Solomon's Private File #49
These stories about Stephen and Solomon take place starting in
1950's. Stephen wrote about his life in letters to a penpal, and then
in a secure blog, in case he lost his memory again, in the master
computer in his school for gifted students, which he started attending
in 2016 in a new incarnation, until his death. Now his son Solomon is
attending the same school, and is writing in his own secure blog for
his future incarnations.
All characters are fictitious, even if some of them might have names
that belong to some actual people, or act like people we know.
Solomon is 15 in this story, in the Summer of 2041.
Solomon's Private File #49 "Udvar-Hazy Center"
START Page
I asked for a meeting with the President of CNN. I said, "I want a
show. Live. Here's the people I want in it." I gave him a list. He
looked at it, and said, "Religion. Politicians. And an unaffiliated
Constitutional law expert. I think I know what you have in mind. Your
comments about politicians using religion to manipulate people." I
said, "Could be. The lawyer isn't necessary, but a prop so they can
look at him for some kind of authority. By the time the show starts,
I'll know more than he does." He said, "I don't doubt that." I said,
"But you can brief him in advance on the other guests and expected
topics, including can the states have any laws that are
unconstitutional for the federal government to have. And he doesn't
have to say anything if he doesn't want to." He said, "We have one of
our own. He mostly retired now, but he wouldn't miss this for the
world." I said, "But your whole network is thought to be liberal. I was
hoping for somebody er, clean." He smiled and said, "He has a
reputation for being impartial." I said, "And he has one unusual
attribute that I like. He can smile." He laughed.
He said, "Can I pull a fast one?" I said, "You know I know what you
have in mind. Dad did it once, with the Family Values representative.
Ripped him a new one." He laughed really well. He said, "But what the
police and courts did to him was worse." I said, "Dad gave them the
evidence, while that guy was running out of the studio. I don't know if
he knew some of the prostitutes he used were under age, but I think he
didn't care about it at the time. He's still in prison, in isolation.
Other prisoners weren't in love with him, even though they did er,
screw with him." He said, "Er, wow!" I said, "I really doubt he said
that." He nodded. He said, "Stephen really supported children." I said,
"All of our group does. Part of that is because we were unusual
children ourselves, and sometimes were targets of at least the desire
of abuse. Some of our people are what we call rescues. They had no
parents to give permission to come to our school. Street kids. Where
there were streets. We who feel the feelings of others, feel that, and
all the hurt they experienced. As children. We don't lose that when we
grow up. It's not about sex. It may surprise you to know, we don't
think any kind of non injurious fully consensual sex is wrong in
itself. That's because we know, with our perceptions, what is really
consensual and what isn't." He said, "But doesn't underage sex harm the
innocence of children?" I said, "That's a fantasy. The innocence you
refer to is just enforced and harmful ignorance, which doesn't exist in
most of the rest of the world. It's a peculiar imposed cultural
repression in America. Adults who feel they lost their innocence that
way in a non harmful relationship, suffer from expected culturally
programed nostalgia."
I said, "Here is what I said in our meeting about the Smithsonian
project (I showed the video):
"A notice. We'll try not to mention sexual things with the kids. Might
embarrass you adults." They chuckled. Then Sharon said, "You were more
serious about that than I thought at first." I said "America is REALLY
screwed up about sex and children. You can't hide it from them. The
more you try, the more they want to know, BECAUSE you try, and they
find out more than if you didn't try to keep it from them, some of it
wrong, too. What you think of as innocence, is just plain ignorance.
Why do you forget this very thing from your own childhood?" They looked
shocked, and then thoughtful. I said, "It's so bad, you can't even
discuss discussing that in public." PBS said, "True, We can't, on our
network. Sponsors would run." I said, ominously, "But they can't hide."
