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One of my favorite Ray Bradburyshort stories is set in a post-apocalyptic world. This is a point in time when the people have very little respect for the artistic accomplishments of past civilizations that somehow have survived the upheaval and destruction. At the heart of the story is a magnificent work of art, a painting by a master from centuries past. In the story we see a mob attacking it. A young man gets involved with the unruly mob, but his purpose is not to destroy. He seems at odds with society’s desire to erase any artistic evidence of the past. He is able to secure the painting and returns to the barn that he shares with his family. Later that night, when the family is fast asleep, he brings out this little bit of canvas, and looks at the Mona Lisa’s smile in the moonlight.

The story is called The Smile and is one of many in the collection, Bradbury Stories: 100 Of His Most Celebrated Tales published in 2003 by William Morrow, an imprint of Harper Collins Publishers.

I’ve heard it say that to actually see the Mona Lisa up close is somewhat disappointing. Let me clarify this. The painting is magnificent, a true work of art. It is filled with mysterious images in the background that at the same time confuse and beguile the viewer. The disappointment comes from its size. It is smaller than most people assume. But there is something about that smile that captivates the viewer’s attention.

I allude to the fact that even though the Mona Lisa was not beautiful in the classical sense of the word, she certainly had something that still intrigues art lovers to this very day. Leonardo da Vinci was not only a visionary in his designs for many future inventions, he was also capable of capturing the essence of a simple smile that would continue to resonate centuries later.

Finally, the words of Arrigo Bolto: “When I saw you I fell in love / And you smiled, because you knew.”

***

Don Jackson

I think that is one of the most chilling scenes in the most recent movie version as the ship begins to list. It is the scene when the violinists bring the music out onto the deck to serenade those going over the side of the ship into lifeboats, and those who will remain behind forever…

Anacharsis who lived about 600 BC wrote this comment in Diogenes Laertius, [on learning that the sides of the ship were only four fingers thick] “The passengers are just that distance from death.”

As we have recently found out, the gashes in the Titanic made by the iceberg were not really all that big. But because of the location of the strikes, the ship was doomed. There was absolutely nothing that could have been done to prevent her sinking.

Seneca, who lived between 8 BC and AD 65, and translated by Henry Thomas Riley, said: “I was shipwrecked before I got aboard.” Words from so long ago that foretold the fate of all who boarded the Titanic 96 years ago this month.

It’s an anniversary that had been quietly remembered for years, but not anymore. A man by the name of James Cameron changed that forever. He put a very human face on a tragedy of immense proportions. It is very hard for us these many years later to comprehend the loss of so many lives in such a senseless way. The ship was supposed to have been “unsinkable.” The ship carried lifeboats for only half the complement of passengers and crew. The differences in the class structure aboard the ship was also truthfully portrayed in the film. The first-class passengers living a luxurious existence high above the waterline while third-class passengers in steerage were kept below deck like animals.

There are very few films today that attract people of all ages. Titanic was one of those that did. My mother never saw the blockbuster film. She was born a few years after the tragedy but still could not bring herself to watch it. She remembers hearing about the tragedy throughout her early life. Even though she did not know any passenger personally, the tragedy still had a lasting effect on her.

There was another person who changed the the legend surrounding the Titanic. His name was Dr. Robert D. Ballard, the researcher who found its final resting place over 2 miles below the surface of the cold north Atlantic, shrouded in perpetual darkness. There is one photo that Dr. Ballard chose to conclude his book The Discovery of The Titanic: Exploring The Greatest Of All Lost Ships, published by Viking. It was the last photograph ever taken of Titanic as it left Queenstown early last century. If you look far enough over the distant horizon in the photograph, you can almost see destiny waiting.

There’s another photograph in the collection that haunts me. It is the picture of a doll’s head in the debris field strewn across the ocean floor. One can just imagine the chills that the camera operator felt when the image came into view.

