Mon., June 21, 1999
Yay! Solstice time is here again! And this year I was ready. I made it a point to discover many days ago that none of my local shops were selling cards to mark the occasion instead of waiting to the last minute as I usually do. I've managed for once to thoroughly resist all attempts to commercialize the holiday by not sending out any gifts. And best of all, a Post-It memo that I left on my bedroom window last night reminded me right off the bat that the golden orb in the sky which greeted me when I got up today was our friend the Sun Itself and not the scary result of some horrible email virus run amok I usually mistake It for. That alone saved me several hours of screaming right there, leaving me free to go run naked through the woods all day long.
Had I wanted to, of course.
Instead, I stayed inside and tried to forgot all the lies about our nearest star which they'd force-fed me in school.
The biggest one: That the Sun is right overhead at noon. Well, not in Ohio it isn't. Nope nope nope - not even on the Summer Solstice, when the Sun appears as far north as it ever does. In fact, unless you happen to live on or to the south of the Tropic of Cancer (which rings the planet south of Florida and Texas, and just north of Hawaii), the Sun is never directly overhead for us Northern Hemisphere types. Where I live, it happens to be about 21 degrees off the perpendicular even as I write, a scant hour after summer's official arrival at 3:49 pm EST.
No matter. The Sun is still Star #1 in my book, and I hope all those nasty rumors being spread by Nostradamus that It's about to retire while It's still on top prove to be utterly untrue.Staying inside made me a sitting duck for the evangelical pagans, of course. All day long I've been having to answer the door as these solar fanatics attempt to spread their cult of Sol into even the darkest of lives. That I'm a pagan myself doesn't make me any more understanding of gratuitous interruptions, especially when I'm on the verge of actually forgetting a lie as big as the one I've just described.
Generally I play dumb when I answer their knock. It's more fun that way.
"Good morning, Sir," a typical spiel began today. "Have you been touched yet by the Sun?"
"The what?" I always ask, putting the priceless dumbfounded look on my face that I usually reserve for the auditors.
"Have you never heard of the Sun?!" they'll ask, growing excited at the possibility of having actually found someone so ignorant that even they themselves might seem wise in comparison. "Have you not yet experienced an Inner Dawn?!"
"Why, no," I'll claim, pulling up my pants to hide the obvious tan on my arms.
"The Sun is the source of all life!" they'll exclaim in unison, pointing out the Golden Orb to me. "A virtual God! And unlike some Gods we could mention, It's dependable, visible, and not constantly in need of your money to get It's work done!"
"That? That's my mailbox," I'll chide them, feigning an inability to follow their many pointing fingers into the sky.
"No - higher!" they always correct me, always sure no one could fake both ignorance and astigmatism at the same time. "The Sun is our nearest, dearest star! A massive hot ball of gas freely giving us heat and light as a by-product of complex fusion reactions you can read about in one of these "Advanced Mathematics" pamphlets. And unlike some hot balls of gas we could mention, It's never come to Earth to impregnate our virgin women, or threatened to condemn us all to unending fires for having eaten the fruit which It Itself has caused to grow in our midst!"
"You mean the moon, right?" I reply, exactly as unhelpful as Bill Gates was during his recently taped deposition.
"No! The Sun, Sir! Look at the Sun and rejoice!! It doesn't judge us! Neither does it urge us to smack let alone kill those who call it Stellar Schmuck! Indeed, the worst it ever does is give us sunburn, and maybe skin cancer, but really - after 2000 years of demons and the bottomless pit, what's a few peelings and melanomas between friends, eh?"
"Oh, the SUN!" I exclaim, having finally seen the light. "Just a sec."
And then I go into my house, open a little drawer, and come back with an aged piece of paper.
"Got the deed right here."
For some reason, they inevitably leave before I finish reading half of the 134 clauses dealing with boundary lines, mineral rights, fly-over regulations, buried pipelines, and the like.
I really don't blame them. Once you see that a document has been notarized by the North Star Itself, what's there left to debate?Hope my evening is as fun-filled as my day has been but I don't expect it will be. Early word is that there's been another massacre in Ohio this past weekend.
At least 7 killed on state roadways.
I'm already bracing myself for the evening newscasts sure to be full of excruciating minute-by-minute accounts of each collision, scenes of grieving relatives rushing to the scene, detailed biographies of all the photogenic victims cut down too soon, and interviews with experts struggling to explain why the laws of physics apply to human bodies in motion just as they do to every other kind.
And then the finger-pointing and politicizing will begin. There will be the calls for 3-day waiting periods on the sale of all cars. Calls for the minimum driving age to be raised to 21. Calls for restrictions on the sale of cheap foreign imports. Calls for a law to limit even law-abiding Americans to purchasing no more than a single car a month. Calls for new regulations to govern car auctions, swap meets, and classified ads placed by private sellers. Calls for child-proof locks. Demands that Hollywood stop glamorizing squealing tires and car chases.
I think I better go start drinking now so I'm as ready for this as I was for the Solstice....
Back To A Simpler Past Home To Lock The Doors & Pull The Shades
(All Material Oddly Lacking In Tan Lines ©1999 by Dan Birtcher)
Answer To Yesterday's Trivia Question
On page 50 of the Newsweek dated May 24, 1999,
an ACTUAL UN-RETOUCHED PHOTOGRAPHED of
Tipper and Al Gore as Beauty and the Beast appeared.
(Honest!)
Today's Trivia Question
If the Sun suddenly exploded, how long would it be before the first few naughty pieces of it were found in Madonna's bed?
