating scientific progress as evidence that the exploration of space is inevitable and argued that the United States should lead the space effort in order to retain a position of leadership on earth. I was also part of another inevitability associated with the great drama in the world's spiritual history, an inevitability given voice by the Central Figures of the Bahá’í Faith and Their successors.

In order to get some perspective on where I and others stood on that September day in 1962 Kennedy said: "No man can fully grasp how far and how fast we have come, but condense, if you will, the 50,000 years of man's recorded history in a time span of but a half century. Stated in these terms, we know very little about the first 40 years, except at the end of them advanced man had learned to use the skins of animals to cover themselves. Then about 10 years ago, under this standard, man emerged from his caves to construct other kinds of shelter. Only 5 years ago man learned to write and use a cart with wheels. Christianity began less than 2 years ago. The printing press came this year and then, less than 2 months ago during this whole 50-year span of human history, the steam engine provided a new source of power. Newton explored the meaning of gravity. Last month electric lights and telephones and automobiles and airplanes became available. "

[Bahaichap]

Still thinking of the moon and that pioneering venture:
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STRANGERS AND FRONTIERS

During my early and middle childhood(3-12) and my early and middle adolescence(13-17) Robert Heinlein was working on his book Stranger in a Strange Land. In June 1961 it was finally published. It is arguably the most famous science fiction book ever written and the first to be a national best-seller. In 1961 I was just beginning a reading program that would only end with my death or some physical and/or mental incapacity. It was a reading program which, in the next fifty years(1961-2011), from the age of 17 to 67, would keep me busy with some 40,000 books read and partly read and some 100,000 articles read or partly read. This, of course, is a guesstimation. But during those years, that half century, I hardly touched the sciencefiction genre. Perhaps that was the main reason my own effort to write a sci-fi book was unsuccessful.

Heinlein’s book was a challenge to social mores. While Heinlein was writing his book I became first associated with and then a member of a religion which also challenged social mores. Heinlein’s book is also about a utopia that could not be achieved. The religion I had joined in 1959 and pioneered for in 1962, was often accused of being utopian, unrealistic or, as the critics of Heinlein’s book put it, “outside the bounds of psychological realism.” This was Heinlein’s first venture into a more highbrow literary landscape and I was beginning my lifelong journey on another highbrow literary landscape in many other genres.

[cotner]

Ron Price is a retired teacher, aged 60. He taught for 30 years in primary, secondary and post-secondary schools. He has been married for 37 years and now lives with his wife Chris in Tasmania. He has 3 eBooks on the internet, freely available. He has been associated with the Baha'i Faith for over 50 years.

and now lives with his wife

If I may, corrigendum: "and currently [in lieu of 'now'] lives with his wife."


Congratulations, Ron, you can write.


cotner

[cotner]

Originally Posted by cotner

Ron Price is a retired teacher, aged 60. He taught for 30 years in primary, secondary and post-secondary schools. He has been married for 37 years and now lives with his wife Chris in Tasmania. He has 3 eBooks on the internet, freely available. He has been associated with the Baha'i Faith for over 50 years.

and now lives with his wife

If I may, corrigendum: "and currently [in lieu of 'now'] lives with his wife."


Congratulations, Ron, you can write.


cotner

A still better corrigendum would be:

...and lives with his wife Chris currently in Tasmania.

In lieu of:

...and now lives with his wife Chris in Tasmania.

Laugh.


cotner

[Bahaichap]

Thanks, cotner....I think my posts are still a little long, but at least I "now live with my wife." Good point...carry on.--Ron