I said, "Do you know what the biggest cause of child sex abuse in
America is?" He said, "Probably not what you're going to say." I said,
"Right, or I wouldn't be saying it. It's that enforced ignorance you
call innocence. Telling children not to talk to strangers, doesn't stop
their parents and relatives from abusing them, even if it actually
worked. The young kids just don't know what real sex is, so they can't
really know that sexual abuse is. I rescued a 13 year old boy recently,
from an abductor and abuser. He didn't try to leave. Want to guess
why?" He said, "If it's the same case I'm thinking of, it's because his
own father was hurting him more. Lucky he wasn't sent back." I said,
"Not luck. I checked." He said, "He applied at the FBI for a job, and
was caught. But there was something odd about the story that we were
told not to broadcast. How fast they found out." I said, "I have
automatic background watches on some places, triggering on some things.
I discovered it, and alerted the FBI." He said, "This means you check
everybody who goes into the FBI building. You caught that bomber!" I
said, "But you can't report any of our discussion here without my
permission. If the public found out I'm doing this, we would catch a
lot less bad people, who would do their dirty work someplace else."
He said, "Frustrating, but I see that. And something else. What you
do, means the people who work for the FBI are screened before they're
hired. I have to like that." I said, "So do they, very well. Yes, they
know. How could they not? Very smart people there. And my father did it
before me. Yes, he knew Hoover." He said, "Wow!" He started to say
something, and I cut him off, "Why torture yourself with knowing things
you can't share?" He looked very frustrated. I said, "Oh, alright. One
time he wore a dress to a costume party. Here's the picture. Obviously,
he wasn't used to doing that, and nothing could help his ugliness." He
him when he was twelve. But it was really young Chad, Hoover was in
lust with. No, Hoover never abused anybody. My father would have
exposed that." He said, "He would."
I said, "Yes, we can do the surprise thing, if Don is involved. He
did it before. But that's for the politicians. The others will know, if
they know about the others. They might even call me. And I might tell
them, too. No, they will know they won't like some of it, knowing me
and my positions on things, but they also know if they don't come, I'll
get somebody else not as good at dealing with me, and they know they
shouldn't let that happen." He laughed, and said, "Situation manager
for real!"
I said to the camera, "We are at the National Air and Space Museum
Udvar-Hazy Center, in Chantilly Virginia. Why we are here is simple.
It's here. Why it's here is also simple. BIG things in it. Not enough
room on the Mall in DC. This museum is more than one building. REALLY
big things in them." The kids were grinning at me. I said, "But first,
we're looking at the ultralights. Small aircraft. Very small. In my
opinion, you have to be absolutely nuts to fly one of these
contraptions." Surprised laughter. I said, "No safety equipment but a
helmet, and rubber underwear for all the scary things that can happen."
Chuckles. I said, "Hard to carry passengers and luggage, but you don't
really need them in the hospital with you. If you make it there. The
ground is for walking on, not for kissing it at terminal velocity.
Another thing I have a problem understanding. Did you know some people
actually jump out of perfectly good airplanes, while they're flying?
They call it a sport. Skydiving. They use parachutes to try to slow
themselves down so when they hit the ground, it doesn't hit back too
hard. Most of the time. That's something like these ultralights. Like
parachutes with little engines. Right. A noisier way to smack into the
ground." While they were laughing, Brian tried to say, "So why do
people do it?" Beth said, "Is it really that unsafe?" I said, "Per
method and frequency of flying, more people are injured and killed in
ultralights than in any other kind of aircraft. They do it because it's
a little cheaper then owning an airline, and you don't need a license
to fly one. So, any incompetent fool can do it, and wouldn't you know
it, a lot of them actually do. Why? Well, because it's actually fun.
Until the end. And there is the thrill of tempting fate. I don't know
if fate laughs at them, but I wouldn't be surprised." Laughter. Sharon
said, "I didn't expect anything like this from you here. I know. Good!"
Don grinned and nodded.
I said, "And here is the Concorde. A French word for gigantic
commercial aviation failure." Don said, "Why did it fail?" I said, "The
only thing it had going for it was speed. And that was it's downfall.
Nobody wanted it flying over them. Horrible sonic booms. Actually broke
windows in homes, and scared cats out of some of their extra lives.
