My Wayward Winds

By James A. Hooks

There are more than 5 Thousand Galaxies in this one Picture, taken from an area no bigger than a grain of sand. Yet, each speck of light represents no less than 500 Billion Suns. Therefore if you think life is Universal, then if you let your imagination fly to the Endless Eternity, if you can dream it, then it is possible, Yet, also probable.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Jun 16, 2011
• ISBN: 9781462888436

James A. Hooks

James A. Hooks - Retired Planetarian- Astronomer. Taught High School Chemistry and Biology, directed the Robeson Planetarium Resource Center and Science Museum for thirty one years. Initiated the formation of the Southeastern Planetarium Association 1970, serving as its president 1970-1972. Served as President of International Planetarium Society Inc , 1979-1980 , receiving GovernorÊs School programs of Excellence, 1984. Instructor in Microbiology for Robeson Community College Nursing program 1984-1987. Instructor in Anatomy and Physiology for Southeastern Community College 1992-1993, Taught Astronomy at University of North Carolina Pembroke, 1996-2004. Presently serving on the Board of Trustees, Ocean Isle Museum Foundation, Inc.2008 Published tide charts "Tides Along our Coast 2000" to present.

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Copyright © 2011 by James A. Hooks.

Library of Congress Control Number:   2011909864

ISBN:         Hardcover                            978-1-4628-8841-2

                   Softcover                              978-1-4628-8842-9

                   Ebook                                   978-1-4628-8843-6

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Contents

Chapter 1

MY WAYWARD WINDS

Chapter 2

COUNT YOUR FRIENDS

Chapter 3

A LEARNING CURVE

Chapter 4

MY FIRST BOAT

Chapter 5

FINDING A SPECIAL BOAT

Chapter 6

A SUMMER OF SAILING

Chapter 7

A NEWER SAILBOAT

Chapter 8

OVERNIGHT TO CHARLESTON

Chapter 9

THE ANCHORAGE

Chapter 10

MISTAKES TO REMEMBER

Chapter 11

THE EVENTS THAT CAN CHANGE LIFE

Chapter 12

HALFWAY TO OCRACOKE

Chapter 13

EXPLORING THE DISMAL SWAMP

Chapter 14

THE DISMAL SWAMP: A QUICK TRIP

Chapter 15

ACROSS FLORIDA

Chapter 16

THE WILDERNESS TRAIL IN THE EVERGLADES NATIONAL PARK

Chapter 17

MY OWN TALE OF GRATITUDE AND LUCK

Chapter 18

AFTER-SIXTY MEDICALS

Chapter 19

MISSISSIPPI MISSION TRIP

Chapter 20

SECOND TIME AROUND

Chapter 21

PRESBYTERY MISSIONS TRIP

Chapter 22

THE FIVE DAYS OF LIFE

YOU MAKE WITH BILL

Chapter 23

A TRIP PLANNED—ACCOMPLISHED!

Chapter 24

THE DISMAL SWAMP 2009

Chapter 25

FRUSTRATIONS IN SHORT TIME

Chapter 26

SAILING THE WEST CHANNEL OF CANADA AND IN THE NORTH CHANNEL

Chapter 27

A DIFFERENT SAILBOAT ADVENTURE

Chapter 28

GREEN FLASH OF THE SUN

Chapter 29

TIME THAT STANDS STILL

Chapter 30

MYSTIFICATION

Conclusion

Chapter 1

MY WAYWARD WINDS

During childhood, we establish patterns of behavior and interests that influence our adult paths and patterns. Each individual thinks that, perhaps, his or her youth is more interesting than that of anyone else’s. I think mine was the best possible youth! Our farm was located about nine-tenths of a mile down a one-lane dirt and shell road, which led to a two-lane asphalt road built in 1947 when the Rural Electric Association brought electricity to our house and we could have electric lights et al instead of gas. The road was once covered by ground-washing waves centuries ago, covered in sea sand and oyster shells. Even today, in 2010, it remains as it was during my youth—the Chrissie Prease Road, because my mother, Chrissie Goins Hooks Prease White (1915-1999), lived there from 1935 to 1965 when she built a house on the main road, Smyrna Road, a few miles outside, just west of Whiteville, North Carolina.

