It’s a big world out there. There are a lot of places to go and people to see, and such.
If you are up for an adventure. Or just a little learning. It is just a matter of stepping out on steady feet and with steady minds.
Here’s one.
There is a place 65 miles northwest of Las Vegas that might interest you, people who used to light matches when you were a kid. It is a nuclear bomb research and waste site that has detonated over 1000 nuclear bombs between 1951 and 1992. Can you believe it? One thousand nuclear bombs. It is one of the most contaminated places in the US.
And here it is. The site offers monthly public tours. I’d wear a hoodie. And a face mask. And I sure as heck wouldn’t buy anything from the concession stand.
I imagine things don’t last long at that Vegas strip.
But here is something that lasts a long time.
Fletcher Jones. It is an Australian garment manufacturer that was started in 1924 by a guy named David Fletcher. And his company began selling textiles in Warrnambool, Victoria. His company gained footing by the early 1940s, and they started providing a lifelong guarantee on their woolen clothes. Lifetime. They also offered free alterations if you had gained weight through too many Ho-Hos or lost weight through dieting. It didn’t matter. They stood behind the guarantee. The locals still wear some of their clothes that have survived all those years through generations. I wonder if their profits soared or tanked?
Speaking of soaring, and tanks, too, for that matter.
Let’s go back to WWII. The Germans have a branch of their military called the Luftwaffe. In short, it was the aerial warfare branch of the German Wehrmacht all during that war. It was established in 1935. And, the Luftwaffe was arguably the best air force in the world during that time.
Now, let’s talk about other things soaring, like Dumbo and Tinkerbell. You can read on the internet that the Luftwaffe’s Master Interrogator, a man named Hanns Scharff, hand-created the mosaics at Walt Disney World.
It seemed odd to me, so I investigated further. It turns out there is no evidence of this. In truth, all those mosaics were designed by professional artists and Imagineers. Heaven only knows how this one got started, but it is another example of the “information” we might find on the internet.
The truth? After the war ended, Scharff was captured and interrogated by the Allies. Instead of being prosecuted for war crimes, he was classified as a POW interrogator. Since he did not use torture, he was treated better in his postwar assessments. After his release, he returned to his old, quiet lifestyle in Germany.
So as I mentioned. It is a big world out there.
But we should be on our guard as we discover all that is to be known. With every step.
Because sometimes, there are some tricky details that just might give us the slip.
“”””””””
“Listen to yourself. It knows.” — Clarissa Pinkola Estés
“”””””””
“The soul has been given its own ears to hear things the mind does not understand.” — Rumi
“”””””””
“Let yourself be silently drawn by the strange pull of what you really love.” — Rumi
“”””””””
“The quieter you become, the more you can hear.” — Ram Dass
“”””””””
