[meteorite-list] Best place to keep a meteorite= bathroom??

From: Darren Garrison <cynapse_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Sat Nov 4 17:00:13 2006
Message-ID: <093qk25q58tkrvq4nhruu8pub0elpcl3r6_at_4ax.com>

http://www.the-signal.com/?module=displaystory&story_id=33982&format=html

A Rock & a Kid's Bucket of Pennies

Commentary by John Boston
Mr. SCV
Saturday November 4, 2006

"Space isn't remote at all. It's only an hour's drive away if your car could go
straight upwards."
- Sir Fred Hoyle

Time is such a creature, elastic, unforgiving, nonexistent, relentless. Many
years ago, I was a boy of maybe 16 or 17 and visiting my friends, the Dotys.

That was 40 years ago.

A bunch of us sat down to play a game of penny poker and a cherubic younger
brother, John Doty, wide-eyed and innocent, wanted to play with us older kids.

I still remember wincing when he brought in his bank and emptied the coins onto
the carpet.

I can't remember how much, but I took Johnny for some serious cash, maybe ten
bucks. That was a child's fortune back in the 1960s.

Pocketed it all, too.

I'll never forget that boy's beautiful, stunned face, trying to comprehend all
the chores, gifts and found dimes and pennies walking out the door in my stuffed
pockets.

A couple of days later, I brought back his bank, every cent intact.

"Don't gamble if you can't afford to lose," I told him. Then I did an about
face. I guess I was pedantic even at 16. Just the other day, he recalled the
event I had forgotten and repeated back my words.

John Doty and I have been friends for 40 darn years. Isn't that something? The
other day, he placed in my hand a meteorite. It's on prominent display in my
bathroom. Mostly, a day doesn't go by without me picking it up and hefting it.

The size of a small child's fist, it's dark gray and very heavy.

Almost every day, I shake my head in wonder. This nugget came from outer space.

Better.

It landed here in Santa Clarita.

I don't know why I am so frequently fixated by this other worldly object. I'm
not remotely a rock hound, although I do keep a collection of the random ore
from my 3-year-old daughter's mining operations around the canyon.

How many countless, cold miles did this object travel before hitting a desolate
canyon in my home town? How long did it just sit in the dirt before Johnny
picked it up? A month? A billion years?

I don't know why I like holding this little remnant of the universe. I pick it
up from time to time and rub my thumb across it. It calms me. How many light
years had it been flying? There's no sound in space, I'm told. And, of course,
it's not like the rock has ears any way. But can you imagine? All that time,
coasting in all the quiet darkness?

Earth can be such an unasked-for diet.

I'm guessing this space particle was larger before it entered our planet's
atmosphere.

I don't know.

Were dinosaurs even an idea yet when it began it's journey?

Could this thing in the palm of my hand be older than the Earth?

Maybe.

How about friendship? Is that an eternal idea?
Received on Sat 04 Nov 2006 05:00:25 PM PST