As a young boy, I was responsible for feeding and watering our horse named Bill, a large, gentle Tennessee Walker. He must have been sixteen hands high. Every day, I rode him across the plowed field, along the well-worn paths throughout the farm and woods. I loved the symbiotic relationship we had with each other over a period of years. He was like my best friend. One time, when my mother was a widow around 1947, the tenants worked freshly plowed fields in preparation for spring planting. A full moon shone brightly over the healthy, dark, rich soil lying in wait for early planting. What a wonderful memorable sight to see the reflections of the early budding trees in the silver light! Winter had come and gone. The outdoors seemed freshly washed and clean, all ordered, eager for the spring sun to warm the cold winter earth. At this moment of the season, especially, night riding was a special adventure. I would ride Ole Bill through from sun down, through the refreshing early evening, exploring and traveling all over the farmlands near our own and throughout our shadowy pinewoods. These adventures were brief and so delicious! They occurred only during the full moon when the farmland was lit brightly by the moonlight and I could see the fields and have safe passage from one farm to the other. One night I led Ole Bill at a fast trot through the small and narrow trails that had been worn over many generations—around the corners and through the tall timbers that occasionally almost created disaster for both of us. One night stands out vividly in my mind. Bill seemed suddenly intoxicated by the night-light and the cool, fresh air. As I straddled him, he seemed unusually spirited and eager to move from his place in the horse barn. Moving away from the stables, he quickly increased his speed like a flash of lightning! We were rounding a corner a few hundred yards in the woods from his stall at a fast trot when Bill stepped in a deep stump hole and stumbled over, headfirst. The sudden jolt flung me right over his head and into the low brush among the towering longleaf pine trees. I saw his rump coming over, I and quickly scrambled on hands and knees to remove myself swiftly in order not to be crushed by his large, healthy body. Quickly, he regained his stance and stood motionless for several moments, looking around as if shocked by the sudden fall. He stared at me as if to ask, Are you all right? I stood quickly, brushing off my backside, and returned to his back. He stood still and patient for a moment until I was arranged in the straddled position as if giving me the time to recover my breath. Then, we walked slowly for a mile back to his home pasture and stall.

In the early spring, I usually rode Bill in the evenings during the three nights before and three nights after the full moon. The specific times that I especially remember were in 1953: March 12-17, April 12-17, and May 10-12. And then, in the fall, when crops had been harvested, it must have been around September 10-15 and October 6-12. I have researched these dates. I found the times intriguing. The years of my adventures in 1954 and 1955 are very close to these same dates, and the experiences are rare.

I recall when bedtime came in the middle of my school week. I had ventured, not into the woods, but into my own bedroom. From my windows, all facing the eastern sky, I fortunately had a great, clear view of the night sky through the triple windows facing directly east. My bedroom was large with tall ceilings. In the old days, it had been the primary kitchen in the back of the house, separated from the rest of the house by a dog trot that had been turned into a nice long den with solid, beautiful paned windows that looked out onto the fields to the west of the Hooks clapboard house built around the beginning of the twentieth century by my grandfather for him and his wife, Mary Martin, from Western Prong, just north of Whiteville.

I would tie the starched ruffled curtains to the side and expose the breadth of the eastern side of my room… all a series of small window panes with a great view of my mother’s flower garden and the fig trees near the rear of the house. The stars were there for studying. Before going to bed, I always took time to enjoy them. On the farm, surrounded on all sides by towering longleaf and loblolly pines, there were no ambient lights. There were nights when the stars were so clear that you could reach out and touch them. I did this night after night, and my mother could not understand what I was doing lying awake so late. Yet, she made the decision to make my bed up backward by putting the pillows at the foot of the bed. She did this until I left for college.

One of these nights, as I was gazing at the sky, something strange and profound happened. As I lay down with my right forearm across my brow, my eyes turned to the brilliant stars in the eastern sky. I slowly took my arm from my forehead, turned to my right side, and flipped myself 180 degrees. Then, slowly, without warning, some rare, indistinguishable energy lifted me from my bed. I drifted out through the windows and toward the bright star (now known as Bellatrix), moved to the left to Rigel, and continued down left. I was accelerating at a tremendous speed and made useless efforts to alter my path, and Betelgeuse moved to the left and grew larger. The group of stars called the Pleiades moved to the far right and out of sight. The bright cloud Orion Nebula increased brilliantly, creating such a beautiful indescribable sight. As I continued to gain speed, I understood that any attempt to alter course was to no avail.

