Island Moon July 29, 2011A 8

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Under The Padre PalmsWhen the Magic Went Away

By Arlan Andrews, Sr.

The Final ChapterIt was with a touch of sadness that I watched the final

episode of an adventure that had gone on for many years. In an epic climax, courageous humans finally overcame unbelievable obstacles in a world far different than ours, coming back to a place of mere mortals to live among those who would never know the scope of their adven-tures, the depth of that darkness from which they had re-turned.

In that magical world so close to our own, yet so far away for those of us with mundane lives, these seem-ingly ordinary people had performed acts of a special kind. Using implements of incredible power, perform-ing feats impossible in our part of the Universe, these in-trepid souls had levitated in mid-air, traveled at fantastic speeds, and viewed the whole Earth as a magic carpet beneath their feet.

Borne by a giant white bird named after a civilization lost in the mists of time, braving blasts hotter than a dragon’s breath, they escaped that place of darkness and danger, stepping out into a flowered wonderland of warm and gentle breezes.

I speak of course of the final flight of Space Shuttle At-lantis, and of her crew. What were you thinking of?

Metal and Magic and Muggles, Oh My!That same week, I also watched the final movie of the

Harry Potter series, The Deathly Hallows, Part 2. Once again I was transported into the magical world of J. K. Rowling, where specially-trained young people, wield-ing implements of unbelievable power, overcame incred-ible obstacles, finally returning to the mundane world of muggles, there to live their lives among others who would never know the darkness and delights of their magical world.

These two great adventures deserve comparison; they have touched the souls of millions. Each carried with it the promise of new experiences and a longing for life beyond the reach of routine reality. The Space Shuttle and Harry Potter both brought pleasure and knowledge to millions, one through scientific fact and engineering achievement, the other solely through imagination. By joining the sense of wonder of these two worlds, we may yet stimulate further fantastic adventures.

Back to the Future Ten years ago I wrote an article for the Corpus Chris-

ti Caller-Times about the first Harry Potter books and movies. There I complained that Harry’s pure fantasy and magic could not be achieved in real life. That the hard science fiction of my youth, some 50 years before, showed us youngsters rockets and robots and space trav-

el – goals that we teenage dreamers could actually ac-complish. And we did! Millions of scientists and en-gineers followed the visions of Robert Heinlein, Isaac Asimov, Arthur C. Clarke and others, and built those rockets and robots and space ships. Some of those teens later landed on the Moon, others built probes that have explored all of the planets. Still others built computers and high tech companies and the Internet and gave us the daily cornucopia of electronic marvels.

I worried back then that Harry Potter fans would never be able to bring about their favorite futures like we had. But another writer told me that Harry Potter actually rep-resented the fantastic new sciences of the new Millen-nium. He claimed that imaginations stimulated by the wonders of Hogwarts and Diagon Alley would one day invent 21st century technologies that exceed even the wands and amulets and potions used by Harry and his friends. Even Einstein said that imagination is more im-portant than knowledge!

Childhood’s EndSo in the same week, Harry Potter’s adventures ended

and the Space Shuttle flew its final flight. To multitudes of children (and many adults), Harry’s last story marks the end of his childhood -- and of theirs. To those of us who have seen the magnificent spectacle of Space Shut-tle launches, watched the International Space Station course the night sky, or appreciated the wonders discov-ered by the Hubble Telescope, the end of the Shuttle pro-gram represents a finality all its own.

For millions around the world, both the believers in magic and the practitioners of technology, our shared childhoods are over. Hopefully Harry’s inspiration will carry today’s young into worlds of the future where we all can ride antigravity brooms and play Qidditch, where we can travel instantly to anywhere, where walking through walls is commonplace, and invisibility cloaks hang on Wal Mart racks. And we can hope as well that American entrepreneurs and others will shortly provide access to Space not only for astronauts, but for anyone who can buy a ticket.

As the great Russian space pioneer Tsiolkovsky said, “The Earth is the cradle of Mankind. But one cannot stay in the cradle forever.” It is time for us all to grow up, each in our own way. The future waits for no one.

