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Articles: For the Father |
Posted by
Domkitten on Saturday, July 19, 2003 - 12:04 PM PST
"I could see it coming over the hill. I had never seen anything like that before. It had flashing lights, and it was low to the ground. It went over my head, and then it was gone. Poof! Just like that gone. I don’t know if I really believe what I saw, but I did see something that night." My Father
When I was a child I would listen as my father would talk to his friends, he talked about various things, mostly things that seemed very grown up interesting and exciting. He talked about work, and jobs, and bosses. He talked about caves, and animals, as he was a copper miner for many years. Sometimes he talked about trains. Sometimes he talked about sex, relationships, and money. He'd discuss the various odds and ends of an adult life that a child imagines to be far too fascinating to comprehend or experience. Myself as a child, I found it to difficult to believe that I might ever experience any of those things. I heard him tell this story on several occasions. The night he saw a UFO somewhere in Ohio. From birth I was overly fascinated with space. The first book I remember reading was the Golden Big Book Of Astronomy, that featured exquisite pictures of the Solar System, various galaxies, nebulas, comets, meteors, black-holes, and some really fascinating work-ups of the beginning of the universe after the Big Bang. I relished anything I could find about astronomy, and wanted for a very long time to become an astronomer. My fascination with space as not entirely scientific, though, and I believed that my father had seen an U.F.O. It was very easy to believe in such a thing as a very young child, listening to your Dad tell these stories to friends over beer, and various other things during social occasions. You can believe anything a grown-up says, because they are grown-up. My father began his own business in the late 80’s, which required, among other things, getting up very early in the morning to drive around West Virginia. I had very little time to spend with my Dad, and so, when I was invited to ride along with him on days out of school, I would of course jump at the opportunity, even though it meant getting up at 2:30 in the morning. I would wake up, surrounded by the dark, and pull on some pants. I would grab my blankie and a pillow, and head to the truck, where I would climb into the high front cab, and promptly fall asleep inside, shivering in the morning cold, and waiting for my father to get under way. I was about eight when he started his business and it was one of my first times out with him, in the late fall, just as it was beginning to be very chill. I think I had eaten an apple fritter, which my Grandmother used to make fresh for my Dad. At the time we were living in a holler, as they were called. A holler is really just any back rode into a valley in West Virginia, and we lived at the top of the rode on the side of the mountain, Suzy Holler was the name. We drove off down the hill around 3 a.m. and started off on the almost three hour drive to Charleston where my father would then drive around selling sandwiches, soda and chips, before returning home in the late afternoon. I was a kid, and for me it was all fun and games. That morning was particularly bright, and crisp. The stars were sparkling. In WV there are very few lights on the roads, especially in the hollers and the valleys, so the sky was always a vast milky sweep of stars, like I have seen very rarely since then. At times I would lay out on the hill with my blankie wrapped around me, and gaze up all night, or until my Grandmother dragged me back in to go to sleep. On this night I was half-awake, half-asleep, really, but we had just started out so I as looking out of the window of the cab. I listened to my father breathing next to me. The radio was on, playing low music, and I was watching the stars, as we drove on the embankment, the wide rocky Gauley River, just below. I looked up at the stars passing through the window, passing through the reflection of my big brown eyes, and across the sky I watched silent and stunned as I saw a wink, blip, bleep, wink, blip, of orange moving across the sky, parallel with my father and me. It was moving in a perfectly straight line, like an orange dash mark across the sky, it made no sound, there were no great sparking flashing lights. I watched until it disappeared, which was rather quickly, wink, blip, bleep, wink blip, gone. Vanished, no more. It did not fall down, it did not hit the mountains, it was just silent and gone. I turned to my father and asked if he had seen it, but he had seen nothing. He suggested it must have been a comet, or a meteor, but I've seen both since then and have yet to see a meteor or shooting star move like that. When we returned home that afternoon, tired and a bit dirty from being in front of the truck most of the day, or otherwise on the road, I of course ran off to tell my brothers and sisters about my day with my father. At some point I remembered my flashing lights and related the story to them. They did not believe that I had seen anything of import. I've yet to find many people who do believe that I saw anything that day. I remember that morning very clearly, one of the few peaceful memories from my rather troubled childhood, and I must say, I've yet to find anything that explains what I saw. My father never doubted me that I saw something. Perhaps because he, too, had seen something he simply could not explain, and that was impossible to explain to others. You can talk about U.F.O's, and aliens, and recount the various strange tales of your life, and yet, there are always nay sayers, and those who prefer proof they can touch, rather than the proof of one's convictions. I believe in myself, and I believe in my father. I saw something that night that I simply could not explain. I've since seen only two other unusual flying objects that I could not really describe or fathom, but for the most part, the most effecting sighting was that first sighting. I might ask of myself "Do I believe in extraterrestrial life?" and my answer has always been the same. I'm willing to believe in anything that can be imagined the imagination is powerful enough to create anything, even things that may never have been and never will be again. I believe in myself, and that is strange enough. And, there is the little girl part of me that believes in my father, and there is very little in the universe that can shake the power of that conviction, no matter how old, or distant I grow from my imagination or my memories.
