Mazama

By Bob Spiwak
    Hot! Low to mid-90s. However, a friend from Philadelphia a few days ago reported 105 degrees and 80-percent humidity. Our rarified, airified moisture seems to be hovering around 18 percent, so let’s not complain.
    The same cannot be said of the corn I planted. Where in its row there is all-day sunshine, the stalks are over a foot high, but working down the line where there is partial filtered afternoon shade the corn is as high as a grasshopper’s eye. No wonder there are no trees in rural Iowa and Nebraska.
    Contrary to rumors, the Wednesday market in Mazama is not moving to the courtyard of the Mazama Store, but remaining behind the community building. It starts at five and goes until seven-ish, so there is time to visit the market and still make it to the store for pizza night.
    Speaking of the store, Monday evening there was a fare-thee-well party for Rebecca Colvin and family. She, Tim, and sons Ben and Henry are moving back to the coast where Tim has a job waiting, and Ben, the elder, is already enrolled in school. Rebecca, I am told, will still be coming back periodically to work her magic in the Mazama Store’s bakery. Tim will be missed at the ice rink and on the soccer fields.
    Brushes with Stardom. This came up at happy hour the other evening. Nancy and Timm Wezeman were skiing in Utah and waiting at the bottom of the hill. A skier whizzed by, going right over Nancy’s skis. He halted, turned around and apologized. It was Robert Redford. Nancy noted that he was shorter than she had expected.
    A third party (or more) brush involving Redford. A woman was at an ice cream cone counter and bought one, as she was being served, Redford stood next to her and gave his order. She left the store shaking with excitement, went to lick her ice cream and found an empty cone. She went back into the store where the movie star advised her summarily of her ice cream, “It’s in your purse.”   
    Disaster Coming. On PBS’s NOVA last week, we watched a documentary about the Earth’s magnetic core. It seems that the center of the earth is filled with molten iron. To oversimplify, this stuff sends out magnetic fields that leak out of the bottom of the planet, wrap around it south to north, and then re-enter the globe at the top that is called the North Pole. The whole operation is governed by solar winds, or sunspots, and this is what creates the Northern Lights.
    Well, according to scientists on the program, there is growing concern that sunspot activity has been diminishing, and this is affecting the magnetic field of the planet, which apparently helps keep us on course, whether hiking with a compass, or hurtling through space. There was something about “By the year 2050….” that I missed but it implied bad things.
    However, if the Mayan calendar is correct, we won’t be here after December 2012, thus making whole magnetic occurrence moot.
    Have a nice day.