If you were to stand along the shoreline of the east coast, you might imagine hearing sounds from long ago on a night like tonight. Laughter, snippets of conversations, the sounds of cutlery, fine china and crystal being carried on the cold, cold wind. Sounds of that fateful last meal aboard the RMS Titanic. All the while, the lookouts were instructed to keep their eyes alert for ice. A last meal before the first-class passengers were led by Captain Smith and his crew to what lifeboats there were. We can only imagine what the meal was like in steerage. They were the majority of the passengers who went down with the ship.

The time was 11:40p.m. when the first warning bell sounded in the cold, silent night air of April 14th, 1912. By 12:15a.m. in the morning of April 15th, according to Dr. Ballard’stimeline, the band begins to play in the first-class lounge, later to move out on the boat deck, “…near the port entrance to the grand staircase.”

“And the band played on…”

***

Don Jackson

Algernon Charles Swinburne wrote: “When the hounds of Spring are on Winter’s traces. / The mother of months in meadow and plain / –Fills the shadows and windy places / –With lisp of leaves and ripple of rain.”

We used to like playing in the rain. Now we try to get in out of the rain as quickly as we can. Author Joe Garner said this about the 1952 classic musical, Singin’ in the Rain that starred Gene Kelly: “Watch Gene Kelly leap onto the lamppost and you can’t help smiling; watch him splash through the puddles and you’ll want to rush out and join him.” That quote is from the book Now Showing: Unforgettable Moments From The Movies published in 2003 by Andrews McMeel Publishing.

The rain not only provides nourishment to the plants and flowers and puddles to jump into. One writer mused that it might be enough for the beginning of a town…

“In the dry places … towns, like weeds, spring up when it rains, dry up when it stops. But in a dry climate the husk of the plant remains. The stranger might find, as if preserved in amber, something of the green life that was once lived there, and the ghosts of men who have gone on to a better place. The withered towns are empty, but not uninhabited.” An excerpt from chapter 1 of The Works Of Love by Wright Morris, published in 1952.

“Your mouth that I remember / –With rush of sudden pain / As one remembers starlight / Or roses after rain.” Sydney King Russell’s memories of Midsummer contained in the 1936 Doubleday collection, Best Loved Poems Of The American People.

I’ve heard it said that we could have above average rainfall amounts this spring. The old adage of April showers helping to bring forth May flowers has always helped people weather the storms in early spring. I’ve always liked this writing by George Eliot, who said: “…I wish / The sky would rain down roses, as they rain / From off the shaken bush. / Why will it not? / Then all the valleys would be pink and white, / And soft to tread on.”

That would be a rainfall that most of us would rush out to meet with open arms.

***

Don Jackson

In the film, Somewhere In Time, we learn that Elise McKenna, the woman who inspires a trip back in time, lived out the later years of her life as a recluse. The author who wrote her biography has a music box in her home made in the shape of the old Grand Hotel that plays Rachmaninoff’s Rhapsody. Quite an elaborate music box.

And then there was this motel in another popular fictional novel….

“The motel room was a flung palette of colors, a fashion seminar on the disorienting effects of clashing patterns, bleak in spite of its aggressive cheeriness. The place wasn’t entirely filthy; maybe just clean enough to ensure that the cockroaches would be polite.” An excerpt from One Door Away From Heaven by Dean R. Koontz, published in 2003 by Bantam. The Bantam ISBN is 0-533-58275-5.

Over the course of my life, I think I’ve seen ones that resemble both the above examples. Fortunately, I never had the occasion to visit one like this next one…

According to Bartlett’s Book Of Anecdotes: “Wilson Mizner (1876-1933) US writer and wit who tried his hand at a score of respectable and disreputable means of earning a living. In 1907 Mizner managed the Hotel Rand on West Forty-ninth Street in New York. He put up two signs for guests: ‘No opium-smoking in the elevators’ and ‘Carry out your own dead.’”

If you’re in Toronto on business, and listening tonight in a hotel room, I hope you’re enjoying the music and the company. If you’re a regular business traveler, every hotel begins to resemble the last one you were in. The airports can be somewhat confusing being similar in style and design. On the cab ride to the hotel or your meeting, you look out the window and see people who resemble those you left behind, doing much the same thing no matter the city–waiting for buses, crossing at street corners that resemble other street corners in other cities, making their way to work or trying to hurry home at the end of their day.

