“The years flow by like water, and one day it is spring again.
Shall we ever ride out of the gates of the East again, as we
did once at morning, and seek again, as we did then, new
lands…..and glory, joy and triumph, and a shining city?”

—Thomas Wolfe
_____________

The dawn of spring. It always takes me back to the Aylmer days of childhood. In a fading sense each year, it seems, as the vivid memories recede ever further into the mists, and I wonder sometimes which are real and which are ghosts, figments in the subconscious mind of things not lived, but only seen or heard. Or if I can even tell the difference anymore.

Time languishes when you are a child. A day lasts a week. A long adventure from dawn to dusk. Where even the most mundane events are exciting forays into wild, uncharted terrain, the experiences eagerly absorbed and processed by a young and hungry mind. The sun, when it shines, does so endlessly, and a sunset lingers for hours, frozen in the western skies. The seasons creep slowly by, each a span of years by adult standards. A blustery March day, a lingering eternity of dark and wind-swept clouds.

And so it was in those long ago days.

Back then, the winters were always tough up there. Cold. And long. The Lake Erie effect. By late January or early February, our hockey games were over. Thawing and refreezing made the pond unsafe. We focused then on slogging through days and weeks to the coming breath, the warmth of spring, yearned for it with the fervent desire that only children know.

In March then, the winds howled, the hard cold rain spit sideways from the skies, the real thaws came, and the mud. Black greasy sticky stuff. Leeched onto and soiled everything it touched. Clogged our shoes as we huddled against the elements and doggedly trudged off to school on the spongy gravel roads. The great snow banks that had bordered the roads only weeks before now sat sad and shriveled, a shadow of their former grandeur, dirt-spattered by passing cars and trucks.

At school, we sat at our desks and longed for summer and heard the winds swoop and moan and rattle the windows. Chafed at recess, because the yard was too muddy or too wet to go out and play. Set up the carom board and played game after game during the lunch hour.

The sun shone too sometimes in March, and the warm winds blew and dried the earth. Like bees from hives, the plows came then to the fields on every farm about. We heard the jangling teams, saw the farmers hunched over on the cast-iron seats, and the endless ribbons of black dirt flowing from the plowshares.

In the afternoon, we walked home through the bustling neighborhood. And we could feel the pulse of new life in the air. Here a house wife, planting an early garden, there another gathering the flapping laundry from the backyard wash line. And everywhere the timid sprouts of green emerging in yards and pastures. Above us the great rafts of geese and ducks swept back to the north, returning now from their winter stay in southern climes. And maybe it was just me, but in spring I did not feel the deep longings that always stirred within when I saw them heading south in the fall. In October, they were leaving home, in March they were returning. Somehow it just wasn’t the same.

On the farms the impatient livestock milled about knee deep in muddy barnyards. The fields were still too soft and too tender to graze the cattle. So they remained confined, stirring in restless discontent until the day they would be freed.

The mud was everywhere.

And it got me one day, when I was probably four years old. My friend Karen and her Mom were at our house for the day. Karen was my best friend, and we played together several times a week. That afternoon, the March clouds parted, the sun emerged and it seemed like summer. Karen and I played outside, running here and there in the grass and mud.

Shortly after three o’clock, we looked to the west, and saw our siblings half a mile away, coming home from school, over the little hill at Neighbor John’s. Two of my brothers, Stephen and Titus, and maybe my sister Rachel. And several of Karen’s older brothers and sisters.

One of us got the bright idea that we could walk down the road to meet them. So we headed out, two little children, best friends. As we trudged along contentedly, I suddenly decided to veer through our pasture field on the south side of the road.

I don’t know what got into me. I wasn’t showing off or anything. Just a snap decision of a child. No rhyme or reason. Didn’t need one.

“I’m taking a long cut through this field,” I told Karen matter-of-factly. I don’t know where I got it, but that’s the term I used. Long cut. Guess I figured if you can take a short cut, it must follow that you can take a long one too.

Karen looked dubious. But she didn’t dissuade me. She didn’t follow me either.

