A Mother's Prairie Love

There were many things to fear during my childhood on the hills and prairies of western South Dakota. There were man eating rattle snakes. I was always afraid of being caught in a stampede of buffaloes. Another was getting caught in a sudden blizzard and freezing to death on the open plains while trudging through waist deep snow on my way to our one room school house heated by a single coal stove.

Getting beat up by my older (and meaner) sister was a more domestic fear. She was one heavy drinkin, tobacco chewing, card playing, sharp shooten sixth grader picking on her younger and meeker brother. She was vicious but could be counted on to keep meat on the table. If it wasn't a deer picked off with her Winchester at 100 yards it could be the neighbor's dog. We didn't ask questions, just kept several bottles of ketchup on the table.

Having to deal with my younger brother’s violent temper was another. I could push him only so far before he snapped. And when you heard that POP, followed by a wild look in his eyes, the only safe and logical thing to do was to run for dear life. In his delirious state he would stop at nothing until you were bloody and unconscious. Yes, I could wrestle him down to the floor and hold him there, but that plan had its flaw. At some point in the day you’d have to let him go, and when you did, you’d better be quick. You needed to get into the bathroom and lock the door before a flying knife or Tonka Truck struck you in the back of the neck. He had a good arm and could nail a squirrel at 50 paces.

Rapid City was a town of 40,000 unique individuals. The infinite prairie boarded the city to the east. The majestic Black Hills boarded the city to the west. My home town was the bright spot of civilization for half the state. We had a hospital. We had three movie theaters (each with one screen). We had a Red Owl, Piggly Wiggly and Safeway grocery stores. We had the Chuck Wagon Restaurant with it famous Friday Night Fish Fry. We thought we’d hit the big league when Kmart opened a store at the Northgate Shopping Center. Imagine Rapid City with its very own Kmart. Now we could buy things at a discount. I loved the Kmart. The Blue Light Specials fascinated me. They just never had a special in the toy department. It was always linen or house wares of ladies underwear of something silly.

I was asked once if we feared an Indian uprising. After all, during my high school years the Indians became militant and took over the courthouse at Hill City, a little mining town thirty minutes or so out of Rapid. They burned the courthouse down, broke a few windows, and made a real nuisance of themselves. Taking all that into consideration, I can honestly say I never feared the Indians. Most of them stayed on the reservations. The ones in town kept to themselves and their bottle, if you know what I mean.

Some feared being a Mormon in a city full of Lutherans. We were teased because of our religion several times while growing up. It didn't’ bother me. I could give back whatever they dished out, especially to my Jehovah’s Witness friend.

No, the real thing that my brothers, sisters and I feared growing up was a lose tooth. You never wanted my mother to see you working on a lose baby tooth because if you did, the most unimaginable torture awaited. My mother was raised on a Montana ranch. She was the daughter of proud Swedes and stubborn English/Scots. She laughed at pain, especially having delivered 8 children. She had a motto that whatever was good enough for her was good enough for us. If her loose teeth were pulled by a string and a few good yanks then so should ours.

My mother specialized in capturing us unexpectedly. It was usually just as you left the bathroom. She'd catch hold of you, pin you to the ground, lasso your lose tooth with a bit of yarn or sting and then start the agonizing one, two or three mighty yanks required to capture that baby tooth. My teeth surrendered easily, flying out of my mouth on the first or second pull. Some of my siblings weren't as lucky. Many lost a section of jawbone when mother was forced into a fourth pull. I still remember the screaming to this day. Of course in those days parents could pretty much torture their children without fear of the law, especially in South Dakota.

That was the floor method. My memory also recalls another clever use of string and door knobs. She’d tie the string around your lose tooth on one end. The other end of the string was tied to a door knob. You sat in a chair near the door. She’d stand by the open door and count down to zero. At zero she'd slam the door. The motivated tooth flew across the room, just barely ahead of the blood curdling screams following.

Yes my friends, let this picture be a reminder to all that survived the tooth on the string application of mom’s love. We grew up tougher for it.

An Enemy From the Dark. Ch. 9. Location.