Ted Williams from Stone Of Farewell published by Daw Books, wrote: “Never make your home in a place. Make a home for yourself inside your own head. You’ll find what you need to furnish it–memory, friends you can trust, love of learning and other such things. That way, it will go with you wherever your journey.”

One final anecdote from Bartlett’s about the great TV comedian Jackie Gleason: ”While performing at a nightclub in a seaside town, early in his career, Gleason stayed at a local boardinghouse. Finding himself unable to pay the rent, he devised a way of escaping from his lodgings without raising suspicion. He packed up his belongings, lowered the suitcase out of his bedroom window into the arms of a waiting friend, then strolled nonchalantly out of the house in his swimming trunks, heading for the beach. Some three years later, anxious to pay off his debt, he returned to the boardinghouse. The landlady, recognizing him at once, stepped back in horror as if she had seen a ghost. ‘Oh, my Lord!’ she exclaimed. ‘I thought you were drowned!’”

Tonight on the radio program, “We’ll leave the lights on for you.”

***

Don Jackson

“When I was young I felt so small / And frightened for the world was tall.

“And even grasses seemed to me / A forest of immensity.

“Until I learned that I could grow, / A glance would leave them far below.

“Spanning a tree’s height with my eye, / Suddenly I soared as high,

“And fixing on a star I grew, / I pushed my head against the blue!

“Still, like a singing lark, I find / Rapture to leave the grass behind.

“And sometimes standing in a crowd / My lips are cool against a cloud.” –Anne Morrow Lindbergh

My daughter went to the top of the CN Tower yesterday on a high school trip with her Geography class. She had a little help getting up to the top of the world’s tallest (completed) free-standing structure. She rode one of the six passenger elevators and marveled at the view along the way.

“Our daily thoughts should be elevated above the ceiling.” –W. W. Loflin

Now, one of the elevators that ferry passengers to one of the most spectacular views in the world, has a glass bottom. It’s safe enough to stand on, but you can imagine looking down as the elevator speeds its way to its maximum height. As the elevator comes to a stop, you’re afforded the opportunity to look 346 metres straight down. While up therre walking around on the glass floor of one of the observation areas, savoring the spectacula views of the city around her, she couldn’t help but think lofty thoughts.

“Oh! I have slipped the surly bonds of earth / And danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings; / Sunward I’ve climbed, and joined the tumbling mirth / Of sun-split clouds–and done a hundred things / You have not dreamed of–wheeled and soared and swung / High in the sunlit silence. Hov’ring there, / I’ve chased the shouting wind along, and flung / My eager craft through footless halls of air.

“Up, up the long, delirious, burning blue / I’ve topped the wind-swept heights with easy grace / Where never lark, or even eagle flew– / And, while the silent lifting mind I’ve trod / The high untrespassed sanctity of space, / Put out my hand and touched the face of God.”–High Flight by John Gillespie Magee, Jr.

I wanted to share some of the photos she took while up close to the blue.

***

Don Jackson

I once worked at a radio station that was in a small commercial section of a large apartment building. A lot of our announcers lived high in the complex and literally took an elevator to work every day.

It’s amazing when you stop to think about it. People come to work in Toronto and most of them will not spend their day within a few feet of street level. Most of them will spend their business day high in office towers overlooking the city. Most of our elevators are quiet and extremely fast. In days gone by, they were slow and rather quaint in their simple design.

In a very old edition of the Brittanica was this about New York City. “New York city is the great elevator city of the world. Built on a narrow strip of island with no room for spreading, the city had to grow upward. But there were elevators even before New York began its upward growth. By 1850, three- and four-storey buildings were being equipped with hydraulic elevators. A cage or platform was mounted on top of a long plunger set in a cylinder. To lower the elevator, its operator pulled a switch, whereupon the water in the cylinder was released. This permitted the elevator to descend. This water was tapped into a tank, so that it could be used over and over.”