There was no fence. I slopped through the road ditch and into the field and walked along on the soft dead grass. Almost immediately, serious difficulties arose. Mud. With each step, I sank down further. But I’d get through, I figured. I kept slogging on, veering further into the field. Sank deeper. Finally realizing there was no way forward, I turned back to the road. Too late. I was stuck. And how. Couldn’t move. The harder I struggled, the deeper my little boots sank.

Karen, who’d wisely stayed on the road, saw me sink and heard my distressed wail.

“I’m stuck,” I shouted. Duh. I swayed back and forth. My boots sank even deeper.

Karen remained calm. “Mark will get you out,” she called back. Mark was her older brother, a stocky powerful seventh grader.

By now the crowd of school children approached. Karen ran to meet them.

“Ira’s stuck,” she told them, pointing at me. Duh, again. They could see that much. I was still struggling forlornly, increasingly helpless, sinking ever deeper. But I didn’t cry.

Her brother chuckled a hearty burly chuckle. He handed his lunch box to one of my brothers. Walked into the field toward me. I waited helplessly, fearing he’d get stuck too. What would we do then?

But he plowed right in, and came up to me. “Are you stuck?” he roared cheerfully. Duh, again. He grasped me firmly under my armpits and lifted with a powerful heave. Up I shot, one of my boots making a loud sucking sound as it was unwillingly extracted from the mud. My other boot slipped off and remained stuck. Somehow Mark cradled me under one arm and reached down and pulled up the recalcitrant boot.

Still holding me under one arm, he strode through the mud back to terra firma. I marveled at his strength. We reached the road and he set me on my feet. I stomped and kicked vigorously to rid my boots of mud.

Karen flitted about, proud of her big brother who had rescued her best friend. And that was that. We all walked on home to our warm house, where Mom and Mandy, Karen’s mom, were finishing their afternoon coffee. No one fussed too much at my unfortunate little adventure.

That’s what it was to me. An adventure. A thing to reflect on and ponder. I quietly locked it safely away in the files of my memory.

And that was spring when I was four.

*******************************
Last weekend several relatives showed up unexpectedly. Lester Yutzy from Kansas was at Steves Friday night for one night. Also, my nephew Gideon Yutzy drove over for the weekend from his classes at Faith Builders in western PA.

Gideon and Ira

Gideon is in his student stage, attending classes and grappling with the issues of his culture and generation. After supper we sat around and debated many things, iron sharpening iron. Fairly or unfairly, I’ve always been mildly suspicious of Faith Builders as a quasi-socialistic Beachy/Mennonite enclave. Somewhat hostile to wealth. Open to theories of voluntary poverty, and so forth. Which are anathema to me. But I might have it all wrong. If so, I’m open to correction. Any Faith Builders students out there who might care to clarify?

We had a great time. Lots of fun, debating. I did manage to push a book on him, entitled Productive Christians in an Age of Guilt Manipulators. David Chilton’s timeless classic. Which Gideon promised to read. I read the book back in the mid 1990s, and it had tremendous influence on the way I view a lot of things, including wealth. I look forward to hashing it out with him in future discussions.

Obama continues his hapless floundering while trying to socialize every aspect of our culture, under the guise of stimulating the economy. Every time he announces a new bailout, the markets plummet another couple hundred points.

But last week I heard of a policy he wants to change, one that I would definitely support. The lifting of the embargo on Cuba. One of the most senseless policies in our country’s recent history. JFK installed the embargo back in the 1960s, as a punishment for Castro. No president since has had the guts to revoke it.

So when Obama proposes something I agree with, I’ll support him most heartily. As I do on this, the only thing I’ve heard from him that makes even the slightest lick of sense. The embargo’s major accomplishment: It has for over a generation cruelly deprived Americans of the finest cigars in the world. Break open the gates. Cuban stogie, anyone?

My buddy Erik Wesner of Amish America headlined me on his blog again. Very favor-ably. Guess I really need to get him that case of good wine now. Or at least take him out for a decent meal when he’s in the area. Welcome to all new readers.

