Both Sides of the Cup of Victory

. Today is a very emotional day for me. I've spent nearly a lifetime as a liberal in a predominately conservative society. I do understand that the function of the right is to put the brakes on when we get really flighty here on the left. I do understand that. To be human is to always struggle for balance.

. But this time people of all political stripes in the country are investing their hope in a liberal President. The turnout in Washington DC for the Inauguration is seen by many as evidential. I'm almost embarrassed. Please don't screw up, Mr. President or there will be egg on our liberal faces!

. Some conservatives are holding their noses but giving grudging support to a man of unmistakable good will. They also have seen the destruction caused by the last President and allow the possibility that the new guy can really help, no matter his party affiliation and ideology. He couldn't possibly do any worse than his predecessor, they are probably thinking!

. Wisely President Obama is minimizing difference, and emphasizing commonality of purpose and need. This will pay off in terms of the good of the nation, as we are a contentious enough lot without provoking more mutual disaffection. Also, for the first time in a long time, our President is asking the citizens to do something to help. Bush couldn't care less as long as his cronies got theirs, or so it seemed.

. Nonetheless I know the fickleness of people and the coldness of history. My hope is that a good momentum will be started right away to propel, past the coming series of obstacles, the liberal causes and to restore the friendships of other countries.

. The Obama campaign cup is now turned around. The goal is achieved: Obama is in the White House (and Michelle and the kids, and the grandmother, maybe a new puppy.)

. Some political commentators are saying his "honeymoon" period with Congress and others who matter, will be longer than was typical for recent Presidents. As with all new leadership, part of the early efforts must focus on undoing the work of one's predecessor. Let's hope that necessary job doesn't use up all his political capital before the rest of the job -- the constructive part -- is underway.

. For a number of years I've awaited the "Dawning of the Age of Aquarius". Now it's surely here, though a little delayed. Maybe the planets have indeed aligned, or at least Earth might now have friends among the planets!

Icy Vapor and Frost Feathers

.  Bitterly cold this morning:  probably -25º F.  Even us Mainers are not used to these extremes.  People are not lingering outdoors to talk as usual, but are dashing to the shelter of buildings.   Me too!  But suddenly I am struck by the beauty this depth of cold has brought and I turn around. The shallow valley of the Stillwater River is filled by an actual vapor cloud, its puffy appearance belying the subzero temperature. (When this happens over the ocean in these very cold conditions it is called "sea smoke".)  The rising Sun streaming through this cloud spreads a reddish-gold tint everywhere surrounding us. 

.  Even ice gives off some water vapor, a process called sublimation. So the trees nearest all this condensing, evaporating and recondensing moisture have a diaphanous coating on every branch. It sounds like a cliché but the effect truly is best described as magical.

.  The magic affects even the humble street storm drains, some of which have a rare kind of beauty this morning. The "breath" of very humid and slightly warmer air above the waters far below has hit the chilled iron grid and formed "frost feathers," or at least that is what I call the formation.  It seems to only occur when the air is very dry and the temperature is extremely col, like today.  So I actually looked forward to finding these again this winter and did not want to miss the opportunity.  By now I am chilled to the bone but rewarded by the chance to take some memorable photographs. 

Going forward to Yesterday

.  It has been a lifetime preoccupation for me: testing my wits to use clues resourcefully to reconstruct the past.  As early as I can remember in childhood I was interested in astronomy, wherein the light from stars reaching us is all from a prior time.  And most of the rest of my life has been spent in a profession where, essentially, I help others to recover resources written, spoken or uploaded at some past time.

 .   I have little formal training in theology, but at the Yale Divinity School Library where I once was employed as a clerk, the words and works of saints and scholars permeated my workday  atmosphere.  The big buzz in those years was the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls, some ancient parchment documents secreted in a cave in the hills of Israel.  Just the possibility that these materials date from the time of Jesus, and might even be from a monastic community that he was associated with or had visited, electrified everyone.

.  There are many people today who can read ancient Aramaic and Hebrew.  So the language of the texts presented few problems for the professors at Yale and elsewhere.  But the word "scrolls" overstates their condition.  Few were intact. Most were damaged, and some of the precious findings were scattered shards requiring hours of attempting to piece them together to reform a cohesive readable page.