Needless to say, that is a relic of the past. So is the elevator operator. In grand hotels, hospitals and office buildings in this city, there used to be an elevator operator. This was a person who actually operated the lift. Could you imagine spending your entire day cooped up in this device going up and down. It was a job that the claustrophobic need not apply. You still see these operators in old black-and-white movies. If you’ve ever ridden in one of these old lifts, they didn’t work like the ones we ride in today. Sometimes it didn’t actually line up precisely with the floor, but the operator had complete control over the mechanism and your stomach might do a bit of a flip as the operator lined the lift up with the floor you requested.

I can just imagine what it must be like for those who work in deep mines. The fastest way to get the workers to and from the job site is an elevator straight down into the mine itself. And if you’ve ever watched construction sites in the past, you may have even seen a worker hitch a ride on a girder being hoisted by a crane. Again, not for the faint of heart.

And tomorrow, one of the six passenger elevators that go up the side of the CN Tower will feature a glass floor, for those brave enough to want to look down as they are ferried up to the observation platform.

Elevators have been redesigned for comfort and efficiency. Now if only we could do something about the music….

***

Don Jackson

“A single crocus ought to be enough to convince our heart that springtime, no matter how predictable, is somehow a gift, gratis, gratuitous, a grace. Why then is it difficult for some to acknowledge this gift as such? When I admit that something is a gift, I admit my dependence on the giver. There is something within us that bristles at the idea of dependence. Gift giving is a celebration of the bond that unites giver and receiver. That bond is gratefulness.” David Steindl-Rast from Gratefulness, The Heart Of Prayerpublished by Paulist Press, and featured in the Points To Ponder column of the April 1998 issue of the Reader’s Digest magazine.

Out where I live, someone has planted some early spring bulbs throughout their entire front lawn, in their gardens and beneath their bordering hedges. I’ve only seen them from a distance while driving by, but their entire property seems to be carpeted in purple flowers. It really is striking and an unusual idea that has brought so much color so early in the season. Everywhere you look, the world seems enchanted as it wakes from its long winter’s sleep. You don’t have to look far to see the subtle signs that the magic is about to begin again. I featured this quote in tonight’s radio program. George Meredith wrote: ‘Enter these enchanted woods, / You who dare.”

“We come to the blooming time for the cliches of spring. As they do every year, crocuses open cheerily. Robins chirp as they hunt for worms; northbound geese honk in the dusk; and young men’s fancies turn. Winter-bound bodies grow languorous, and disciplined minds lose their trains of thought. The wind comes soft, and dust wafts from the drapes at newly opened windows. Why, since all this is expected every year, does it come as a surprise? The answer lies not in the season but in the heart. For spring is really a matter of the heart, and the heart is a sucker for surprises.” An excerpt from The New York Times and featured in the Points To Ponder column of the April 2003 issue of the Reader’s Digest magazine.

Clear away some of the debris left behind by winter and you might be surprised to see some of your crocuses up already. You may see the occasional weed, too. We have to realize that the sun plays no favorites.

“As spring comes, we become aware of the magnanimity of nature, a sort of elemental big-heartedness and inclusive impartiality that is a reflection of the character of God. Spring sunshine will not fall on beautiful, graceful birch trees alone, but upon the less lovable scrub pines, alders and willows, too. April showers will not pick and choose - playing favourites with the daffodils and crocuses, and shunning objectionable dandelions and lowly violets, blessing the arbutus and avoiding the bloodroot and strawberry. The great sun will warm the acres of saint and sinner alike. Warm rains will beat with equal benefit upon the gardens of the grateful, and, the grumbling.” - Harold E. Kohn from the collection, Fields of Gold published by the C.R Gibson Company.

***

Don Jackson

“Baseball is in large part about failure. A successful hitter fails seven times out of ten; a successful team loses 40 percent of its games. All of which teaches players, fans, and managers a certain serenity. It is the kind of serenity that comes only on the far side of great passion, to be sure; but it is serenity, nonetheless. Earl Weaver, Baltimore Orioles manager during 15 of the team’s glory years between 1966 and 1983, used to tell nervous sportswriters: ‘Relax…This ain’t football. We do this every day.’” George Weigel from a commentary and feature din the Points To Ponder column of the May 1996 issue of the Reader’s Digest magazine.

