Trying to shake things up for my training session at work next week, so I thought I'd try one of the Xtranormal movies, it was a LOT of fun. The changes to the federal regulations can be very dry at times, so I thought this might be a novel way to present it my coworkers :)

http://www.xtranormal.com/watch/13354497/all-you-need-to-know-about-verification-changes-for-2012-13

"Houston, We Have a Problem"

~April 13th, 1970~


The number was 13
dreaded, feared~
drenched in superstition
and on this day
it stayed true to
its unsavory character.


A voyage to the moon
headed for the Fra Mauro highlands
was interrupted
by an explosion~
the grand plans 
of lunar exploration 
morphed into a looming tragedy.


Down here we watched,
hearts in our throats,
as this tiny tin can 
hurtled through space
on a wing and a prayer
200,000 mile from Earth.

Three astronauts

Lovelle, Swigert and Haise

manned the "successful failure"

with no power, little water

or oxygen...

for four agonizing days.

A sling-shot maneuver

hurled the capsule to

the dark side of the moon

while we hoped and prayed
fear clutching our hearts
at what might happen.

But then, a miracle

a free return trajectory

boomeranging them back to Earth

to bathe in the Pacific
and finally,
to touch terra firma.

Being home never felt so good.

Rose S. Williams
©Southernstoryteller~2012 

http://www.wired.com/science/discoveries/news/2007/04/dayintech_0413

http://www.lpi.usra.edu/lunar/missions/apollo/apollo_13/overview/

A New Fire Season Begins...

Where There’s Smoke, There’s a New Fire Season

 

Photo by Jamie Steedley

It's April, and as it has been for the last several years, it's also the beginning of a new fire season in South Georgia and north Florida.

This year's first fire is found in Pinhook Swamp. Where and what, you're probably asking, is Pinhook Swamp? Located south of Council, it’s a vast area bounded on the east by Florida highway 2 and on the western side by US Highway 441.  It’s a swampy land bridge that connects the Okefenokee Swamp and Osceola National Forest, a veritable backwoods highway for the Florida panther, black bears and other species. In Janisse Ray’s book in 2005, Pinhook, Finding Wholeness in a Fragmented Land, she aptly describes it this way: "It is 170,000 acres of dreary dismal. A giant piece of ground too deep for a human to wade in, too shallow for a boat to draw...Some of the last real wilderness in the South."

 This is where the County Line Fire, as the Florida Forestry Service is now calling it, began last week. It was only a little more than 300 acres in the first day or so. Unfortunately, it has grown exponentially to more than eleven thousand acres as of Easter Sunday.

 I know this because my brother has been out there around the fire since it began. He's there because it's in his blood. He's been following forest fires ever since he can remember because he was our daddy's shadow, and wherever there was forest fire, you found J. T. Steedley.

As much as we have all missed Daddy since his death in January, I know Jamie misses him now more than ever. This first fire of the season is difficult for him, as it would have to be, for there are too many memories of hours spent together during past wild fires, long days and nights riding boundary lines and discussing strategies.
 

Because of the size and location of it now, the fire is large enough to garner the attention of the Feds. They're calling in reinforcements and will soon take control. But for all their manpower and equipment, those federal guys will never have the know-how and experience the locals have when it comes to battling these blazes in our area.

The Georgia and Florida Forestry Service, the local timber companies, and private landowners have so much experience on their side when it comes to fires down here. A fire on the edge of the Okefenokee or Pinhook Swamp is far different than fires in the mountains of Colorado and California.

Besides Jamie missing Daddy during this fire, there are others that miss him as well because they counted on his experience during these wildfires. Although Daddy had been retired for several years, as soon as there was a wildfire, he was present for all the daily incident reports and was there to offer advice or to give his opinion on the best way to approach battling a blaze. 

 Below are photos of Daddy from the Bugaboo fire in 2007:

He lived and breathed each forest fire from the first lightening strike to the end where rain flushes out the last embers. As a matter of fact, he was quoted by a Florida Times Union writer last year when asked what he thought about the Honey Prairie fire. He said in his no-nonsense way: "Lightning starts it, rain puts it out and the rest of us just mess around with it in the middle."

Daddy’s fifty-two years as a forester for the Langdale Company garnered him a lot of respect among his peers. In addition to this was the fact that he personally put in many of the roads on the property surrounding the Okefenokee Swamp and the roads and bridges in Pinhook Swamp made him a walking, talking GPS system of knowledge for local firefighters. He grew up and lived all his life in the very area where the fires often were, so that he literally knew the area like the back of his hand.

I knew, respected, and admired his knowledge. Back in 2007 I rode with him for a total of seven hours on two days, and listened as he talked about not only the Bugaboo Fire, but also the last big fires in 1954-55 in the Okefenokee Swamp.  He talked a lot to me about what it was like fighting those fires that burned from July 1954 to June 1955.

That kind of experience, actually driving a tractor in the midst of a raging wildfire, is something no amount of education or desk work or computer modeling can give a person. Being in the midst of the raging beast as it roars and bellows around you and making split second decisions are not something that can be taught in a book. The respect by the local fire fighters for Daddy's input on the fires in the past was based on their knowledge that he had been there and done what they were now doing.

As a little girl, I can remember worrying about Daddy when there was a wildfire. He would leave before daylight, be out in the woods all day long, and finally come in well after dark. He looked exhausted, his clothes and hard-hat smoky and dirty, soot streaking his face, and he’d sit down on the porch to take off his boots. After taking a bath, he’d get bite to eat. He might lie down and sleep for a few hours, then be back up and out the door to go back battle the beast.

I know that’s what lies ahead for all of the firefighters in the coming days and I’ll be keeping them in my thoughts and prayers. I applaud their dedication and hard work. And even though Daddy is not there with them physically, I’ve no doubt he’s there in spirit.