As I continued to explore, an unknown voice told me, Do not continue. This was not a human voice but seemed to be a remote transmission: It is not time. You have things to do. At that moment, I had an overwhelming desire to return to my bed. Yet, somehow, I had to stop acceleration forward, slow down, and then quickly accelerate backward to a position of return. With no obvious technical support, as if just willing it to be so, I began to gain speed in the opposite direction. So confident before, now I began to worry. The anguish was overwhelming when I slowed to get back to my original starting position. Did I have to turn around? Could I just back up at this speed? I asked myself. However, in due time, the deceleration came, and I calmly reentered the bedroom. It was in the reverse order that I reentered into my frame with right arm and the 180-degree roll over into the original position. Suddenly, my mother and stepfather were there over me, calling my name. I heard them; I told them that I was okay. I could not relate any information to them, as it was forbidden. I had traversed a few trillion miles in rapid course, and it was of the first magnitude for a cognitive excursion. I had just traversed and embarked as on a ray of light and visited the Celestial Ocean. I understood that I was only in a small quarter of our local Celestial Kingdom. The relativity of the experience was not to be discussed in any detail. The reason where that came from I have no clue. The experience was as real as it could have been. The indelible mark it made on my brain whether embedded on the left or right lobe is of no consequence. It has been there for fifty-seven years. It is just as vivid now as it was when it occurred.

The travel had been real to me. I refused to believe that this experience was only a dream. I felt injected and propelled by the energy of the scintillation. The celestial vault is what has intrigued mankind from the beginning. It continues to do the same in today’s time frame.

Through the years, I have often wondered, Did I imagine or intuit the reality of acceleration, angular momentum? How would a child actually experience angular momentum, proper motion of stars, the distances between the stars, and the correct angle they would take from their proper position if moving in a particular penetration of the night sky? This is what they in reality do! Things like acceleration through time, deceleration through time, proper motion of stars, time dilation with acceleration, linear motion with no deviation based on angular momentum…

I saw things and experienced concepts that few people have imagined. There are things that I cannot even now think clearly about in order to describe them reasonably. I know them but cannot express them. It is as if not understanding these events. I have buried them deeply in my mind and soul so that I am unable to flush them out, to describe them verbally. I seem ashamed to find truth in the experiences—they are like running water slipping between my fingers, escaping my grasp and understanding.

This short episode occurred when I was thirteen years of age. I did not speak of the incident until I was thirty-eight years old. With a child’s wonder of the mysterious, I once told the story of this unusual experience to a Sunday school class of young adults. They listened with eye-bulging attention. I could see by the expressions in their faces that they were going beyond disbelief, letting their minds imagine a kaleidoscope of ideas and concrete images that flushed through their brains. I had mixed emotions about relating this experience to such students. Maybe they would think me quite mad. Yet, this seemed to me like a wonderfully ecstatic vision—something beyond rational thought or orderly reasoning. I thought it was akin to wanting so much to experience the truth of the divine and willing the sense and exploration of an intangible reality. We so desire to meet perfection, the divine, or God, that we silently will it to be so. How is this different from the supernatural? From the surreal? Is this a taste of eternity, a taste of freely entering into the real tune of a universal center?

As I look back and review my first seven decades, this experience remains firmly lodged in my memory bank. I imagine this unusual incident could have been the planting of the seed that grew into maturity in my psyche. The idea and experience of the surreal have since influenced my life.

Some years after I had been a high school teacher of biology and chemistry, the local superintendents of six school systems proposed that I accept a new position. A cultural resource center was being planned and would include a scientific library and a planetarium. The superintendent elected to head the employment was Mr. Young Allen, and he thought I would enjoy becoming the first director of the Robeson County Cultural Resource Center, a center that included a planetarium and a science museum and library. I gratefully accepted the position. Thus, my favorite interest developed into my lifelong profession.

I immediately began to develop research about such a center—about all that it could entail. It was to be a scientific learning center for public education and for the instruction of people in Lumberton and all the surrounding area. I looked at designs of other educational centers and wondered how it could be constructed, what it would include, how the planetarium could best serve not only our public and private schools, but also the larger public. I immediately began plans to contact NASA, to collect special materials for a small museum that would reflect the work of scientific exploration of the heavens and the place of the planet Earth in the cosmos. I loved it. Going to work every day was a pleasure. Studying and planning, realizing some of my wishes, plans, and dreams was thrilling! Writing and producing planetarium presentations for teachers, school students, and senior classes was something that just suited my mind and soul. I believed in it. I lived it. My work and vision became my recreation. I created programs that demonstrated and shared with faculty and students my awareness of wonderful mysteries of our universe and our planet Earth. I encouraged the audiences to become serious and curious about scientific knowledge. I wanted those people around me to explore exciting explanations of questions that had long remained undiscovered by so many curious minds—minds that had specific questions about our universe—and proceeded to discover some astounding facts. Some viewers and students have called my programs theatrical and thrilling. Perhaps they say this because of my own excitement about my work. Since I was a child, I have been profoundly and constantly curious and motivated to learn all I can about the world we live in. Today, at seventy-one years of age, the more I experience, the more questions I discover, the more answers I am motivated to uncover, and the more I want to share this knowledge with the people around me. In my professional life, I began my work on a Monday. I worked hard and enjoyed the experience. In a flash, on a Friday, I retired—thirty years later.

