You Can't Put Your Hand In Tomorrow's Space!

WORD COUNT: 30,110

So my kids, especially Sarah, had urged me for weeks to let them see the 1960 version of The Time Machine, for I had bought it at a rummage sale on 2^nd Street Southeast here in Minot months ago and it was the one DVD in our collection they had not seen yet. I really wanted them to watch it with me, because I remember that film with some fondness … when I was a junior in high school (1988-89 school year), my drama teacher Mrs. Hooten had each of us act out a English story we had read in class. I don't remember what anyone else did, but The Time Machine had happened to be on that weekend, and as I had already read the book, I went with an interpretation I thought would work. I remember having someone rip the shirt I was wearing and otherwise make me look a little beaten up encountering my English teacher Ms. Mattei who had said, maybe half-jokingly, that if I didn't start acting better (yeah, I was a hellion when I was younger) I would get beaten up! I said she was right …

But more of that another day. So the kids and I sat down Friday night to watch the movie on our laptop computer and had dinner with it. At first Jeffrey was a little scared to watch it because of the Morlocks depicted on the DVD cover; they scared him. But after we got into the movie he saw that they were really nothing to be afraid of; I promised that I'm not going to let anything hurt him, and if that doesn't help, I know Jesus is not! It was worth it for the kids to go agape when they saw the model time machine vanish in the beginning, the snail speeding across the garden floor as George (the name The Time Traveller – the main character never named in the 1895 novel – has in the movie, for his creator, Herbert George “H.G.” Wells) journeys into the future, the few glimpses of the future he has and visits (including a then-future October 1966 where London's about to be wiped out by an atomic satellite) before stopping at 802,701 where the Eloi and Morlocks dwell. It was fun to share this with them.

(My kids, not the Eloi and Morlocks … but we're getting ahead – or is it behind – ourselves?) Anyway, let's see, what dusty tomes (which unlike the Eloi in the film, I have not allowed to crumble into dust at my touch. Some are library books, so I can't really do that) … put simply, there's a chapbook of poetry Warehouse In Madrid by Bill Scheffel (no ISBN I could find), a graphic novel of Alan Moore's pre-Watchmen that I was surprised I liked and have already read twice, V for Vendetta (ISBN 0930289528), a Hallmark edition of Will Rogers' greatest sayings (SBN 875290264), another graphic novel that dealt with a modern-day cloning of Jesus, Sean Murphy and Todd Klein's Punk Rock Jesus (ISBN 9781401237684), a biography of an American military leader in the Pacific during the Second World War, Jack Pearl's Admiral “Bull” Halsey (MA328), and David Mack's A Ceremony of Losses … but wait a minute, for me that's like Willy Wonka's Square Candies That Look Round. Let's have a peek.

A Ceremony of Losses (ISBN 978147622245) deals with the crisis resulting from Andor's secession from the Federation three years earlier novel time. (Andor's the home planet of the mostly blue-skinned humanoids with two antennae, and one of the founding worlds of the Federation.) Due to a declining birthrate, the Andorians are staring at extinction by the end of next century – which in the novel's universe would be twenty-fifth century – and for one reason or another the civilian government of the Federation, its rival the Typhon Pact, and the Andorian parliament are withholding information from them. Enter the somewhat idealistic CMO of Deep Space Nine Julian Bashir, its now commanding officer Ro Laren, and Ezri Dax now captain of the USS Aventine. Bashir and his colleagues without official sanction find a cure, but will he sacrifice his career, everything and everyone he has worked for and with so long to get it to them? And to what extent will others follow their duty to stop them?

Their duty … one thing that I pray Jeffrey and those with him in Cub Scouts will take away from their time in this organization is where their first duty lies, with the truth. (I know, another Star Trek analogy, but it really works!) Twenty-five new Cub Scouts entered the troop this year, and that is really exciting! Eleven of them got to throw a cream pie in their den leader Brenda's face at church last night for selling at least $650 in popcorn; Jeffrey was last to do so and I understand it's among the segment that made our local news last night! Also, everyone was eligible for Bobcat badges for reciting some of the Scouting basics (like the motto, the oath, knowing the salute, the handshake, etc.) but it was given to the boys' parents. They have to earn them by doing something nice for mom and dad, and they also got their faces painted with washable marker symbolizing various traits. Boy, I don't remember that when I was a Bobcat … but then, that was SO last century!

All the time in the world, David