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Thursday, October 29, 2009 1:26 PM CDT
Village visitors: Looking skyward
By Rachel Sykes
I was about 11 years old or more and playing outside when a small airplane began circling slowly over the field behind our house. Other children were nearby. This quickly caught our attention and we rushed out to the field as he was landing. Soon a small crowd gathered. This had never happened before.
A windswept-looking, smiling and silent man emerged from the plane. Mother rushed up to the scene and got his attention. He said he came from Champaign, and was looking for a place to give flying lessons.
What a delightful idea this seemed to me. Mother did not miss a beat when she quickly threw cold water on the idea. “No, this is farm land” she said with a little elaboration. He did not seem to be particularly disappointed, and quickly left.
This was an age when America had fallen in love with the airplane. Charles Lindbergh had a drastic change in lifestyle when he became a hero as the first man to fly non-stop across the Atlantic Ocean to France.
He and his wife and co-pilot, Anne Morrow Lindberg, hobnobbed with England’s royal family, among many other notables. Because he was a celebrity now, in March of 1932 his family life drastically changed with the kidnapping of his infant son by someone using a ladder to reach the nursery.
As a fourth-grader, I was an avid reader of all the newspaper accounts about the kidnapping and its tragic consequences. All of this happened because of the solo flight of the Spirit of St. Louis airplane by Charles Lindbergh.
The kidnapping also changed life in America. Everyone was now very focused on the dangers children could face by kidnappings. Children, as well as parents, were very conscious of these dangers.
The sky had other parts to play in the saga of Humboldt throughout years of the past. One night I was awakened by the sounds of quick footsteps on the stairway close to where I was sleeping. Mother and Aunt Harriet told me to look out the south bedroom window.
I soon said I didn’t see anything. “Keep looking,” was the response, and I finally saw a short white streak of light straight ahead, which I think traveled to the west. With that I gratefully returned to bed.
What was this? I have thought it was a comet, but never heard a word about it afterwards. It was probably in the ‘30s, but I have found no answers and remain curious.
Sounds travel with little interference through the night sky of a quiet, small community. It may have been in the early ‘40s when I was again disturbed at night. A very loud bang awakened me. I interpreted it as a gunshot, only to learn the next day that someone had thrown a brick through the grocery store four blocks away.
Later on, I was to be disturbed in the night by the sound of a slow-moving car on the street. The following day I learned someone had been trying to get into several garages.
There is a more upbeat side of what the sky has to offer us. It is of interest that an important astronomical discovery of shooting stars was made in Venezuela by a noted German astronomer whose surname was “Humboldt.” Could this be the same group that reappears every year at about the same time?
This August my granddaughter Jessica and her small son surprised me by parking at the east end of the alley by my house. They thought it would provide a good view of the shooting star show scheduled for late evening.
They did see many shooting stars. Later on in the backyard, I was content to have captured the magic of seeing only one very large shooting star at the end of the lengthy display.
Where we live in this area we can enjoy very much the sights of the night sky. It is hard to comprehend how some people had never seen a starry sky in their life until earthquake activity took out the electrical system in Los Angeles some years ago. A large influx of emergency calls reporting lots of lights in the sky overloaded the telephone lines.
Those of us who have a clear view of the eastern or western horizon can enjoy colorful sunrises and sunsets. I have recently discovered that it takes about five minutes for the rising sun to timidly peek over the rim of the earth before it slides into a resting place on the horizon.
It is important to be aware of how the brightness of the sun is affecting you. If it bothers you, you should then look away from it.
This summer we have had stunning cloud formations during the day very frequently.
The sky is one of our great teachers. It informs us about the complexities of life on this planet, with its airways and air travel routes. The beauty it reveals day and night comes to us in an undefiled form. We are so fortunate.
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