Giant Concrete Arrows...In The Middle Of Nowhere

Many of us are spending their winters out in the deserts of the South-West. Yet I doubt that you have come across a large concrete arrow in the middle of nowhere. But they do exist: Giant Concrete Arrows pointing the way through America. What are they, who made them and what was the purpose? They are up tp 70feet long. Shrubs have tried to grow over them, but they persist, some are broken though due to frost and rain. If you follow them, where will you end up? What are these giant arrows? Some kind of surveying mark?       Landing beacons for flying saucers? Earth’s turn signals? No, it's.…..The Transcontinental Air Mail Route. On August 20, 1920, the United States opened its first coast-to-coast airmail delivery route, just 60 years after the Pony Express closed up shop. There were no good aviation charts in those days, so pilots had to eyeball their way across the country using landmarks. This meant that flying in bad weather was difficult, and night flying was just about impossible. The Postal Service solved the problem with the world’s first ground-based civilian navigation system: a series of lit beacons that would extend from New York to San Francisco . Every ten miles, pilots would pass a bright yellow concrete arrow. Each arrow would be surmounted by a 51-foot steel tower and lit by a million-candlepower rotating beacon. (A generator shed at the tail of each arrow powered the beacon.) Go West pilot, go west…. (or East)   Now mail could get from the Atlantic to the Pacific not in a matter of weeks, but in just 30 hours or so. Even the dumbest of air mail pilots, it seems, could follow a series of bright  yellow arrows straight out of a Tex Avery cartoon. By 1924, just a year after Congress funded it, the line of giant concrete markers stretched from Rock Springs, Wyoming to Cleveland , Ohio . The next summer, it reached all the way to New York, and by 1929 it spanned the continent uninterrupted, the envy of postal systems worldwide. Radio and radar are, of course, infinitely less cool than a concrete Yellow Brick Road from sea to shining sea, but I think we all know how this story ends. New advances in communication and navigation technology made the big arrows obsolete, and the Commerce Department decommissioned the beacons in the 1940s. The steel towers were torn down and went to the war effort. But the hundreds of arrows remain. Their yellow paint is gone, their concrete cracks a little more with every winter frost, and no one crosses their path much, except for coyotes and tumbleweeds. But they’re still out there. Maybe, next time we are out there we will try to find one of them. So long…thanks for dropping by!

About Pirates And A Sharp Drop Of Temperature This Morning

The weather men had announced a sharp cooling for last night and when I checked the temperature at 6.00am (Molly had to get out) the thermometer showed just 5C. Around here that is pretty cold for the 1.week of September. But at least the sky was clear and when the sun came over the top the temps climbed quickly to 10C. It is the northern winds which can cause such sharp drops in temperature. While we are looking towards the end of the summer season the city across from us, Eastport, ME is having a last big fest in town. It’s the Pirate Days over there and they expect more than 10.000 visitors. There’s gotta be something about those old Pirate stories that people are embracing. Yeah, pirates were brutal criminals and it is kind of funny trying to understand how so many people are enthralled with pirates. Last weekend it was Lubec where the pirates invaded town and I know from my home town Eckernfoerde, Germany that they are having their own pirates days every year In  school we heard about the most infamous German pirate “Klaus Stoertebeker” who was the leader of a large group of renegades running their piracy mostly in the Baltic Sea. After years they were finally caught by a fleet of ship under the command of Simon of Utrecht, near the island of Helgoland and brought to the city of Hamburg, where Stoertebeker along with 73 followers was decapitated.  His sorry head was put on a stake in town so everybody could see he was actually dead. Stoertebeker was born in 1320 and died in Hamburg on October 20 1401. The city of Hamburg has a statue of the man.           Klaus Stoertebeker

A Time Of Change

It is quite obvious that we are in a whirlwind of change. The usual warm summer days are gone, mornings are generally somewhat cooler and we are having days where the air is void of any haze. But then the presence of a nearing fall season gives room again to other days. Days like today, with a humidity of over 90% and an early morning temperature of 65F. And yesterday a huge low pressure moved across New Brunswick getting us the first real fall storm with a lot of rain. Of course, the rain was needed, as we haven’t had any for the better part of August. And the forest fire warning signs showed the pointer on red. Forest fires are the nightmare of this island. We wouldn’t stand any chance to fight a fire without massive help from outside, and by the time help had arrived it would be too late. Kids are going back to school today, a neighbour’s daughter is off to the big city to attend college for the first time. People are moving on with their lives. But there is something which will never change. It’s the fact that oil companies will raise their prices when ever there is a slight excuse for it. This time it will be the looming war in Syria. We have already seen a jump at the pump and believe me it’s just the beginning. Before snowbirds will be heading south this year gas will reach over $4.00/gal. in most states. In spite the fact that the general unrest in the Middle East has lasted for thousands of years and will never change, the U.S. is readying for an attack on Syria. Obviously the reasoning is to stop the use of chemical weapons on civilians, yet, it doesn’t seem to bother that air strikes will kill thousands and incite another wave of terrorism on North America. When the Arabs are calling for international intervention now they will condemn the West after the first bombs have fallen screaming Death to America! What never stops to amaze me is the fact that even though the money is tight on every home budget, there will always be funding for another war. I guess one needs to be a politician to understand that, Sorry, wasn’t really my intention to sour your day. But when news like that is piling up I need to vent it out. Back to the home front. While the first fall storm was howling outside I have been spending (wasting) an entire day on my antique Toshiba laptop. It is the CD-ROM device which is giving me a headache. Whenever I insert a CD or DVD it doesn’t show on the menu. After countless attempts to remove and then reinstall the driver it finally showed, but when I tried to install a software from CD it failed miserably. After I remove a CD from the device the driver fails again and we start it all over again. Have I reached the end of this laptop’s lifespan? I seriously fear for that. So I fooled around with the laptop for another few hours this morning, before it was actually time for lunch. Bea had the idea of taking a trip to Calais, border town to St.Stephen,NB, to do some shopping. I then decided to tag along and soon we drove through coastal Maine to see what the local Wally Mart had to offer. Got myself a few ink cartridges for our Canon PIxma printer. They are always running low on ink when you have some real important stuff to print out. The two cartridges I bought were more money then what I had paid for the printer. Talk about taking advantage of people’s needs. Also dropped in on a hardware store to get a few plumbing parts for a neighbour who was replacing his toilet and needed a new water line. We got home again around 4pm and after a coffee and an ice cream I headed over to said neigbour to help with the plumbing project. Now, like I said before I am the nightmare of any plumbing project but after we got ourselves organized we had the toilet installed and the water was running without causing a leak. I was mighty impressed with myself. Connecting a water line without a leak – it had never happened before. You have thanks for dropping by again.

The Coast And The Sea – just pictures