It was on April 2nd, 1902, that the first motion picture theatre opened. It was on April 4th, 1964, that the first home VCR was introduced. Both those innovations have changed us in ways we have yet to fully appreciate. Do you remember the first time you went to the movies? What was the film you saw? Do you remember the first VCR you owned? It was probably a big, clunky machine. Now we have the theatre experience in our homes with Home Theatre technology and DVD.

My show tonight deals with some of the truly great romantic films of all time. Some are fairly recent while others are true classics in the sense of the word.

And then there was a film about baseball mentioned in tonight’s show…

It said this about the 1989 film, Field Of Dreams in Videohound’s Golden Movie Retriever: “Uplifting mythic fantasy based on W. P. Kinsella’s novel, Shoeless Joe. Iowa corn farmer heeds a mysterious voice that instructs, ‘If you build it, he will come,’ and cuts a baseball diamond in his corn field. Soon the ball field is is inhabited by the spirit of Joe Jackson and others who were disgraced in the notorious 1919 Black Sox scandal. It’s all about chasing a dream …. and celebrating the mythic lure of baseball. Kevin Costner and Amy Madigan are strong, believable characters.” The film also stars James Earl Jones, Burt Lancaster, and Ray Liotta. “Jones, as a character based on reclusive author J. D. Salinger, is reluctantly pulled into the mystery…” Couple with that a hockey film like Miracle, about the miracle on ice, and there is no doubt that we will always have reason to dream and pursue that dream, no matter if we win or lose.

Today marked the opening day for the Jays here in Toronto. With the hockey season rapidly winding down, we now set our sights on the game of summer and wish the players all the best this season. If there was any doubt that spring had arrived, then the Jays’ opening day should dispel any of those doubts.

Lionel Tiger from Family Circle, and featured in the Points to Ponder column of the June 2001 issue of the Reader’s Digest, said,”In a world in which most lives lack drama, we all nominate a circle of people to represent our larger-than-life selves. For many men, these representatives run, punch, bat, kick, serve, dunk, throw. They live in prime time. They must make instant decisions in win/lose contests with real people and clear-cut rules. They have no excuses. The ball is in the air, and when it falls, it is either in their grasp or it is not. That’s what, beyond the hype, any sporting event is irreducibly about.”

I should tell you that my son’s hockey team did not win it all this year, but they won the consolation round and are Lakeshore League champions. They had a great season in the number one spot in their division, with the best goals for and goals against. My personal thanks to all the volunteers who gave so much of their time unselfishly: the coaches and manager of the team. A hearty thank you for their tremendous effort this season at making a lot of dreams come true on the ice. We play one last exhibition game this weekend and then prepare for tryout camps and next year’s tryouts in the coming weeks.

This is one of the best quotes I’ve heard about sports. “I wish parents would understand that if their child drops eight fly balls one day, then only drops six the next, that’s a reason to go to Dairy Queen. The principal thing is competing against yourself. It’s about self-improvement, about being better than you were the day before.” - Steve Young, quoted in the Points to Ponder column of the July 2001 Reader’s Digest.

There is so much to learn from any sport. “Most successful football players not only accept rules and limitations but need them. Players are free to perform at their best only when they know what the expectations are, where the limits stand. I see this as a principle that also applies to life, a principle our society as a whole has forgotten: You can’t enjoy true freedom without limits.” - Tom Landry: An Autobiography, with Gregg Lewis, published by Harper Collins.

