16



March 20, 2020: The more I remember, and the more the events come into focus, the luckier I feel to be alive today. Maybe my first lifespan on earth has only ten years or so to go, but knowing that I’ll be coming back to life in a thousand or so years after that gives me a warm glow inside. Traveling in the past is exciting and informative in its own way, but the future is beginning to look limitless. But we’ve got a “ways to go” before we get there.

The red star threw me for a loop. In the context of the year 1962, I knew what it meant.

I asked Ethan how he’d been sleeping lately.
He said, “Funny you should ask that. Between seeing the flashing lights formation in the sky and getting sick, I’ve been having trouble falling asleep.”
“Sorry to hear that.” I saw that Ethan had a am/fm radio on the small table beside the couch. “Maybe listening to music might help.”
Ethan replied, “No, but it has given me some company while staying up to 3 AM. I discovered this radio program called 'The Thayer Harcus Show'. It comes on at midnight and stays on for three hours.”
My ears perked up, “What’s the show about?”
Ethan said, “Thayer usually has a special guest he talks to the first hour then for the next two hours listeners call in to the talk to the guest, ask questions, and sometimes relay a story of their own.”
“What do they talk about?”
“Space aliens, UFOs, secret government activities, conspiracies of all kinds, etc. I don’t believe a word of it, but it is entertaining and even sometimes fascinating. Especially when you have insomnia.”
“Do you know where the program originates?”
Ethan replied, “I do but it’s not because Thayer announces it. He pretends he’s in some secret location because if the government knew where he was, they would, according to him, shut him down. I know where he is because it was an article about his show in the newspaper.”
“Where is his studio?”
“The Okefenokee Swamp.”
I wished Ethan a speedy recovery and started walking westward.

I had time to think about the FTLs as I was traveling along. If I was a miniature sun, and my core elements included hydrogen and helium, and if I had to assume the onerous task of appearing like a human being for all day and part of the night, where would I go to find a little relaxation?

Only one answer came to mind. A nuclear reactor. I could envision several of the FTLs sitting around in the reactor cores, drinking martinis, smoking cigars and telling bad jokes. A nuclear reactor to them would be like a hot tub to us. A really, really hot tub.
It just so happened several reactors were only a couple of hundred miles away from my present location. The Savannah River Site, located along the western border of South Carolina, was a government facility, that was primarily utilized for producing tritium, a key ingredient in atomic bombs.

The site was heavily guarded. I could get on easily enough if I wanted to, but I ran the risk of being caught while doing so, and explaining myself would be a very complicated business. The best thing for me to do was to camp near the perimeter fence in a wooded area, well away from an entrance. There was a chance an FTL would not change from humanoid form to light beam until it reached the fence. It wasn’t much of a chance, but it was worth a try. I needed to know why some of them had entered earth’s atmosphere in the shape of a star instead of a cross.

Meanwhile, I needed to talk to a lawyer. Two days out from the fishing village, I stopped at a small town about fifteen miles from the Savannah River Site. The lawyer’s name was John Alonzo Smith. He had been a practicing attorney for over thirty years.

I can’t give the exact reasons why I needed the services of a lawyer. Let’s just say it dawned on me that all my time hopping could be used against me when I got back to 2020. Legal protection was a good idea in case something like that happen. Now supposedly, regular humans would have no memory of ever meeting me. But there were always exceptions to the rule, and since I wasn’t fully versed with the rules of time travel, I thought it best err on the side of caution.

This was one time when hindsight was literally 2020.

Total perfection is not possible. But perfection as a goal is inspirational. That’s why we believe God is perfect.

I spent a full week reconnoitering the perimeter of the “bomb plant” (as it was called by the residents living in the area). I spent the nights wide awake making my camps at different locations each night. I spent the days wandering around the countryside, occasionally meeting and talking with local people. I felt safe doing so because I knew the FTLs wouldn’t be entering the plant in the daytime because that’s when they were normally to be found in humanoid form

I spent most of one day with a shade tree mechanic named Josh, helping him with his car. He was overhauling the engine, and I noticed (while walking by his house) he and what turned out to be his girlfriend, struggling in their efforts to get the engine out of the car. I immediately offered my services. We were able to successfully disengage the  engine from the car.

They thanked me and the girl friend asked me if I would like a glass of lemonade. I said most certainly.

We sat in lawn chairs under an oak tree, enjoying the fresh air and sunshine.
Josh’s girlfriend’s name wad Rebecca. I complimented her on the taste of the lemonade.

