How many of us do something against our wishes because it’s our “job”?
How many of us go against the wishes of others because it’s our destiny?
Yesterday evening, my wife and I drove to a food store chain called “Cheeburger Cheeburger” because a day or so before we had listened to “50s on 5,” a satellite radio station dedicated to the popular American rock’n’roll music of the 1950s, which put me in the mood for a ’50s style eatery.
Delayed gratification had us sitting at a two-topper, recently cleaned off by Russell.
Courtney took our food order and Mayra brought us our food.
As we were close to finishing our delicious ground-up cow meat patties on buns and basket of frings (sliced/fried onions/potato), a large group of teenagers entered all cheery, bright-eyed and photo-happy, obviously not having eaten at this particular fine dining establishment before.
Of the group of 27, four young lads sat next to us, one wearing a T-shirt with the words “KEEP CALM I’M THE DOCTOR” emblazoned below the emblem of a old telephone booth, affectionately known as the time machine called the Tardis to fans of an internationally-popular show on the tellie called “Doctor Who.”
The young gentlemen were quite polite, informing my wife, upon her inquiries, that they haled from across the Big Pond in a small burgh called Birmingham (pronounced BIRM’ing-hum as opposed to our local town we call Birmin-HAM’).
They and their pals had enjoyed a good time at the U.S. Space and Rocket Center before being whisked off to the local shopping extravaganza known as the Madison Square Mall.
In like fashion to my wife’s curiosity, satisfying us that they were interested in a future career of engineering when they entered university (one favouring mechanical engineering and the other civil engineering), they pressed us for our favourite fast food joint.
As we hemmed and hawed, they informed us that they had the international fast food chains such as McDonald’s in Great Britain but not ones like Wendy’s.
I told them I believed my favourite place is Steak ‘n Shake, similar to Cheeburger Cheeburger but without the one-pound special, closer in style to my alltime favourite, Pal’s, which was too small for them to know about. My wife believed her favourite is In-N-Out Burgers, which is concentrated on the West Coast.
The young men told us they were still in secondary school and that one of their chaperones, a woman with pink stripes in her hair, was their physics teacher whose specialty is astrophysics.
We wished them well and told them we hoped to meet them on the International Space Station one day, imagining these guys and their friends the future of space exploration and settlement.
After all, the enthusiastic pursuits of our youth often encourage us to expand our horizons.
These young men, some of them wearing what I believe to be the head gear of the Sikh religion, are part of our future, going on into fields of science and engineering along with their colleagues of many races, religions, genders and backgrounds, inventing new ways of observing our universe that we hardly imagine possible today.
I am happy that our ancestors put us on the path for Americans and Brits to meet at a small restaurant tucked into a shopping centre in the south part of Huntsville, Alabama, USA, Earth.
Even as early as 25 years ago, I would not have thought it possible for us to meet like that.
Fifty years ago, not long after I was born, it was practically impossible.
Can you see how much progress we’ve made, how much farther we’ll go in 25 and 50 years from now?
Can you see why I don’t believe in secret societies and never chose to belong to one, even though I know they still exist and contribute in part to my being here today?
treetrunkdings 