Pappa Hardy's Musings on Life.

A good friend of mine recently on his website pasted a list of his top 20 songs from the 1960s. He invited me to respond about my list, and also indicate what factors I used in making my choices. I am really having trouble doing that exercise. There are a number of reasons why. When I grew up as a teenager, it was during that turbulent decade of the 60’s. For me, that decade holds a fascination of who we are as a country and how I got where I am as a person.

The decade of the 60’s was a decade of newness, new ideas, new approaches to solving problems. It was also a war decade, a decade of protests and cities on fire. It was a decade of achievement (man first went into space and landed on the moon). At times I feel we have been so mediocre since then.

Music was no less exciting. The decade started with the Elvis Presley phenomenon and ended with Abbey Road and the breakup of the Beatles. Great music was made in that decade. It moved many people. For me, it is impossible to first separate out a 20 top ten list and not include the Beatles. The Beatles helped define the decade the musical landscape like no other group. Of course, the Beatles were not the decade and there was great music made by others.

Secondly, for me personally sometimes it is impossible to separate the single from the Album. For instance, the Beatles Abbey Road has so many connections to me on a deep emotional level. I would go to sleep listening to the second side of that beautiful album. On my mission, I would sing those songs to myself as I rode the Chinese countryside in Taiwan and suffered heat, rain, typhoon, and other challenges. The missionary experience was about more than music and weather though.

There are many great songs from the 60’s, and many great albums. It is hard to separate those two out. I dare not rank the songs that I love from that era. They include such songs as Hey Jude by the Beatles, Legend of a Mind by the Moody Blues, and Suite Judy Blue Eyes by Crosby Stills, and Nash. Not to be forgotten are such songs as Monday, Monday by the Mama and Papas, Creque Alley by the same group. Stairway to Heaven by Led Zeppelin was another song that connects with me, Voices in the Sky by the Moody Blues, and many, many more.

There was so much diversity and creativity then. There has been great music since then, but I have trouble separating out the music I love from the experiences that have defined me.

A recent letter to the editor sent to “The Economist” in response to an editorial in the July 2nd issue of that magazine:

Editor

I thought I had found an unbiased well thought out magazine that reported the news. I have eagerly waited each week for my new addition of the “The Economist”. That was the case that is until I received the most recent issue with the Caption on front, “The End of the Space Age”. I eagerly turned to the lead article, only to find it to be one of the most biased and condescending pieces I have ever read.

The constant referring to “Space Cadets” as a way to classify anyone who has interest in human space exploration told me where this writer was. Such condescension in my opinion does not belong in any magazine that would purport to be professional. Marginalizing your readers or someone who might believe in the exploration of space for other than economic means I believe is below the purpose of being for this magazine. It should be anyway. By marginalizing your readers, you will also lose them. You have lost me. I was ready to re-up my subscription. Now, I have been reading your articles not certain that bias hasn’t stuck it’s ugly head into the articles I have been reading. Thank you for waking me up to your lack of professionalism.

Exploring space is much more than the economics. It is much more than what makes a TV program exciting. It is much more than how much it costs of our resources, our time, and our being. Frankly, one of the most important reasons for going is that we are diversifying our risk. Must business people who are into investing their resources for the future understand that concept. Robert Heinlien once said something to the affect that we should never leave all of our eggs in one basket. If we don’t push out and explore and learn how to live elsewhere, we are allowing all of our eggs to be broken. Someone should have told the dinosaurs that they should have invested in diversifying their risk. A promising race of reptiles didn’t live past a piece of space junk that crashed into the Yucatan peninsula and exterminated most of those animals 65 million years ago and caused mass extinction.

We are a fragile race of beings, living on one world together. As the Apollo astronauts witnessed, we are on a dot in space. We need to make sure that dot doesn’t get erased and the human race that lives here is not extinguished. I am sorry that you believe that the ISS is a waste of money. I am sorry that exploration of the moon, and then maybe later Mars seems like a colossal waste of money on the dreams of your “Space Cadets”. I am so sorry that you are excited that this waste of money seems to be ending with the end of the Space Shuttle, and the end of the “Space Age”. I am sorry that you lack imagination.

Mike Hardy
Payson, Utah-Not on the Space Coast

Today it was actually warm, we actually worked in the yard. After such a long winter, you could see people out doing anything and everything. Walking the neighborhood, working the yard, mowing the lawn, riding bikes, going camping, all became a frantic activity.

No one wanted to let this day get by. We had to work at it like fiends. It was a great day.

In these days when the sun hides her rays for much of the day, it is cold and dark. It has been so cold and so dark for way too long. While I am enduring the winter and the dark, I am hoping and longing for the longer days of spring and the warmth that will return to us. It is only a matter of time.

If you have ever been on a cruise, you soon realize that Einsteins theory of relativity is indeed true. However, what you find out is that time zooms by fast while having fun, but that is not what Einstein was postulating. I just don’t like going on a vacation if I can’t make it last forever.

I go on vacation or on a trip and I carry the office with me. That just isn’t resting, but I seem compelled to take it with me so maybe I can catch up. That just isn’t the best thing to do. Why can’t I seem to get better at this balancing act that we are all supposed to be going through?

We are sitting on the beach. I think most of us always dream of waking up to a room with a view of the beach. Well, here we are and I love it. The water is gorgeous, the setting perfect. What better place to be than in Fort Lauderdale with the beautiful Atlantic Ocean out there. I love the surf. I love having a chance to recharge my batteries.

I get so tired of winter. Some comes up late, goes down early. It is so cold and I am always all bundled up. I long for the warmth of spring and fall, the shinning of the sun. I hope I can make it.

It’s that time of the year. I do love Christmas, I really do, but I could sure do without 12-18 inches of snow and 15 hours of darkness. We had 12 inches of snow here in Payson yesterday, and another 4 inches this morning with more due to come. I would love to see more sunlight and less cold. My age is showing. I can remember when it didn’t bother me nearly as much. I am ready to move to a warmer climate. I also need more sun. Just two more weeks to the shortest day of the year and then we start to climb back out of this mess.

This morning we had a blackout. I was getting ready for work when we lost all of our power. The thing about all of this that was unusual for me was how my mind then handled the situation. The long and short of it is that I have seen way too many disaster flicks. I started wondering, maybe there has been a terrorist sabotage of a major electrical power generating facility or of the transmission lines. Then my mind jumped to emp pulses caused by a nuclear blast somewhere high in the atmosphere. Since I had no way to verify any of this, my mind wandered even further. It wasn’t until I drove to work that I discovered that it was of course just a problem in a small part of the city. I have seen too many disaster movies.