And now Troops, the 9th installment of a new mission I'm working on. Thanks for reading and forgive the errors. As I've said before, I've little time to polish so you get it right as it pours out the brain and through the fingertips.

Mr. Williamson

Location

Carick stood up and wiped the moisture away from his eyes and cheeks. His sleeve took care of the nose, something he regretted the moment he did it. He laughed to himself thinking how it would look to the cadets seeing their Cadet Captain giving life and death orders with a trail of snot running down his right sleeve.
“As if that’s the least of my worries right now,” he mumbled to himself. He straighten his tunic and turned toward the door. It’s two panels slid open with a hiss giving him an exit into Deck 12’s hallway. Every step along the way to the turbolift brought Carick a renewed determination to deliver this ship whole, with its complete crew compliment, to Starfleet Command. There were two things he needed to know to accomplish his goal.

1. Where were they?
2. Are the engines capable of warp drive?

He entered the turbolift.
“Destination?” came the automatic voice of the computer. Again, Carick waved his hand across the schematic to silence the vocal prompts so he could manually select his destination. Carick needed to become familiar with every aspect of the ship’s layout. Studying the deck plans on the tubolift wall was one good way to do it. A quick index search for ‘Stellar Cartography’ would of resulted in an immediate location, but that wouldn’t accomplish his goal of learning the decks. He pulled up the plans for Deck 3 and started looking.
“Call Waiting,” the computer announced. Carick understood that to mean someone was waiting to use the lift.
“Continue,” Carick said, giving the turbolift permission to move on to collect the next passenger with him along for the ride. The car picked up speed as it moved gracefully through the Voyager’s lift shafts. First horizontally then vertically, then horizontally again before slowing to a stop. The door opened.


“Captain?” Third year Cadet Roberts stood in the doorway with quite a surprised look on her face. “I was just coming to find you.”
“What deck is this?” Carick asked while waving the screen into standby.
“Deck 4,” she answered. “Where were you going?”
Carick walked out of the lift and into the hallway. There were no signs of damage. The walls were half fabric half metal. The floors seemed to be some kind of textured rubber, soft underfoot. The flat ceilings were lit by indirect lighting. Holographic projector bands appeared across the ceilings every ten feet or so. Larger blue force field emitters appeared at every hallway crossing. They protruded five inches from the walls and ceilings forming a large square upside down U.


“I was on my way to see you,” Carick answered. He started walking forward, leaving Roberts behind at the lift door. “Let's go to cartography.”
“You’re going the wrong director,” Roberts said as she pointed to the hallway on Carick’s left.
“Well, I hope I at least look like I know where I’m going,” he responded with a turn. “You lead on.”

They started walking. Roberts was anxious to make her first report to her new captain. “It didn’t take me long to find Cartography. I just told the lift where I wanted to go and it dropped me off here.”

“Yes, that what the lift does I’m told?” Carick answered.

Roberts nervously laughed. She wanted to impress the Captain with her ability to carry out assigned tasks quickly and thoroughly. She knew this adventure, if they returned alive, would cement a place for her in Starfleet Academy - especially if Carick gave her high marks.

“Anyway, the hard part was actually finding the room,” Roberts continued. “This is one of the larger decks on the saucer section, by the way, you knew that’s where you were didn’t you, the saucer section?”

“Is that why the hallway keeps turning toward the left, in a circle?” Carick responded sarcastically.

“Oh, that was stupid. Of course you know where you are. You’re the captain - I mean duh......” Roberts started laughing at herself nervously. .
Carick was loosing his patience. He increased his stride hoping to find Cartography. “Roberts, where are we?” he asked again.

“Deck 4?” she responded, wondering whether or not Carick was listening to her or not.

“I know this is Deck 4,” Carick stopped in mid sentence. Roberts bumped into him from behind nearly putting them both down on the floor. She stood and started apologizing for not looking where she was going.

“Stop. Listen to me Roberts. I want to know where the ship is. Can you show me?” he asked slowly and deliberately.

