In Memorium, Arthur C. Clarke

Today's news about the passing away of Arthur C. Clarke stopped me in my tracks. "What?" I said to the TV. Peaches and Popcorn looked worried, "What happened?" , they asked. Well, its hard to explain but it takes me back to a long time ago when there was no widespread TV or the Internet and books were the only escape into a different world. Novels like "Childhood's End", "Rendevous with Rama" and short stories like "The Nine Billion Names of God" brought a new and awesome vision of the world, more fantastic than one could have imagined. I can still remember, as a teenager, staying up the whole night to finish "Childhood's End" at one sitting. Arthur C. Clarke's books were not just science fiction but had an almost mystic element to them. They will always remain with me, and hopefully, Peaches and Popcorn will take that fantastic journey themselves one day.
Thank you and Farewell. Wherever you are in the Universe, may you be in peace.

A Little Knowledge

We are having dinner and what passes for dinnertime conversation. Peaches brings up the topic of lobsters. Where do they live? she wonders. Having just got back from observing some floating around in their tank at the grocery store she concludes, naturally,that that's where they live. Popcorn is enraged. No, she says. We all saw an episode of Little Einsteins set in China. If pandas and cranes could live there, Popcorn feels, so can lobsters. A little knowledge.....

Tensions start to rise and I diffuse them by changing the channel to CNN which means they can unite and grumble against me for depriving them of their cartoon fix. "So," Peaches asks "are they talking about HillaryClintonBarackObama?" I follow the election news daily and it has meshed into one big word for her.I decide to attempt a life lesson and explain how Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama and John McCain are all trying to be President. She looks up from her food. "There is two boys and one girl?OK." That's is how simple it is for her. No distractions of race, gender, recession, war experience or change. A little knowledge , this time, is a good thing.