During the time that I studied astronomy, the stars and constellations at the University of New York, Oswego, I felt excited about returning to the farm-place and to my childhood bedroom to look out the window and see firsthand the very constellation that I was then learning to appreciate, thereby preparing for the shape of my professional life. The richness and breadth of this knowledge has brought back memories of a life beyond anything I imagined in my youth. These were the same stars and constellations that I had viewed as a child, borne and nourished spiritually under the eastern sky. The trip from childhood to my seventy-first birthday has been a thrilling, wonderful trip for the mind. I have followed the constellations year after year and now understand that only in the university setting that I had learned and was reminded what acceleration, angular momentum, proper motion of stars really meant. The great joy of my life now is to continue to share this knowledge with my children and grandchildren and my friends.

For some thirty professional years, as planetarium director, I traveled outside North Carolina to visit other programs, especially to participate in conventions for directors of planetariums throughout our country. This sharing was a major part of my own instruction. I recall once in 1988, in Tucson, Arizona, meeting two acquaintances, astronomy colleagues and friends. Jack Dunn from Lincoln, Nebraska, and Dionysios Simopoulos of Athens, Greece, were speaking at the conference of the International Planetarium Society. Both these astronomers spoke to 450 people. Each professional astronomer focused on an individual whom he admired—someone who had particularly influenced his professional choices. After several comments, accolades that would have delighted any serious astronomer, I suddenly realized that surprisingly they were talking about me! They called me up to the podium and with great fanfare handed me an engraved plaque—a recognition for special achievement for the term I had served as president of the International Planetarium Society. They demanded some impromptu comments. I had no time to prepare, no time to rehearse, and no time to overcome my surprise and delight at their positive comments. I was touched and humbled by their generous remarks. There, in front of colleagues, I said, Around 1955, when I was about fifteen years old, it must have been foretold that as an adult I would become a passionate member of the Planetarium World. Since the height of the cold war, today is the first time that I have had the courage to explain how I personally brought in that New Year. At the time, I decided to ring in the New Year. I wanted to create a real noise to celebrate my getting so close to becoming an adult—not a firecracker, but a real noise, so full of energy as to be heard from miles around! For my amusement, I decided to measure the length of time for a twenty-minute fuse to explode. I knew the paper called it a ‘twenty-minute fuse’ but did not believe that it really meant twenty minutes! I wanted to test the truth of that physical reality—maybe only ten minutes, maybe thirty but twenty minutes—really.

At 11:30 p.m., I carefully wrapped wire around sixteen sticks of dynamite. Then, I put a cap and fuse together and pulled the wire tight. I quickly drove the new red Farmall tractor about one mile away into the distant woods. I parked it under a huge, leafy limb, and standing on the seat of the tractor, I placed the bundle high as I could get at the base of a limb. I waited for time to expire so that the correct time would be for the fuse. I waited for the ignition of the twenty-minute fuse. At the proper time, I lit the fuse and then put the tractor in high gear and hightailed it back to the barn.

Then, I ran from the barn through the sandy path to the front porch of my home. When 12 midnight came, nothing happened. The anticipation was building. All kinds of scenarios went through my brain. Why was it taking so long? I thought. The wait was taking its toll. Then, in twenty more seconds, the sky fell. The deafening sound reverberated through the fields and dales, and it shattered windows on the farm buildings. The horrendous sound seemed to continue forever—resounding from tree to tree, frightening every creature, person, chickens, horses, cows, and swine. It sounded like the end of the world. I became frightened from what I had done.

Up until now, I have never divulged anything about this test.

The following Sunday, at our country church, the gossip on every lip concerned the great dreadful explosion. No one indicated anything about their own celebration of the New Year! Someone said they thought the world was coming to an end. One thought the Russians were coming. It was all the talk at church. I remained cool and quiet about the unusual noise. I never would let anyone know. I kept it a secret for over thirty years. Yet, I remember the excitement of ringing in the year, 1955. This was a real, physical exploration—certainly a memorable one for me.

