The end.

The end.

Not the best way to start one’s first ever blog, but it seems appropriate for the times.  A couple of recent events seem to mark of the end of human ingenuity. 

The first comes with the STS-135, the final flight of the space shuttle Atlantis, and the final flight of the space shuttle era.  The landing on June 21, 2011 marked the end of thirty years of flight that began on April 12, 1981.  Thirty years.  Thirty years of taking us farther into the universe than most have ever imagined.  Thirty years of giving kids the right to dream of reaching for the stars.  Thirty years of providing new technologies and thousands of jobs for Americans. 

I grew up in the shuttle generation.  I missed the sexy days of the space program, where everything was a race in a Cold War era to see who could go the farthest or the fastest.  It was one huge space race pissing contest.  By the time I was even old enough to know what space flight was, it had become so common place that it was in the back of the minds of most Americans.  Of course the world stood up and took notice during the tragedies of Challenger and Columbia, but other than that space flight was forgotten.  But for kids like me… ones who dreamed, stared at the stars, and to be completely honest were nerds… space flight meant everything. 

Where has the courage to shoot for the moon gone?  We now concern ourselves with the newest and greatest app for our phones rather than the spirit that drove us to put footprints on the moon.  Facebook has replaced the Apollo moon landings as the forethought of human ingenuity.  Having 300,000 “friends” is more important than traveling 300,000 miles.  We now boldly go where everybody else is going.  We know this for fact because it shows up in our news feed.  We know everything about everyone down to the moment they drop a deuce because they are posting it on Facebook.  Yet… space flight is canceled.  We have to resign to looking at the stars without the ability to travel amongst them. 

Don’t get me wrong.  I see the benefits of Facebook.  I have a profile.  It has done wonders for connecting people who otherwise couldn’t be connected.   But when you ask the students of this coming generation about great achievements in science, they are more willing to mention their iPod than the Hubble Space Telescope.    I am no expert on life, but I can’t be the only one who sees things this way.

The second event that disturbs me is the closing of the first ever Borders book store. 

Again… don’t get me wrong, I am one of the people who thought that the Borders chain coming to my home town was going to be the death  of the local book store, which is something I dreaded.  However, it was at least a BOOK store.  We don’t have a mall within fifty miles of my home town that has a book store any more. 

I have an eight year old daughter who has already found a refuge from the sometimes harsh world inside of books.  They provide her a place for her imagination to run wild, and a place where no one will ever judge her for who she is or who she wants to be.   Where is she going to turn ten years from now?

 Yes, I have a Kindle, and yes I understand that times are changing.  However, I also know that I am someone who still enjoys the smell of a brand new book.  I like the sound the pages make when I turn them.   I like the places the stories take me, and the dreams they give me.  I know I have passed this love on to my daughter.  I feel like an endangered species though, who is becoming that way through deforestation.  We are losing our places of refuge with nowhere else to turn.  I have to raise a toast to the local stores that keep pushing and pursuing those dreams for us.  I beg that they never surrender.

With all of this ranting and raving, which will probably cost me any readers, I must get to the point of this blog.  A layman is defined as a member of the clergy, or someone who lacks expertise in any particular area.  Well… I am definitely NOT a clergy man.  However, I know I am not an expert on anything.  All I can provide are the observations that I make.  I would like to make them in this particular spot.  At the very least it allows me to fill up some free time.