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For the Father | Login/Create an account | 6 Comments |
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Re: For the Father
by RavensSoul (TheRavensMuse@aol.com)
on Jul 19, 2003 - 07:10 PM
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Very nicely written, Dom. You and I aren't as different as I first thought. You see, I too have always held a very unyeilding interest in space and astronomy, and as a young child, I too dreamed of becoming an astronomer. I found the mystery and excitement alluring, just as all things unknown attract and exhilarate a child in some way or another. Even though the dream of becoming an astronomer or going into space has long since passed with my early childhood, the interest is still there and as strong as it ever was as I pass from my late childhood into adulthood. Many a night, I can say I've found myself laying out in a field or on top of a hill, just watching the sky in all of its beauty an magnificence. I can also relate to what you said bout seeing the orange light that would blink, moving in a straight line, and then disappear. You see, I live in Kentucky, not really close to Ohio, but not that far either and I too have seen the lights that blink and then disappear. The first time I saw them was a few months ago, while spending the night at a friends house. A storm had just passed and the sky was very bright and clear, there were only a few clouds, but you could see millions of stars for miles, even wit all the light pollution from being in the "city." At first we thought they were just bright stars, twinkling, but then one started to move, kind of like it was circling the city. Every ten minutes or so, it would pass by again.... always on the outskirts between our town and the next. Sometimes they would disappear into the clouds, and then fly back out again... That proved that they weren't stars. There were maybe 6 of them. One hovered over some woods a few miles off, one flew very low over my friends house and we got a very good look at it. It was triangular and sounded like a tornado... it had, like a search light on the front of it. It really wasn't like any plane or weather balloon we'd ever seen, and it definately didn't sound like one. The started disappearing in the early morning... It was maybe 3:30 a.m. and they were all gone. I've maybe seen them one other time, always very late at night or early morning. I've mentioned it to my mother and she doesn't believe it at all. You're very lucky that you and your father had similar experiences. My mother mocks me about it whenever she sees or hears something about aliens or U.F.O's. Sometimes I'll find myself sittng and staring out my window, hoping to see another one, or something like it.... or my mind will wonder and I'll try to find ways to explain what it really could have been. I live really close to Fort Knox, so I usually end up thinking it was some military plane being tested or some new signal they're using, but it never really adds up... The randomness in which they show up... how they've been seen for decades in random places... I suppose it's a fun thought, for a child or an adult, the mystery and uncertainty surrounding space and the possible existance of U.F.O's and aliens. It's nice how somethings always will remain with you, or leave that great of an impression on you. Nothing ever surpasses that feeling of looking up at the night sky through innocent eyes, as a child.
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Re: For the Father
by Sticupus (sticupus@hotmale.com)
on Jul 21, 2003 - 10:01 PM
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Would you mind sharing the point of your article with me? Is it about childhood and it's fantasies? The vagueness of existence and/or the universe and the possibilities it has, perhaps? Is this an illustration of how you connect to your father- with a pair of tin foil hats? Is this fictional? What are you getting at? I feel as if you wrote certain paragraphs at different times with different ideas behind them. It's sort of inconsistent.
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Re: Never Knock the Tinfoil by Domkitten (saradevil@saradevil.com) on Jul 22, 2003 - 04:55 AM (User info | Send a Message) http://www.saradevil.com | You have obviously missed the finer points of tinfoil hats. Really, there is a lot to be said about tinfoil hats.
For one, tinfoil hats are always fashionable. Like the Lorax it can be bent, formed and shaped into all kinds of wonderful designs, making it a fun and a practical fashion accessory.