A few thoughts on last week’s post. Whoa, Nellie. I certainly didn’t expect such visceral reactions. A great cacophony of yowling, like cats with their tails tied together. Readers merrily whacking each other, which was fine. And a few cheap shots at me. But that’s OK. I’m a big guy. I can take it. And all for merely suggesting that alien life might exist out there. I feel fortunate the Inquisition is not around anymore. I would surely be defending myself before a grim hooded tribunal. And be stretched out on the rack by now, in preparation for burning at the stake.

Not that I didn’t appreciate every comment. All 25 of them, certainly a record for recent months. I always appreciate all comments, at least the ones you see posted. But I am surprised nobody excoriated me for enjoying such childish things as Tom and Jerry cartoons. Maybe someone could take up that cudgel this week. Should be no shortage of volunteers.

I wrote what I wrote. I stand by it. And I’d write it again.

“At no time, when the astronauts were in space were they alone:
there was a constant surveillance by UFOs.”

—NASA Astronaut Scott Carpenter
_____________________________

Last Sunday night, I was in a mopey mood. My internal clock thoroughly messed up by the time change. Of course, no sports worth watching on TV. Tom and Jerry, my all-time favorite cartoon, had been removed from its 7:30 slot and replaced with some modern inanity, for reasons known only to some young hot shot executive who doesn’t appreciate classic cartoons. Probably too violent and politically incorrect. After the Simpsons, I clicked around randomly to find something, anything half interesting. And happened on the History Channel. A two hour special was underway. Something called Ancient Aliens.

It was about UFOs, and the possibility that ancient civilizations on earth may have been influenced and assisted by aliens. Crackpot stuff, by normal standards. Who could take such a theory seriously? But I watched it. And found it fascinating.

I’ve been exposed to UFO writings since childhood. Dad always had a few paperbacks about flying saucers strewn around the house. With their pages of grainy black and white photos of flying discs. He may even have sold those books at Pathway. I’m not sure if he believed UFOs existed, but he probably did. Or at least recognized the possibility. A closet believer. He just didn’t publicize it a lot. No sense getting yourself drummed out of the Amish church for heresy if you don’t have to. Plus, it takes some fortitude to stand up and lend your credibility to such outlandish beliefs.

The TV show was a broad examination of ancient evidence from across the world that simply defies logic. UFOs and space travelers might not exist, but there’s sure a lot of strange inexplicable stuff out there. A few examples:

Archeologists have unearthed several little model airplanes, made of solid gold. Each with wings, tail fins, and fuselage. And a little stone rocket, with a suited astronaut complete with breathing hoses. Tiny things, easily held in one hand. Thousands of years old. Absolutely remarkable. Who made them, and why? No one knows. Did the ancients just imagine them, or were they emulating what they actually saw in the skies around them?

And there is a map of the world (made of leather or papyrus, I don’t remember) more than five hundred years old. The map is every bit as detailed as modern maps, the continents laid out exactly as seen from outer space. Complete with topography and rivers that were not even discovered at that time.

From some ancient shipwreck, a brass navigation device was recovered. A little rectangular box. Clogged and frozen with ocean debris, the box was eventually x-rayed. The x-rays revealed an intricate mass of cogs and gears. More complex than a modern Swiss wind-up watch. The device is a computer. Thousands of years old.

And then, of course, there are the pyramids. And countless other large, complex ruins. Not only in Egypt, but in many countries. Mexico and South America. Constructed of huge blocks of stones weighing many tons each. Yet so finely fit together that a knife blade cannot be inserted between the stones.

And that’s only a partial list.

I drank it all in, mesmerized. Wild, wild stuff. Perhaps Solomon meant it literally when he wrote there is nothing new under the sun.

I realize that when you watch a TV documentary, you see only what the editors and producers have chosen to include. And want you to see. Their biases and perceptions, as well as their political views, always affect the end product. I try to sift carefully through any presentation and make my own judgments, draw my own conclusions.

But what explanations are there for these mysteries? Someone made these things. The little airplanes and the stone rocket. The map. The computer. And of course, the vast deserted jungle cities and the Great Pyramids of Egypt.

But who? Why? How? Where did the technology come from? Who knew it? When was it lost? How? With all our modern technology, we would be hard pressed to build the Great Pyramids today. How was it done so long ago?

