From March 2020 through to the end of 2021, Mr. Right and I hunkered down and put a sign on the front gate declaring “Isolation in Progress.

TAO and Odyssey Astronomy Club provided telescopes and the people to operate them at the Eclipse Observing Event held by the Jasmine Moran Children’s Museum, in Seminole, for the school kids on April 7th and then at the Lunar/ Jupiter Viewing Event held at the OBU Soccer Fields in Shawnee and hosted by the Shawnee Public Library on the 13th. The weather cooperated nicely for both events and for the peak of the Lyrid Meteor Shower (22nd-23rd) but went downhill during the last third of the month with the threat of severe. May will provide a nice show in the early morning hours of the 5th as the Eta Aquarid Meteor Shower peaks in the hours before sunrise. This along with a couple more interesting events will be well worth observing….. assuming the weather cooperates.

Pomp and Circumstance In D Major, Op.39, No.1, better known as the “Graduation Song,” was composed by Sir Edward Elgar in 1901. He didn’t originally write this to be played at graduations; it was to be performed at King Edward VII’s inauguration. If you don’t know much about King Edward VII, the takeaway is that he was all about the exaggerated “Pomp” of events. Pomp and Circumstance is another way of saying, “Look at me and celebrate me in a grand way.”

Late last fall, the word went out that New Hope School was going to be torn down. When I heard the news early that morning, I drove to the school, thinking it might already be gone. However, I got to see the old school building numerous times before its demise in early January 2024.

Every state in the Union is confronting the threat to public safety created by the Biden Administration’s utter failure to secure the border. Even so-called “sanctuary cities” have been overrun and overwhelmed, their elected leaders calling for action and reform. New York City Mayor Eric Adams said the crush of illegal immigrants “will destroy New York City.”

Disclaimer: The best all time snake story and the best there will ever be was told by Wendy Bagwell, “Here comes the rattlesnakes” (You Tube). What follows are some personal accounts and my reporting of snake stories told to me.

My first knowledge of mechanized hay baling happened at age five on our little sharecropper farm in Lincoln County, Kentucky. The baler remained stationary; several teams of horses with hay wagons attached brought stacks of loose hay to this very loud monster.