Posted by Toph on December 19, 2008, at 17:03:38
In reply to Re: Progress » toph, posted by Phillipa on December 19, 2008, at 12:58:46
Makes me blush when people say they recognize me and don't want to punch me or something.
Good to see I'm not the only one who has frustrations with the techno age.I visited my grandparents who lived on a farm called Gunstock because they (not my granparents, the original owners) fashioned stocks out of hardwood there during the revolutionary war. The farm had stone walls surrounding its perimeter a testiment to the difficulty those early farmers faced in plowing glacial fields. We played by the hour in the nearby creek building forts among the massive granite boulders and construcing dams like beavers, well, because it seemed the best thing to do at the time. My great, great, great grandfather bought the farm and tried to make a living out of selling mantle clocks something that was kind of popular in New England at the time. He had some success using an innovative sales technique whereby he would leave a clock to try with a family on his journey into the South. Then on his way back the family had become so attached to the rythmic sounds and chimes that they would be unable to part with it. His profits however were sqaundered on distillates but unfortunately not the varnish he used to finish his clocks. His son, my great, great grandfather became famous. He was a carpenter with a knack for trigonometry who went to college having not much formal training. The same age as his professor, he ended up marrying her after she evidently became enamored with his mathmatical prowess. They moved to the University of Michigan where he studied under a famous astronomer who was impressed with his precise observations and accurate calculations. Eventually he got a commission at the Naval Observatory in Washington where he got to use one of the largest refracting telescopes in the world. Legend has it the Abraham Lincoln troubled by the deadly conflict would interrupt Asaph late at night to observe distant galaxies. Ultimately Asaph descovered the moons of Mars - no small feat at the time - which catapulted him to rock star status among his peers internationally and ended up in his acceptance into the National Academy of Sciences among numerous other accolades.
Oh yeah, Goshen, Connecticut. I love that place.
And if I can be identified with this information, so be it.
poster:Toph
thread:869465
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/social/20081126/msgs/869688.html