She replied, “Thank you. We don’t know how you happened to show up when you did, but it was certainly a blessing.”
“I was a glad to be of help. In fact, I’m free the rest of the day. I’ll be glad to hang around and help install the new engine.”
Josh said, “Mister, that would be great. I was starting to worry that we might not be able to lift the engine. It’s one heavy sucker.”
I helped Josh with the car for the next few hours freeing up Rebecca to do a few chores in the house. She didn’t live with Josh, but they were planning to get married in a few months and she was already beginning to get the house of a bachelor in shape for a married couple.
About one or so, she hollered to us from the back porch, “I’ve got some sandwiches ready if you’re interested.”
Josh hollered back, “We sure are! Can we eat outside? We’re kind of messy and greasy.”
Josh had some Go-Jo, a strong hand cleaner. We used it and went back to sit under the same tree where we had drunk the lemonade. The sandwiches hit the spot.

When twilight descended, they asked me to stay for supper, but I politely declined. It had been an enjoyable day.

After five nights and no FTLs, I realized a new stratagem was necessary. I remembered talking to Ethan back at the seaside village about the radio program, 'The Thayer Harcus Show'. Maybe Harcus could be a conduit to the FTLs.

I swam across the Savannah River and while drying out in the process, walked to a town a little west of Augusta, Georgia. At a Radio Shack, I bought a transistor radio. The arrival of midnight found me searching the am dial for Harcus’s show. Took me a few minutes, and the climbing of a tall tree, to finally pick up his signal.

Harcus’s guest that night wasn’t as outlandish as you might think. He was predicting that one day everyone would have his or her own phone and carry it around on in their pocket or purse. A few callers enthusiastically agreed while the majority scoffed at such a wild prediction.

Harcus came off as a decent interviewer. His callers were a mixed bag, at least the night I listened. Some acted like they were in on the joke, others sounded sincere.

It took me two days and one night of steady walking to reach the Okefenokee Swamp (where Harcus’s studio was reportedly located.

The Okefenokee is big, over 400,000 acres and much of it is under government supervision, which is when you think about it, an odd place for a conspiracy promoter like Harcus to be. But in the conspiracy world, I’m sure it made perfect sense.

As it turned out, Harcus was just west of the swamp, almost exactly on the Georgia-Florida border. He lived in one state and worked in another. Probably just another way to confuse people who were out to get him.

My method of finding Harcus was to talk to Okefenokeens. One such individual hunted alligators for a living. His name was Walter and he lived with his grandson in a one room frame house just inside the north edge of the swamp. They had a dog which they used as a birddog. What was unusual about the dog was that it wasn’t the “correct” breed for a birddog. The dog had wandered into their yard one day and the grandson had formed an instant bond with it, and despite the doubts of the grandfather and his friends, the grandson successfully transitioned the dog into a bird tracker par excellence.

Beside selling alligator skins and hides, Walter also sold “gator” meat. Seems our Mr. Harcus was as aficionado of “gator white tail” meat, which Walter described as tasting like high-quality veal, tender and succulent.  In selling alligator remains, Walter and his grandson and dog traveled widely around the northern and western portions of the Okefenokee in his 1950 Ford pickup. Harcus was one of Walter’s regulars. Harcus wasn’t in the habit of revealing where he lived, so Walter delivered the alligator meat to Harcus’s studio. In other words, thanks to Walker and Harcus’s penchant for exotic meat, I now knew how to find the broadcasting location of 'The Thayer Harcus Show'.

Before leaving, I did accompany Walter and his grandson one afternoon when they went bird hunting. Not to shoot a bird but watch to dog in action. That was obviously one valuable dog, and not just for his birddogging ability. I wondered if the dog’s owner was even now looking high and low for him.

It was still 1962, but it was now autumn, early October according to Walter. There was something about October 1962 that kept nagging at me. But I couldn’t quite place it. Whatever it was probably the reason I was where I was and why I was doing what I was doing. Oh, well, the only thing to do was for me to keep on putting one foot in front of the other. As Montaigne said, we must endure what we can’t avoid.

Sometimes relevance is overemphasized – what is irrelevant can be more intriguing - and so we pass time without meaning but we are still somehow content.

The only way to explain small things is by believing in bigger things.

Think of time as a river and a time traveler as a pebble. Throw a pebble in the river and the water will be slightly disrupted but the flow of the current will not change. So, in dealing with time travel, chances are nothing or no one will be affected.

But sometimes a change is needed. What happens then? Nobody knows. Until perhaps now, that is.