“Well,” Roberts answered with a prominent case of red faced embarrassment. “I have a pretty good idea. Cartography is right here,” she said pointing further down the hall. Carick resumed his quick pace. Roberts bit her tongue, making a verbal promise with herself not to say anything else that wasn’t absolutely necessary to answer the captain’s questions.

Stellar Cartography was a large round room, very much resembling a planetarium capable of seating twenty people. The center of the room held a series of holographic projectors pointing upwards toward the gray domed ceiling. Carick sat in one of the comfortable padded chairs near the doorway. Roberts walked half way around the room to a raised platform housing a desk with built in touch screen. She waved her hand over the screen. The projectors illuminated the center of the room filling the entire dome with a sphere of laser light.

After three more taps with her index finger Roberts brought up a detailed star map. Each star shone with its own color and size indicating the type of star.

“As you know, we can’t rely on constellations to pinpoint our exact location because from out here the constellations we know in Earth’s night sky look different.” Roberts felt it necessary to explain to Carick how she was able find their location in space. “So, without the constellations, you triangulate your location from the Federation’s navigational grid. I did a grid scan,” she waved her hand across the screen. A large yellow wave of light swept through the large holosphere occupying the center and dome of the room. Nothing was added on the map.
“As you can see, nothing. That is a bad sign.”

“That really is a bad sign,” Carick repeated. “Go on.”

Roberts voice increased in pitch revealing her excitement in having an audience of one. “So, the next thing you do would be to look for standard pulsars. Each pulsar has its own signature, kind of like fingerprints. If you can find three of them you should be able to find your location.”

“Reasonable. I would of done the same. Again, go on,” Carick urged her to continue.

“I scanned for pulsars,” she waved her hand again. Once again yellow bands swept around the sphere. This time the bands identified four pulsing pulsars. “Ta Da! and there they are!” Roberts proudly exclaimed. “With that success I can now identify our location. So, without further delay - I give you our location.”

Roberts tapped the screen, inserting the Romulan, Klingon and Cardassion borders. The sphere added the Federation’s boundaries, leaving only their location missing. Then with one final tap lines extended from each pulsar toward each other until they intersected. A bright orange dot appeared at that one point in space.

“From my calculations we are 53,435 light years from the Federation Border in the Alpha Quadrant. Of course I could be slightly off the mark depending on where you consider Federation space starts. I suppose the furthest any ship has been in this direction is, well, this ship and the Copernicus during the Perikoi encounter.” Roberts tapped again on the touch pad. Perikoi’s location flashed in amber very close to Cardassian Space. “We are exactly half way between Federation Space and Dominion Space.”

“So, the fastest way home isn’t in the direction of Earth is it?” Carick questioned as he stood and walked around the projection to get a better look at the terrain. “The fastest way home is toward Dominion Space and the Bajor Wormhole exit.”

“Correct,” Roberts agreed. “By my calculations, at warp 6, it should take approximately 37 months to get there.”

“Only 37?” Carick asked sarcastically. “Traveling three years toward Dominion Space. No problemo. Piece of cake. In a ship crewed by cadets with little if any space experience.”

“There is the problem of where we are now,” Roberts interrupted. “We exited the wormhole as it was collapsing. I’m guessing we may be in space controlled by the Anouway. Remember, the Alpha Quadrant is largely unexplored.”

The sound of static filled the silence as both Carick and Roberts stared at the sphere. Murdock’s voice emerged crisp and clear.

“Murdock to Carick.”

“Ben, you got the comm. systems running. Good boy. I ...”

“Oh, not me sir,” Murdock interrupted. “It was that kid Colin you sent up. He knows his stuff. I’ve got him working on the rest of the systems now.”

“Listen, we have our location....”

“Captain, sorry to interrupted again but we have a problem. Colin was also able to get long ranger sensors online. We had to gut one of the deflector back up relays to do it but that’s beside the point. We’re looking at the sphere now. There is something on the very outer edge of range, moving slowly, well sort of moving slowly, in a round about way, towards us.”

“Roberts, can we tie into ship sensors from here?” Carick asked walking toward Robert’s touch pad controls.

“Yes, I found that link earlier. Its this import button. Watch.”