I don’t know. No one does, when it comes right down to it. The mists of centuries and millennia are like a dark cloak. We can’t see through it. No one alive today was there. So we can only read the clues and surmise. But we can’t deny the evidence of the artifacts themselves. Much as we’d like to. Convenient as that might be.

I’ve heard it theorized that advanced technologies existed pre-flood. That Noah and his sons were pretty isolated, completely absorbed in building the ark for 120 years, and when they disembarked after the deluge, they didn’t know enough about the advanced technologies to preserve them. (It took some very advanced technology to construct the ark, come to think of it.) Besides, everything was washed away, destroyed by the waters. Makes sense, from an old school biblical point of view. But who really believes that?

My take on it all? I’ll take the plunge here. Admit it. Maybe I’m a loon, but I believe there is life on other planets. Not just a planet. Planets. Hundreds, maybe thousands of them. Or more. And that it’s quite possible, even probable, that earth-bound ancients were assisted by beings from some of these places.

And no, I am not a sci-fi aficionado. Not a Star Wars freak. Or a Trekkie. Last such movie I saw was Will Smith in Independence Day a few years back.

To me, it’s just rational deduction. We are a speck of dust in the universe. There are hundreds of millions of suns with billions of planets orbiting around them. From sheer statistical probability, some of those planets must contain life and civilizations. Maybe similar to ours, maybe not. Many of those civilizations are probably far more advanced than our own. And they likely have the means to travel to our dimensions.

It’s arrogant, in my opinion, for earthlings to insist they are the only life in the universe. We may be unique. But not exclusive.

I’m paranoid enough to believe that aliens are in contact with most of the leading governments on this earth. And that our own government knows and hides from us almost unimaginable things. Ever wonder where all the great technological advances came from these last few decades? How we even began our own tentative space exploration?

Problem is, I share those views with a lot of pretty unsavory people out there. Wild-eyed new age types. Many of these people look flat out weird. Act strange. And are not that credible. Some of them, I’m convinced, are possessed. And not by good spirits.

Even so, one must consider the evidence, and not discount something out of hand just because kooky fringe elements advocate it.

There are countless internet sites devoted to aliens, UFOs and space and time travel. People claim this, and people claim that. Some claim to have been abducted by aliens and taken aboard their ships. Others claim our government has bases on the moon and cities on Mars.

Crackpots and kooks, most of them. But are they all? I doubt it. If even a fraction of their claims were actually true, how could they possibly convince us?

There have been thousands of UFO sightings over the past fifty-plus years, by thousands of people. (Modern UFO sightings began in 1947.) Including a lot of very credible people. Ordinary Joes. Military people. Cops. Common citizens who would have nothing to gain from lying.

Did they see something strange and tangible, or was it always just an illusion? With so many eyewitness accounts, it’s difficult to imagine that something real isn’t out there. Something unknown and unearthly.

Christians usually claim there is no mention of such things in the Bible. But that’s arguable. The prophet Ezekiel pretty much describes a flying saucer spaceship in his writings. A detailed description of wheels within wheels: “…and the wheels were full of eyes all around—the wheels that the four of them had.” Ezkl. 10:12. This he saw, hovering over the earth. Jesus spoke of other sheep that are not of this fold. He might well have been referring to “sheep” from other planets.

Then again, maybe the UFOs occasionally break through from another dimension that exists right here, all around us. A fourth dimension. One that exists beyond our perceptions of time and space.

But I may be way off. There’s really no way of knowing, one way or another. On the list of what’s really important, it’s pretty far down there. But still, it’s fascinating to ponder, and to consider the possibilities. We can only view the evidence, or at least one side of it, as I did last Sunday night, and draw our own conclusions.

Back to earth and earthly things. This weekend, I’m meeting with an informal study group to discuss a series of essays titled Mises on Money. Written by Gary North. Economic theory is not my forte, but in these troubled times when the government is throwing around trillions of dollars like so much confetti, it would behoove us all to learn the basics of sound monetary policy. So we’ll have a good understanding of how and why the current system must and will collapse. And not be surprised when it does.

So we’ll have a round-table discussion. Solve the world’s problems. I hear sushi is being served.