To conclude, one of the best baseball quotes I’ve ever read is this: A Bartlet Giamatti in Green Fields of the Mind, published in 1977, wrote, “(Baseball) breaks your heart…It is designed to break your heart…The game begins in the spring, when everything else begins again, and it blossoms in the summer, filling the afternoons and evenings, and then as soon as the chill rains come, it stops, and leaves you to face the fall alone…”

***

Don Jackson

“From my mother came the idea that going down to the sea repaired the spirit. That is where she walked when she was sad or worried or lonely for my father. If she had been crying, she came back composed; if she had left angry with us, she returned in good humour. So we naturally believed that there was a cleansing effect to be had; that letting the fresh wind blow through your mind and spirits as well as your hair and clothing purged black thoughts; that contemplating the ceaseless motion of the waves calmed a raging spirit.” Robert MacNeil from Wordstruck, published by Viking and featured in the Points To Ponder column of the November 1996 issue of the Reader’s Digest magazine.

And if not down by the water, then to the highest hill…

“My heart was full of sorrow / So I took it to the hill, / And bathed it in the clear burn / When all the air was still.

“I held it to the west wind / And warmed it in the sun, / In peaceful purple silence / -Till the healing had begun.” The Healing Place by C. M. Douglas and featured in the 1998 edition of The Friendship Book Of Francis Gay published by D. C. Thomson and Company.

Spring is not only for cleaning out the cobwebs from your mind and spirit, and cleaning up around your house. It is also a time for planting. It may be too soon where we live, but we can at least plan a garden.

My wife always has a plan for a garden. The tomato plants in full sun, the strawberries at the far end, the climbing vines near the trellis. You have to plan your garden carefully or you may be disappointed come harvest time. This appeared in my e-mail some years back. It’s called New Garden. It’s author is unknown. “Plant three rows of peas: / Peace of mind / Peace of heart / Peace of soul.

“Plant four rows of squash: / Squash gossip. / Squash indifference. / Squash grumbling. / Squash selfishness.

“Plant four rows of lettuce: / Lettuce be faithful. / Lettuce be kind. / Lettuce be happy. / Lettuce really love one another.

“No garden should be without turnips : / Turnip for service when needed / Turnip to help one another / Turnip the music - and dance…

“Water freely with patience and cultivate with love.

“There is much fruit in your garden. Because you reap what you sow.

“To conclude our garden, we must have thyme: / Thyme for fun. / Thyme for rest. / Thyme for ourselves.”

I hope you take the time to do a little spring cleaning this year, and plant a garden that will grow with love.

***

Don Jackson

Have you heard the term “Briffit”? Cartoonist Mort Walker coined the word to describe the cloud of dust that follows a comic-strip character on the move. This was according to The New York Times back in 2007. You’ve  no doubt seen it many times when your favorite character is either being chased or is trying to escape an unpleasant situation. I will never forget “Pigpen” in the Peanuts comic strip created by Charles Schulz. He always seemed to be in a swirling cloud of “Briffit.”

There was a TV series produced by HBO a few years back that featured the story of a seedy carnival that wandered from town to town in the early part of the last century. The series was called Carnivale. A drifter with an unusual gift joined up with the traveling sideshow. By the end of the series, he became the one who would have to battle evil in the guise of a preacher.

This series was intense, but it gave you a really good sense of the those who were affected by the Great Depression and the hardships they endured in the Dust Bowl of the American southwest.

A very old edition of the Britannica fills in some of the details. “Cultivation of the dry western prairies has given rise to serious dust storms during periods of long drought. One region, called the Dust Bowl, has its center in northern Texas, extending into near-by states. In 1934 a series of violent winds created enormous dust storms which swept eastwardly across the United States. They dimmed noonday skies and blanketed the decks of ships upon the Atlantic Ocean to depths of one-eighth of an inch. The loss of topsoil ruined many western farms. Others were drifted high with dust blown from places many miles away.”

Thomas Painter is a University of Utah researcher. He recently gave a lecture saying that Western winters are getting shorter due to the effect of dust being stirred up by urban as well as agricultural development. The story originated in The Salt Lake Tribune, and was also featured in the Friday January 25th, 2008 issue of The Globe and Mail’s Social Studies column. He said: “…that disturbed particles from the Colorado Plateau mix with snow, limiting the heat it can reflect. As a result, today’s snowpacks melt about a month earlier than they once did. This effect of dust on snow is a global problem, he said. Old lake-bed sediment reveals a surge in dust emissions around the world.”