They are perfect for all weather occasions, excellent in both rain and snow, although a little cold, and can easily be put in your pocket when indoors making them discreet and enjoyable for all social situations.
Also, tin hats, like black, go with everything. The fantastic color is part of the fun and charm of having a tin foil hat.
Of course, one cannot forgot the value of protecting ones brain waves from being read by unscrupulous agents of Major League Basketball, the Government, Libya, or other unconscionable individuals who might be using illuminati and Masonic tools to probe my mind.
Yes, the tinfoil hat, a friend for all ages.
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Re: For the Father by Domkitten (saradevil@saradevil.com) on Jul 29, 2003 - 05:37 PM (User info | Send a Message) http://www.saradevil.com | Would you mind sharing the point of your article with me? Is it about childhood and it's fantasies? The vagueness of existence and/or the universe and the possibilities it has, perhaps? Is this an illustration of how you connect to your father- with a pair of tin foil hats? Is this fictional? What are you getting at? I feel as if you wrote certain paragraphs at different times with different ideas behind them. It's sort of inconsistent.
There was a point to my article, and in my initial reply to you I was a flippant as I felt you were being, but since that post seems to have disappeared into the ether, I thought I would at least clarify myself a bit. The article was no inconsistent even with itself.
There are two things a child possesses that are more important than anything else in the world. As adult we work diligently to scrub and remove from the child these two things, so that they can fit into a mold of adulthood as we have, and can be deemed fit to emerge into society as adults. These two things are imagination and belief.
A child has an infinite capacity for imagination. They will imagine all sort of wild and fanciful things, occasionally even encouraged by adults. The problem arises in adults with imagination. Frequently and adult who has even the remotest amount of imagination is classified as being crazy, or a person who should be wearing a tin hat. This is simply because they can imagine things that might be outside of the norm. For example UFO’s, Conspiracy Theories, and George Bush. A child, however, is allowed to imagine the strangest things, and at a young age is not even discouraged from doing so. Hence you have imaginary friends, cowboys and Indians, and ghost stories.
Adults are expected to loose this imagination as they grow. They must shed and leave behind any imaginative or fanciful ideas in order to fit into the machinery that powers the world. Imagination is scrubbed from a child, and discouraged during puberty. Children are filled with knowledge of the finite, of history, fact, datum, ad nausea, and in so doing are filled with pure “real” things and taken further and further away from an ability to imagine something even remotely fanciful. Teenagers, being cruel in and of themselves, will taunt and bully, and otherwise jeer at any other for even the remotest hint of an odd imaginative fancy (for example imaging vampires to be walking amongst us) thereby forcing anyone who has not yet lost the talent for imaging to let it fall away in order to become a sane and happy adult; an adult ready to become a cog in a machine, without unnecessary flights of fancies distracting it.
Belief is the second most powerful possession of a child, and one which is destroyed far more subtly by adults. Children are encouraged to believe, to believe in God, and their parents, truth, honor, and love. We teach and teach children the beliefs we hold ourselves and assume that they too will hold those beliefs. We take them to church, to covens, to rituals and rites, and impinge upon them our beliefs. And yet, at the same time, we show them through our actions, our sarcasm, and our antagonism that we simply do not hold the beliefs we want them to share.
Children listen as their parents preach love, and watch as those same parents, fight and divorce. They listen about god from the pulpit and then watch as the little things in nature, which are sacred and full of love to a child, disappear. They learn fear, and anger, and hate, and slowly their beliefs are eaten away, and they grow up and become adults like the parents that taught them. Believing nothing, not even themselves, and no longer having anything in the world to hold onto. The patterns of ritual still important in their life they teach them to their children, but the belief has long since gone.
Without belief and without imagination we enter our adulthood and go to work; becoming parts of a mindless factory that we cannot escape from, our belief in e
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Re: For the Father
by dead-cell (Tarant-9@stribmail.com)
on Jul 22, 2003 - 06:04 PM
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Some of my favorite, and most vivid memories are of stary nights. Maybe I will write them down or draw them one day, because I would hate myself if I lost them. As for the U.F.O. stuff I will not be the one to challenge what you saw. You saw something I can neither prove nor disprove that something. Sidenote: Sometimes I believe earth is the "national park" of the universe.
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