Well, they like to sun themselves on windowsills. So it was only
allowed to fly over water, scaring whales half to death. That severely
limited its use, and not just because it took a lot of runway to stop
it. And it was very expensive to run, and you had to be very rich to
afford to buy a ticket. Most didn't, after the first year in service."
I said, "I think we all know what this is." Brian said, "The space
shuttle!" I said, "Yes, we've discovered Discovery. It's BIG! Scary,
too." Beth said, "Why is it scary?" I said, "Most aircraft land under
power, so if there is a problem, they can go right back up into the air
and try again. Not the space shuttle. It landed like a glider. No
power. One mistake, and crash! It never happened in landing, because
the pilots were VERY good. True heroes in my opinion. All the
Astronauts. The shuttle program was retired because the American people
didn't want to pay for it anymore, and the things were getting old.
There was a replacement under development, but it was a stupid concept,
and failed miserably." Brian said, "Why did it fail?" I said, "It was a
kind of tall rocket with a cabin on top, that landed back on the ground
on it's tail. No wings. Any little problem, and all you have is a
smoking crater in the ground. They had them. Problems, and craters.
Most of that wasn't made public. WAY too embarrassing."
I said, "Here is the SR-71 Blackbird, my favorite of all the exhibits
here. What do you think?" Brian said, "It's beautiful." Beth said, "I
agree. Big. But what are those pointed things in the front of the
engines?" I said, "Those cones manage the airflow and the shockwaves
the speed of the air causes going into the engines at different flying
speeds. This aircraft was designed to fly at very high altitudes and at
over three times the speed of sound. What enables a plane to do that,
doesn't work at normal altitudes and speeds. Those cones move their
positions, forward and back, out and in, to change the way the engines
operate under different conditions. Here's how a jet engine operates."
I projected some images. "The air flows in here, and the fans compress
it, and fuel is ignited here, and the hot gasses exhaust here, going
through more fans that, with the shaft, actually turn the fans in the
front. Add a little extra fuel to that hot exhaust, and you get more
thrust, but at the expense of less fuel economy. That's called an
afterburner. When you're going at three times the speed of sound, you
don't need the fans to pull the air in. In fact, you have to restrict
it. So the cones change position, and most of the air is sent around
the fans. But by then the air is going so fast and is so hot from the
shockwaves and friction, it doesn't need a combustion chamber, so the
engine works then mostly with the afterburner system, which makes it
into a different kind of jet, called a ramjet, which at high speed and
altitude, is VERY efficient. They actually used less fuel per kilometer
the faster they went."
Beth said, "But why did it have to go that fast?" I said, "Good
question. To avoid being shot down. This was the first aircraft to try
to use stealth technology. Well, its mission was to spy on people.
Unfriendly people. Reconnaissance. Unfortunately, the stealth part
didn't work well, but the speed really did. This plane could outrun
anything anybody could put in the air at it, including missiles, and
did, and is still the fastest jet plane ever made. None were ever shot
down. But the plane did have problems. It was made of titanium.
Unfortunately, that metal was VERY expensive, and it came mostly from
the Soviet Union then. We REALLY didn't want them to know what we were
going to do with it." Chuckles. I said, "Had to use it, because it was
light in weight, strong, and could resist the very high temperatures
that such speed would create. But that caused another problem. The
metal contracted and expanded with heat and cold. A LOT. That meant
when the plane was cold and on the ground, and the metal was
contracted, shrunk, so to speak, there were cracks all over, including
in the fuel system. It leaked all over the runway. They had to refuel
it in the air after takeoff and warmup." Brian said, "Wow!" I said,
"That's not what the fuel people on the ground said." Chuckles. I said,
"And another problem. Air in the cockpit. Hard to regulate the
pressure. Regular oxygen masks didn't work well. The aircrew wore
spacesuits that were very similar to what the space shuttle crew wore.
Of all the military aircraft ever built, I like this one best. In
design and science, it was way ahead of its time, and in the vision of
it's creators, astounding. And it didn't carry any weapons to keep me
from liking it. This thing is just so wicked awesome cool!" Surprised
chuckles.
