We just marked the 40th anniversary of the moon landing. Some people just won’t accept facts as evidenced by those who say that walking on the moon was all a hoax, (a hoax akin to those who contend the earth is flat or that Obama is not a U. S citizen even though he was born in Hawaii of a mother who was a U. S. citizen.) I am convinced the moon landing really happened because if there had been some shenanigans taking place regarding its authenticity the just-elapsed forty year span would have exposed people with a guilty conscience who would have taken the opportunity to write a book and make some money from the supposed scam. One of the astronauts, Buzz Aldrin, has become my hero, because when confronted by a verbally abusive critic, he up and popped him. The guy tried to sue but the judge declared he had it coming. You can watch it happen. Go to Huffingtonpost.com and scroll down in "Most popular on Huffington Post" until it comes into view. The video is titled “Buzz Aldrin Punches Moon Landing Conspiracy Theorist in the Face.”
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I worked in the hayfield again Monday morning even though the weather threatened to drive me out. A dark blue storm cloud slid around to the south but put on quite a show with all the sharp lightning it produced. It made me think back to another time when I was in a wheat field near Kiowa, Kansas. Cauliflower clouds had grown tall all that afternoon and when night came on and our combines still threshed away sharp lightning lit the sky and kept coming toward us. With lightning dancing all around we finally got scared enough to stop, shut the machines down, and dismount. That decision was not what the owner of the field thought should occur. He came roaring up in his pickup and swore up and down that we should keep those machines going. He was more than likely afraid of hail wiping out the nice crop and our safety was not particularly high on his list, an attitude I found to exist among certain other farmers down there. Luckily he backed off and we did not combine anymore that evening.
Reminded of old combining stories, there is another that comes to mind. I was atop a machine running in road gear for several miles down some highway in Nebraska, it was cold and drizzly, and, with no cab, I drove all hunched up. The highway was a bit narrow, and I guess I was weaving across the center line a bit, but I didn’t think much. A man and woman in a car passed me; I remember seeing grocery bags in the back seat but thought little else of it, except when he passed and pulled over to the side of the road which blocked me from going further. He got out and proceeded to holler and scream at me about keeping “that goddamn thing on my side of the road!” He kept at it, and I was not going to take any more of it and took the machine out of gear, locked the brakes, and started getting out of my seat to confront him. He saw my reaction and screamed, “If you don’t know it, I’m the sheriff of this goddamn county!” Just then the boss of the outfit pulled up in his pickup and everything settled down. I may just have punched him out, but unlike Buzz Aldrin, I don’t think the judge would have sided with me to tell the sheriff he had it coming.
