An Auctioning Nighthawk
+ Beyond Fun Facts
Vol. 151, May 6th, 2025 Published a day early online
Sold! Saturday Auctions
Let’s start it at fiddy, fiddy, fiddy, do I hear twendyfii dolladownhere. The crowds milled and the sun beat down on all the “this is worth something” in the world: farm junk, heavy equipment, old pinball machines, police lights from 1965 sat for sale at the auction. If you asked “hey man, want to buy this box of work gloves?” I’d say no. But put twenty other guys watching the show and a fast-talking auctioneer with a hypnotic call through a crackly speaker, and...I now have a box of work gloves. I won them. The sun cooked the blue skies and kneaded up the evening thunderstorms, but the afternoon stayed clear, a gift.
The hot breeze breathed the reminder. When will this happen again? A strange phase of the moon brought me home, a high school buddy back in town from California, my father along for the ride, and my brothers, experts at the auction. There we were, watching the man spit dollars and cents, as hands raised, heads nodded, shook, nodded again. I bought a box of worn out hand tools. A kid sold me a pressure washer for six bucks out back. I suspect it’s broken. But you have to try. That’s the auction. What a treat.
“Sold! To buyer number 1064.”
Bloom Where You’re Planted
White Iris grace the old stables, southern belles of the botanical world.
Not pictured: a delicate perfume.
Carol’s Appalachian Word of the Week
Put up (canned). “How many quarts of corn have you put up so far?”
Happy Birthday, Eiffel Tower
The 1889 Paris Exposition opens on this day in history. The famous tower, created as the entrance arch, didn’t have working elevators yet.
Book of the Week: McElligot’s Pool
(Dr. Seuss) Wisdom seems to hide in plain sight, or in places I haven’t looked in a while. This classic work is a reminder.
Quotes for the Soul
“Choose an author as you choose a friend.”– The Earl Dillon
Write to Us!
The Nighthawk is a new old-fashioned way to connect, published weekly. You’re invited to write back, or just enjoy reading. Let’s have some fun! It’s a social paper! Send stories, etc to: PO Box 783, Rustburg, VA 24588 or Joshurban@protonmail.com
Letters from Josh
(A weekly update from Josh Urban’s adventures on the farm and in the city. #231)
Appearing in the Altavista Journal, etc: Beyond Fun Facts
Howdy, folks, and welcome back to the show! The miles have flown under the tires this past week or so. Way up on the Blue Ridge, the east wind tried to rattle my car right off the parkway. Down south near Brookneal, the same blew hard as I set up a telescope at Patrick Henry’s Red Hill for a “star party.”
An empty coal train clanked along at the foot of the hill, heading west back to the mines. Darkness fell. My fellow astronomers readied the scopes. Guests stepped up.
Jupiter. Mars. Star clusters. Mighty galaxies, spiraling away in the deep. Oh, if you haven’t looked through a telescope before, come by next time. It might change your life. The first glimpse of Jupiter through a small telescope did mine. Now I get to share those views–and realize, compared to space, the miles on my car are nothing.
Some people might call me a nerd as they take my lunch money, and they wouldn’t be wrong. But the metal in those stolen coins? Forged in a supernova. Puts things in perspective.
Spring is galaxy season. The Earth’s yearly orbit around the Sun and the daily rotation of night and day means we see different skies at different times. If the Milky Way is a (big) Frisbee, spring and fall look away from this disc. Note the sparse skies of spring and fall, compared to the sparkling winter nights, or the billowing Milky Way of summer.
Less stars, and less galactic dust to block distant light means we can see farther into the abyss. With a modest backyard rig, I can spy galaxies “far far away”. They look like dim smudges of light, their glow of hundreds of billions of stars too distant to resolve.
I saw one galaxy that’s 35 million light years away. (One light year is equal to 5.88 trillion miles.) If I could somehow instantly teleport to this galaxy, and look back at Earth with an exceptional telescope, I’d see our light 35 million years in the past. I might observe the splash of the meteor impact that formed the Chesapeake bay.
If that’s not trippy enough, try this on for size: If we had an imaginary way to travel with that photon from that galaxy that’s been hurtling through space for 35 million years to reach Earth, how long would the trip take us? (It’s a trick question.)
The answer? No time at all. Einstein tells us that at the speed of light, time stops. That’s a reason we can’t go faster than light. Time would have to move backwards. There’s not enough Advil in the world, man.
I keep trying this theory with coffee. Maybe if I move faster, I’ll have time to get the paperwork done. What a miserable task, paperwork. Funny to be a writer, but that’s another story.
“Thanks for sharing your knowledge” a ranger said as we all packed up the party at Red Hill. “You’re welcome, but...” I started. “Weird to throw all these fun facts at Infinity. Maybe it’s a coping mechanism.” The numbers and technical stuff keep my puny human mind from blowing a fuse. It’s bizarre to stare out at the nothingness of space. But, sometimes, when all the guests are gone, and the gear is stowed, I’ll look up, fall silent, and wonder. Don’t you?
Catch you on the flip side,
Josh