Meanwhile, in that very same week, with the arrival of an orbiting NASA probe, the asteroid Vesta saw a new Dawn.

Arlan Andrews, Sr., is an environmental engineer and science fiction writer living on Padre Island. Some of his works are available on Amazon.com.

From Salt Air to Salt LakeThe City Mormons Built

Story by Mary Craft, O.D.

I was thinking I was overdue for a trip when I got the email.

The annual Optometric conven-tion was being held in Salt Lake City which is a unique town in a part of the country I had nev-er visited. My first glimpse of life there was on the connect-ing flight from Denver. I have never seen so many children on a flight before. The young families aboard had 3-4 chil-dren close in age. The moms for the most part had on no makeup and were plainly dressed. The kids, even teens were demon-strative in their affection to both parents and they portrayed very close knit families.

I had heard of the Mormon ma-jority and their conservatism so I found it incongruous to have a glass-walled smoking room at the SLC airport. Also, the li-quor laws were made more lax in 2009, ironically by the most-ly Mormon legislature that has never had a drink. Drinking there is now pretty much like anywhere else. One local brew-ery named their beer Polygamy Porter, “Why have just one?”

There was so much I learned on this trip which was easy since I came in knowing noth-ing. There were many surprises, the biggest that there is a large gay population there. I thought it an unusual destination point to go to a conservative town but learned that they were most-ly from there. The most recent annual Gay Pride Parade there was the largest with more than 100 entries and Roseanne Barr was the Grand Marshal.

Build it and they will come The city itself is very beautiful and very clean with flow-

ers, trees and greenery everywhere. You need to walk the city streets to really appreciate it. There are unique, or-nate buildings from the 1800s amongst the contemporary ones. Many of these old buildings house bars and restau-rants with the original interiors. There are plaques out-side these buildings that give their history.

The city was born in 1847 when Brigham Young and his flock walked there with push carts from Missouri. He de-clared “This is the Place” and a temple, that took 40 years

to build, was constructed on that spot. The city grid was then laid out from the Temple and the streets were given num-bers not names. For example, 300 South Street is three blocks south of the Tem-ple. the blocks are longer because they were designed to make ten acre lots. This was determined to be enough land to sus-tain a family with animals and crops.

The streets are quite wide, eight driving lanes to be exact. It is said that Brigham Young wanted to make the streets wide enough to turn around a wagon with oxen without using profanity. The width of the streets makes it necessary to have a system in place for pedestrians. There are the usual stop and go signals but there is a 25 second countdown warning to al-low time to cross. Also, there is a real-istic chirping sound coming from above on the lamp post while it is safe to cross. When I first heard this I kept trying to find the bird.

The city that pioneer Mormons built The city is composed of 62% Mormons.

The two non-Mormon natives I met (a taxi driver and bartender) both had their fathers come to work on the Union Pa-cific Railroad as did many of the Asian community ancestors. It is evident that the city has great pride in the pioneer movement since most citizens have an-cestors that made the difficult jour-ney here. Many lost their lives on the way mostly women, children and elder-ly. There are statues and murals depict-ing them walking the trail and working the land. This type of artwork is seen in the government buildings, banks and in the old Gateway train station. The state symbol, the beehive, also appears every-where on sidewalks, light poles, build-ings and two four foot high hives are in front of the Capitol. It represents indus-

triousness and working together to build a community as they did in the beginning.

The Pioneer Women Museum was especially inspiring to me. There were three stories full of mementos from that era and signs listing the local families that donated them. There were dishes, dolls, parasols, clothing, furni-ture, hats, jewelry, lace,fans, etc. One display case had items from the last known pioneer who died in 1968 at the age of 108. It had the buckskin mask she made to protect her face from the desert winds. All the walls were covered with hundreds of large framed photographs of pioneers.

Next time: Whatever happend to Brigham Young?

Don is one of the tour guides at the Temple Square. There are no tours inside the temple because once it was dedicated, it became “The House of the lord” and only Mormons are allowed inside. Marriages performed there are not for a lifetime, but an eternity.