Don said, "You surprised me. It's like you're almost in love with
it." I said, "Right. True. But I've never touched it. Dating would be a
a girlfriend?" I said, "Yes." He said, "Wow! I really didn't expect you
to say that! Oh, right. Good." I said, "But it's not what you might be
thinking. We don't date. But we ARE going to get married when the time
is right. We just know it, without any doubt. My parents were like
that." He said, "This is news!" I said, "Not to me. I knew it when I
was eleven. That's when we felt the connection. It's happened before
among psionic people. We just know." He said, "Love at first sight?" I
said, "It has happened that way. In our case, we already knew each
other. Surprised us when it happened. Not that we complained. Our
parents are happy for us. Actually, they're always happy for all of us.
Great parents!" Sharon said, "Did your father know about you two?" I
said, "Yes he did." Brian said,
we all kiss everybody. Even alien friends." We could see how frustrated
he was with that answer, and laughed. I said, "With us, the woman
decides, and she's VERY sensible. We are waiting. I see your question.
Among our group, we never argue with each other. When you can feel each
other's emotions, and their love and wisdom, there isn't anything to
argue about." He said, "Wow!" I said, "We say that, too, sometimes."
Sharon said, "Is she Jewish?" I said, "We felt the connection before
I chose my religion, and I didn't know hers until after I chose mine.
Yes, she is Jewish. REALLY pleased her mother when I chose to become a
Rabbi. I know that very well, because that's when I found out their
religion. I've had hard hugs, but that one I'll never forget!"
Chuckles.
Alone with Sharon after the others left, she said, "There were a lot
of surprises from you in this one." I said, "More opportunities for my
er, oddness." She said, "Still, it went well. I know more about what
makes the Blackbird so special. I appreciate it more. Thank you." I
said, "There was more I could have said about it. The Air Force didn't
like it. Too expensive, and difficult to maintain. It was so expensive,
the factory had to stop making parts after the order was completed, so
the plane couldn't be repaired. Congress didn't like it either, for the
expense. They all thought there were better and cheaper ways to do its
mission. They were wrong. There was no better way at any price.
Reconnaissance satellites don't stay in one spot. In fact, they spend
almost all their time where you need them the least in a war. SR-71s
could go where they were needed fast, and stay there for hours. That's
why they were brought back after their first retirement. Didn't last,
though. Way too expensive to maintain in operation, and better stealth
came along. Make good exhibits, though." She said, "That's true. Did
you know about it before this?" I said, "Not a bit. I do research
before each museum we do." She said, "Wow! Good job!" I said, "I do
what I should do. Have a job; do it best, or don't do it. Most times,
not doing it is better than doing it bad." We hugged.
At home Mom said, "I wondered when you would let that out. Too many
girls hitting on you?" I said, "Right. I got the idea to do it in the
interview with Beth and her parents. I bet a lot of boys out there will
be very grateful I did it." She grinned and hugged me with love.
I said, "Going to be an issue. The American Indian Museum. I'm going
to be the old Shaman on camera. All our people will know then who made
the dream boxes, and who's in them. Can't be helped." She said, "I
wondered about that. We'll deal with it. Too important not to share it
with the world. Going to warn Sharon?" I said, "Yes. Unless you want to
do it. Thought I would offer it, just in case." She said, "I appreciate
it. Yes, I would. I'll bring an extra box with me, too." I said, "Would
be interesting if they actually kept one there for people to experience
if they wanted to." She said, "Same thought here. Doubtful.
Complications." I said, "Make it more interesting." She grinned really
hard, and said, "Threaten the opposers with experiencing Jemmy?" I
grinned back the same way, and said, "Same thought here." Fist bumps. I
made a special Dream Box for Mom to demonstrate for Sharon, for people
who aren't Navajo, but who want to learn our way. They don't get any
feathers. But if they want to be tickled with some...
END Page
--
++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Grant
|
|