Exploring the Antarctic

Google has improved upon their streetview “maps” of the South Pole.  You can check those out here.

Finding this had the terrible effect of reminding me that I don’t properly recall how many times my father went to the South Pole (Google says 4 and I’ll believe).  Googling my father is a strange experience.  I most appreciated this summary of his life/times by Howard Cohen, a peer at the University of Florida during my father’s lifetime there.

Things that have become true since my father died:

• I mentally calculate how many more years anyone else who dies had than my dad did; I resent the fact that he didn’t get those years, that I didn’t get those years.  I wish I didn’t; I’m not proud of this.
• I can be sold almost anything with a space theme.  ”Oh, look, this happy meal has an astronomy toy; I haven’t had McDonald’s since April but I guess that all ends today!”*
• I don’t properly recall what his voice sounded like; I smile every time I get the answering machine at my mother’s home and have the chance to recall his voice again.
• I can’t listen to NPR anymore. I no longer subscribe to those podcasts because I just can’t cry on my way to work every day.  For some reason, hearing NPR doesn’t work for me in the way that watching the Muppets does.
• I tell everyone else that its okay for each of us to work through our grief at the pace that makes sense individually, but I don’t mean it.  It’s okay for everyone else.  I shouldn’t be stuck where I am.

* Thank goodness McDonald’s hasn’t cottoned on to space toys yet.  There’s a bullet I’ve dodged!