We had some very high winds yesterday. Some were violent in nature. Everything caught in the path of these fierce winds swirled and heaped up, or blew completely away. On the drive in last night during these wild winds, I got the impression that Mother Nature was sweeping up the debris left behind by winter, and clearing the way for spring. The broom she uses consists of these powerful winds.

This very old edition of the Britannica also states: “Although twilight and dawn depend to some extent on latitude and seasons, the afterglow of the twilight and the colors of the dawn depend very largely on the amount of dust that is present in the air. Particles of dust in the upper air reflect the sun’s rays. This makes its light visible on earth an hour or two after sunset. The different colors which make up the sun’s light are bent at different angles as they are reflected by the dust and water vapor particles. Sunsets are red because those particles bend the rays of the sun in such a way that they are the last rays to disappear from view.

“Another of the few useful functions of dust is its relation to rain. The water vapor in the air would not become a liquid very readily if it did not have the dust particles to serve as centers for each drop of water.

“Therefore, clouds, mists, fogs, and rain are largely formed of an infinite number of moisture-laden particles of dust.”

Back in March of 2005, the Los Angeles Times reported that a researcher had proposed that Earth may have passed through an enormous dust cloud sometime in our distant past. It could have been this cloud that may have contributed to a deep-freeze or ice age, a possible cause for an extinction event hundreds of millions of years ago. This cloud of interstellar dust may have been so large that it would have taken the Earth almost 500,000 years to pass through this space dust.

It seems we live on a dusty, old planet, but we’re not alone in the universe with housekeeping duties. The moon’s surface is layered in dust. Astronauts who have walked on the surface, and who have tracked that lunar dust into their lander, will tell you that it has some very interesting properties. In the Friday May 18th, 2007 issue of The Globe and Mail’s Social Studies column was this description. “The dust feels like snow, smells like gunpowder and doesn’t taste too bad.”

As we pass the moon’s orbit, we eventually encounter the Asteroid Belt, an area that is littered with the debris of large and small objects probably left behind after the solar system was formed. Some of those objects collide in this area and break off into smaller chunks. I would imagine there’s even a  fine layer of dust or particulate throughout that area of space.

The surface of Mars appears to be desert-like with canyons deeper than those on Earth and a volcanic peak that makes Mount Everest look like a foothill. The dust storms on that planet are legendary. Our Mars rovers have successfully operated in this dusty environment. Some day, perhaps in your lifetime, you’ll witness human footprints being left behind on the dusty surface similar to ones left on the moon.

Seth Borenstein of The Associated Press wrote: “Planets and much on them, including humans, come from dust–mostly from dying stars. But where did the dust come from? A Nasa telescope may have spotted one of the answers. It’s in the wind bursting out of super-massive black holes.” It seems that astronomers were able to study the dust from a quasar eight billion light years away. In it, they discovered “glass, sand, crystal, marble, rubies and sapphires. ‘In the end, everything comes from space dust,’ said Ciska Markwick-Kemper, lead author of a study … in Astro-Physical Journal Letters.” It was to be published in October 2007. This was from the Tuesday October 16th, 2007 issue of The Globe and Mail’s Social Studies column.

Apparently, the universe is a pretty dirty place. Ian Sample in a recent issue of The Guardian wrote that researchers have revealed “…that limitless stretches of space are strewn with interstellar soot, making it harder to see very distant objects such as exploding stars or supernovae. The finding, reported in the U. S. journal Science, is more than a matter of cosmic cleanliness. Proof of the existence of space soot raises serious questions about the mysterious ‘dark energy’ that is thought to drive the expansion of the universe.”

When I get my chimney cleaned, I’ve seen the little bit of soot that’s up there. Can you imagine huge expanses of our universe filled with this so-called soot? What chimney sweep do we call for that? Maybe that’s what the solar winds are for…

So, if you have yet to begin your own spring cleaning be thankful you don’t have to worry about anything outside your front door. In one way or another, it gets looked after.

***

Don Jackson