The cartography sphere flicker then a copy of the Bridge sphere appeared before them. They immediately saw the yellow flashing icon moving in somewhat their direction. It was moving in warp so it couldn’t be a natural object. Suddenly the yellow flashing turned to bright red. The object changed its course directly toward the Voyager.

“Murdock, put the ship on red alert. I’m heading to the Engine Room. Calculate how long before that ship gets into firing range and let me know.”
Carick moved toward the door. “Roberts, to the bridge,” he said as he left the room for the turbolift.

The ship’s intercom sounded the call to alert stations. It rang, as per regulation, for 30 seconds. Then it rang again for another 30 seconds. Then again, to the point of annoyance. Carick tapped his comm badge.

"Connect, Murdock," he said to the ship's computer as he stepped into the turbolift. A moment later Murdock's voice came through.

"Yes, Captain."

"Don't play with the alarms. Ring it as per regulation and leave it. The Voyager isn't a fire truck. Got it?"

There was a short pause. "Yes sir," Murdock answered. Carik heard him start to chew Colin out before the line closed.

“What's next?” Carick asked himself. A question he didn’t want answered.

The Space Center's Dark Friday.....

Lost, Without Purpose. Slightly Drooling. Signs of a Space Center
Employee / Volunteer Suffering from Dark Friday Dementia

Hello Troops,
The Space Center celebrates a Dark Friday tonight. Dark Friday is defined as one of those rare Friday evenings without an Overnight Camp. I decided not to schedule a camp on October 30th because of Halloween. I reasoned the staff would enjoy a weekend off for spooky merrymaking. I since discovered my reasoning was flawed. The staff made it clear their desire for larger paychecks took precedence over released time from service to search our village for Halloween parties willing to accept bewildered Space Center staff and volunteers.

So, a couple dozen camp regulars are free tonight. I’m hoping they have someplace to go and don’t end up aimlessly wandering the streets of Pleasant Grove looking for purpose and direction.

For a Space Center employee freedom on a Friday night can cause a form of dementia. This malady, a distant cousin of Alzheimer's, is temporary - usually disappearing with Saturday’s sunrise. During the evening hours family and friends of Staff should be prepared to offer support and treatment if necessary. Please check for Friday Dementia's symptoms by answering these questions concerning your loved one's behavior:

1. Is your loved one aimlessly wandering through the house asking if the crew has arrived.
2. is your loved one taking sheets off the beds and covering every light fixture in your home?
3. Is your loved one looking through the kitchen’s cupboards and fridge for Little Caesar’s Pizza?
4. Is your loved one forcing Grandma to sit through station training at the living room computer?
5. Is your loved one rifling through your closets and dressers for any item of clothing that might identify them as an Orion Pirate?
6. Did your loved one interrupt your Friday night video with popcorn and Diet Coke with shouts to find cover, the Shadow was coming?
7. Is your loved one asking you for a midnight snack of ice cream sandwiches and WalMart Orange Soda?
8. Is your loved one sleeping on the floor with their computer and /or iPod, oblivious to the world - lost in some TV show recorded on iTunes and heard through a pair of ear buds?
9. Did your loved one throw a tantrum when your breakfast of cold cereal and pop tarts not include a WalMart glazed donut?
10. At 10:30 A.M. was your loved one standing in front of you telling you his/her name and asking for your vote?
11. At 10:45 A.M. was your loved one asking how many votes he got and when can he pick up a WalMart card?

These are the symptoms of a Space Center Staff / Volunteer suffering from Dark Friday Dementia. I suggest you take your child in your arms if you see these symptoms, and with a big hug, explain that all will be well. Remind them another Friday is only 7 days away. Explain to them that life outside the Space Center exists on a Friday night. Hand them a phone and tell them to call a friend. In serious cases, please call me. I’ll order them to bed. They are programmed to follow my orders

As for an old Space Center Director, my Dark Friday will be spent doing what I love most - Sitting Quietly.

Happy Halloween to all. Give your pancreas a work out this weekend and consume mass quantities of sugar and don’t forget to do what we love doing most - scaring the snot out of younglings tomorrow night :)

Mr. Williamson