.  Photographs of representative examples were very accessible and could even be found in popular books and magazines.  It was then that I became enamored with the nearly impossible task of physical and intellectual reconstruction of texts having few contextual clues.  (The Essenes, who had stored the Scrolls two thousand years ago, were a secretive Jewish religious  sect about which little is known even now.)

.  I will never be a Scroll scholar.  But from time to time I have experienced the quest vicariously.  Now to the present story.  For years I had kept in my office a scrap that had broken off some government publication in our Library's collections.  I wanted to restore it to the book it came from, but I procrastinated and it stayed in a box waiting years for inspiration to strike me.  Now I am trying to wind down my office in preparation for retirement.  I came across this shard and decided to put my years of experience to a test:  find the document it came from, having only the clues that the incomplete text itself could provide. 

.  In our work we assist people all the time to fill in the missing pieces of a citation.  In these cases only one or a few elements are missing or misquoted.  Think about this.  What are the chances of identifying the book from which a random page came -- incomplete at that -- and with absolutely no indication whatsoever of its source?  I took on the challenge!  More in a later story when and if I solve it.

"'Tis an Ill Wind Indeed Which Blows No One Any Good"

. A little story that's another example of " ’Tis an ill wind that blows nobody any good. " Perhaps you have heard of this expression? Bartleby's explains: someone profits by every loss; someone is benefited by every misfortune.
. Anyway there were two maples in the back yard, one in front of the other. The farther one in back had five trunks, two of which plus the main stem, were partially rotted through. Also the bark was falling off the main trunk in an unsightly way, and invoked pity, if nothing else. If it should ever break in a storm unfortunately it would fall in the neighbor's yard in back of us, not mine. Though I'm sure she'd be understanding about something not under my control, still it would not be good for neighborly relations.
. So "to kill two birds with one stone" (an expression that almost slipped from my lips at a Maine Audubon meeting!): 1) My spouse would like a little more sunlight coming through in the back of the property; and 2) I would like to get rid of a hazard tree and be able get on with other projects that the tree issue is holding up. (Is that three birds, or two?)
. I got out my chainsaw and 2-story ladder and tackled the trunks and branches that were safely accessible and would naturally drop into my yard. I know my limits so the rest of the job called for the pros. I phoned a couple of tree services and left voice mails. One on Sunday, one on Monday. I happened to be home Monday: a day off to catch up on home chores.
. Early in the afternoon soon after a crazy hail storm I saw a truck, with two men in the cab, pull up in front of our house. It was equipped with a "cherry picker" (personnel lifter). I couldn't see the full name on door, but it wasn't Bangor Hydro. I thought: Because he has a good sized cherry picker on the truck, maybe Bangor Hydro had so much hail storm damage to power lines they hired a private contractor to help? Of course I thought that was awfully fast response to the storm if that were so!
. Next door at the retired math professor's, a landscaping guy from another company happened to be working. I don't know if these two parties knew each other, but in any case tradesmen tend to form a brotherhood with others of the same profession, no matter that they are competitors. The two men went over to chat with him, idling the truck motor all the while. When I finally saw the company name on the truck -- Colvin's -- I did not connect it with my calls as I mistakenly thought I had called companies named Coleman’s on Sunday and Copeland’s on Monday.
. After a while the two from the idling truck started to walk up our driveway: a tall lean guy with a full red beard, dressed plainly and looking like my image of a Biblical prophet. But on closer look his beard barely disguised his relative youth. The other was a shorter, reticent guy in a bright yellow raincoat, who seemed to literally follow in the “Prophet’s” footsteps. They were heading straight for our back yard, so I rushed out to greet them, forgetting my in-house shoelessness. My bare feet seemed to attract their attention and they showed mild surprise... and I made it worse by saying "Boy that was fast. Didn't I just call you a few minutes ago?" The Prophet stopped in his tracks and looked at me puzzledly saying: "You called yesterday." I was not fully convinced yet, but I felt a little embarassed with the possibility that I might indeed have confused him with a competitor. I figured I'd better cover my tracks and so I said "Oh yes, now I remember."
. With the reticence typical of Maine men... the Prophet said "Well the ice storm prevented us from doing another job, so if you want I could do it now. Otherwise it will be a month from now." So the ice storm that was bad luck for some other party turned out to be fortunate for me, literally an ill wind blowing someone at least, some good.