Southernstoryteller©2012

Rose S. Williams

An Easter Lesson: Never Take a Hungry Dog to an  Easter Egg Hunt! Anyone who has visited a store in the last month knows that Easter is just around the corner. Store shelves are loaded with plastic eggs, stuffed bunnies, and baskets of assorted sizes. Seeing all the holiday decorations reminded me of  an Easter,  long ago, when my brother was  three and I was still in pigtails.  Our plans for a normal Easter day were thrown awry that year  and I learned a valuable lesson that I've never forgotten. We had company for the weekend,  my aunt and uncle and four cousins from Florida. Momma felt the only way to have a decent  Easter egg hunt was to have at least a dozen eggs for each child.  She boiled  them and gave us the glad job of decorating all 72.   Needless to say, we spent most of the evening on our back porch  coloring and dipping egg after egg for the hunt. I can almost see us sitting there around that old red enamel and  chrome table. We had  an assortment of cups and small bowls  filled with red, blue, green and yellow liquid.  The air was thick  with the smell of vinegar. We listened to the Grand Ole Opry, singing along with each  entertainer that came on stage  A passerby would have heard  six childish voices harmonizing with Tammy and George as they  sang " We're Not the Jet Set." We sang with relish and our  exaggerated nasally twang  would have made the country duo proud. Occasionally, Momma or my aunt would come out to check on us. They  removed any badly cracked eggs,  refilled our glasses with tea and replenished the potato chip bowl. As far as we were  concerned, our creations were not to rivaled, each a precious piece of artwork. We scribbled stick figures on the delicate egg shells with crayons,  labeling them with the names of family and friends. It was easy to  identify Momma and my aunt's figures  without  names. Their brand-new Toni perms were depicted by tight coils of hair haloing their heads.  I remember drawing a picture of my daddy with his German Shepard,  King, by his side. Little did I know how King would figure into the events on the following day. By 9:00 pm we had finished our creations. We were promptly herded  to bed with a  stern warning to go to right to sleep or there be no egg  hunt the next day.  Needless to say, all little eyes were shut by 9:30. Everyone woke early the next morning. After church we drove home to where my father and uncle waited for us. While we were away at  Sunday School, they had taken our eggs to the hunting camp and  hidden them. They had the help of a an old family friend,  Mr. C.W.  Smith, who had been invited to come out and eat a picnic dinner with us. We changed out of our good clothes  and piled onto the back of  the truck. In our hands were our Easter baskets filled with green paper grass. The ride to the camp seemed to take forever. The tires had barely stopped rolling before we leapt out of the truck bed like  a pack of eager deer hounds. "Stop right there!"  My daddy's voice brought us  to a screeching halt. "Everybody is gonna start together, once we tell yall where the  boundaries are." My brother and youngest cousin were given directions to a special area with eggs hidden for them. Momma and my aunt would supervise their hunt. The four of us older kids listened impatiently while my uncle gave us detailed instructions on the boundary lines for our egg hunt. He  told us, since we were older, the eggs would be a lot harder to find. Finally, we were told the information we were all waiting for: the  prize egg was wrapped with a dollar bill (which was a LOT of money  back then for a kid) and then covered with tinfoil. We were told that  since it would be so conspicuous, it was particularly well hidden. Daddy was ready to turn us loose when his dog King emerged  from a thicket of palmetto bushes. King, who had wandered into the woods while they were hiding the eggs, hadn't come when they  got ready to go pick us up.  Daddy left him there till we returned. The  dog looked at us and seemed to slink off toward the truck. We didn't  think anything of it at the time, but later, his guilty expression would  have a wealth of meaning. "Get ready, get set, GO!" Four pairs of legs raced across the sandy  road and jumped the ditch. In a mad frenzy we pushed back palmetto  fans and dug through piles of fallen bark and straw. Being veterans of  the game, we looked first for those places that seemed the most logical  for hiding eggs. They were empty, though, and  the cries of "I found one" were few and  far between.  Only occasionally did someone find an egg slipped among  the branches of a gallberry bush or in the knot of an old oak. After about twenty minutes, the two younger kids were finished. Between  them they had found twelve eggs.We, however, were still searching without  much luck. Momma called for us to stop and do a count. The four of us had  only found about thirty eggs so far. It became apparent there were a large number of the eggs still  missing.  The grownups gathered, trying to determine what had happened. Mr. C. W.,  who had wandered off in the woods, reappeared then.  It was easy to see he was struggling to keep from laughing. He conferred with the other adults, and  then they all started to laugh and looked over  toward the truck. "What is it? Where are all the eggs?" we clamored. Daddy called King to him.The dog came slowly, his tail between his legs. It was a sure sign  he had done something wrong.  When he looked up at us the guilt  was plain to see. Tiny shards of colored eggshell were stuck to his  mouth and snout.  We finally understood what had happened: King,  while at the camp waiting for us to return, had sniffed out the eggs and  eaten them! We rushed back to the hiding area and noticed, for the first time, little  bits of pastels shell scattered in the places we had hurriedly ripped  through earlier. Daddy went to an old lighter stump and reached down  in a crevice that was partially covered with grass. The chewed remains  of the prize egg, with bits of a dollar bill and tin foil, glinted in the sunlight. We all four wailed forlornly, our Easter egg hunt was ruined! All those  beautiful eggs we had painstakingly colored and decorated were gone.  We didn't see the humor the situation at all. Only later did I come to  appreciate the absurd comedy of the whole day. It was definitely a time when I learned one of those valuable Life lessons: Never take a hungry dog on an Easter egg hunt! The guilty culprit~King Rose S. William ©Southernstoryteller~2002