Monday, December 29, 2014

happy new Years

My fellow Americans:
  i sincerly pray that my letters find you in good cheer, as we begin this New Year. 2015
  I Reflect on all the history we have seen . Places we have been . Events wich have occurred.
   Setting here I recall in my almost three quarter century of life.  The many  successes and failures i have witnessed. Of people, of nations. rising and fallen.
 I look at a young person at play. Passing by with a parent pushing a stroller. I pause thinking .Asking. 'What changes will this one see?'
  I set here thinking of the past. where just writing to thousands directly as iam. today
   Once lived only in the scope of fantasy. be  searously ponderd only by people such as my  long past,esteemed coluges of the epic sci fi realm.
 Bradbury, Heinline, Clark, and onward.
  If I told some one when I was born, I would be setting in my home in America  writing  to people on the other side of the world. from my own home. Then have my letters read only afew short minutes later. in Moscow and Bejing, Europe and Argentina.  I would have been locked up.
  Yet i still fondly recall. as a young boy. the day my father  took me to our favorite fishing hole in Montana becuase there were few city  lights. We waited and watched the sky. till a point of light moved rapidly cross the starscape of the clear night sky. i watched setting there on the banks of the Misuorri river.  Sputnick the first man made object in orbit. pass over head.
school for me. Forever  changed. I wanted to  learn all I could about space. about our future.  Soon Americans.  had our own satalites up.Looking down on us.
 then we were sending men to orbit and further. our first baby steps . towards mankinds future.
 december 1968 aproching with in 100feet of the lunar surface.
  then in june 1969. i wathed setting in my living room . Neil armstrong and buz aldren. walking on the moon.
  then in 1976 i saw a probe landing on mars. the first images coming across. i was entraled. never thinking only a few years later would man be residing in space  for months at a time. circling the globe every ninty minutes.
 watched as richard Nixon became the first president to resign in discrace. as the breakin at the watergate  became history. and gasp a black man beacame president. of the United states of america.
 i recalled those days when this man woul have been born. His mother could have been hung. becuase of the laws of the land at the time. becuase she was white sleeping with ablack. Oh how this land has changed. irecall watching as king marched in dothan alabama. as freedom riders dared to cross the land.  as kids in universaties  said no to war in a foregin land. called veitnam.
the riots whren King was shot  on that balcony in memphis tennasee. tody we cut across the spectrum of the races and classes as ayoung man is gunned down by acop in Ferguson missouri. to join togetherand say "NO MORE" and watching as those protests happend half a world away live.
  setting in my comftorable living room here on earth. I would watch the dawning of a new age.
An age where we dare dream of a future wher we will live among the stars.  a future where we will colonise another planet.  first sending electronic emmasarries. to discover.
  never in my formative years could we dream  of finding signs life once existed on another planet. as Curiousaty has with Mars. Organic  compounds. wow. If even five years ago someone had sad this n they would be considered part of the lunatic fringe  beliving in aleins. and afterlife. but reality is stranger than fiction In my ligfe time we have made first contact with life off this planet.
 we would have been locked up  as crazy. Like galaleo , only pardond a few years ago by the vatacan as he was right. Seeing those lights around jupiter.
  colonization of another world  was once too expensive for even governments to contemplate realistacly. now we have several ongoing concerns launching rockets. paid for out of their own pockets.  and probes to orbit and beyond. these people are privet contractors.  leaders of inovation. leaders in exploration.
  Now we see people moving faster than before around the world. taking for granted air travel. once to costly. in the relm only of h rich and the milatary.
  i recall flying the fist time. to germany. where dad was stationed. in the sixties. and early seventies.
  to live there among the people of this land. once mortal enemies now freinds and allies of my land. Leaving behind as any young person is wont to do my virginaty in the green grass, along the banks of the rhine river. to a freind. today living only in memories of decades past. this paving way to my future of going to collage  youger than planned. and gradute school  in one of the most prestigous universaties in america,  to learn and help pave way for the future. to oneday design the tools we would need to move mankind forward.
. to learn first hand the culture  and language. then return home. To this great land.  This promised land of pilgrams pride. wich we americans struggle daily to change to fit the modern day. To shape in our own way. a new world . to lead in the future. though it will as rome did.  soon end.
  how this world has changed. since i was born.
  alass today  i think now of the future. mearly a gleem in the eye of people pondering fantasy.
  the future that our sons and daughters and grand children will see.
 as what we see becomes only a dim memory and foot notes in history. pondered on by us old people . an sci fi writers ahead of their times.
  happy new year
  WWW

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