Our family farm was inundated with subterranean stumps from longleaf pine trees. When plowing the fields, the tractor would move at a speed of 3 mph. If the plow hit a hidden pine-tree stump directly, the tractor would come to an abrupt halt. This would throw the driver forward into the steering wheel and could cause injury. A driver could break his nose or bust a lip, even puncture or bruise his chest if the impact was strong enough. It could and would break metal parts connected to the tractor. Therefore, from 1953 to 1956, dynamite was used to remove subterranean light wood stumps from the fields. By the end of 1956, all the fields were cleared and the dynamite was removed. Tilling the fields and planting crops was now easier and faster. This is why we had all these explosive materials stored on the farm. That New Year led me to utilize the dynamite for my project. My curiosity has since led me to deal with less deadly fiery tests.

*     *     *

Chapter 2

COUNT YOUR FRIENDS

I must readily admit that my life has been good in many ways. The encouragement that my family, friends, and community have shown toward me during these many years has surely shaped my personality, my thinking, my work with people, my love for individuals, and my beliefs. Life is what we make it, some say. Yet, I had one individual say to me, If you could count your true friends on one hand, then you would be a rich person. I do know that if it were not for friends and acquaintances that help us, life, in many ways, would not be so fine.

I have been going to the ocean and playing in the surf since I learned to walk. My father owned property near Ocean Isle Beach in Southeastern North Carolina. When I was a young child, my mother would take me into the surf and let me be knocked down by the breaking waves, and I loved it. The ocean, like the sky, has a pull on my inner being. Sailing the ocean is a pleasure that resides in my blood, and when the stars show themselves, that is an icing on the cake. When a friend accompanies me on a sail, the joy is magnified. Individuals that I have sailed with are what make the stories and excursions worthwhile. I stand with Will Rogers who said, I never met a man I did not like. I can likewise say the same, yet even go further, I never met a lady I did not like either!

A good friend has also informed me that the older we get, the mellower we become. That may very well be the case. If it is, then I like the justification for getting older. The love that I have for my children and grandchildren is the most extraordinary phenomenon of my entire world.

Where would I be if it were not for special women like my wife, Susan Andrews Hooks, the great love of my life and the mother of our cherished children? Also Delores Powers—and Mary Brown, my secretaries, who helped me writing for nearly thirty years. All have been patient and kind. These women have often corrected my mistakes, encouraged me, and quietly helped me in so many ways. My sister Georgia Grey Hooks Shurr, has always encouraged me and helped in the editing of this manuscript. I think of myself somewhat akin to the turtle on a fence post. I didn’t get this far, and this high in my life, without the help of my family and friends—all along the way. Without them, I cannot imagine where I might be this day.

Chapter 3

A LEARNING CURVE

Yes, he replied. I had just asked the question, Have you ever sailed alone? He said again, Yes. I have learned that you have to rely on your own judgment, and further, that you must learn to trust yourself. When you make mistakes on a solo sail, there will be no one around to challenge the choices you make, and further, no one to share the consequences of your reasoning. I wish now that I could remember that sailor’s name. These words, the ultimate lesson in solitary sailing, have stayed in my mind since the early years of my sailing solo.

I have discovered that in order to plan, I have to release my directed thoughts and go into a mode of free daydreaming. During these reveries, I can envision myself putting together materials that I would need to build a boat, a plane, or a house, or a beach cottage. Over the years, I have done all these things. I learned how to do things with the help of library books and talking to other people who knew more than I did about a project. I would start at the beginning, stick with the work, and finally complete the project. Some things have taken afternoons, weeks, months, even years to build. In those projects, I have discovered an indescribable freedom and contentment of the heart and soul that is hard to come by any other means. My family and friends have encouraged me, cheered for me, and listened to me talk about my work. Some have even helped me from time to time. Yet, there has to be something said about solitude, because that is one wonderful gift offered to us naturally. I love people, but I am deeply grateful for those times of complete solitude necessary for accomplishing serious projects. To start on that journey, to construct something is to believe that I can and will do it. When I have made the dream a reality, then I am contented, joyful, and proud to share it.

It may have been that type of thinking and ambition that sparked my imagination, which created in my psyche and soul a compulsion to purchase and rebuild a sailing vessel that would assure me of moments of silence, solitude, and studied reflection… all essential to my sanity in this complex world we live in.

When I sail solo, I actively visualize the landscapes, the coves, bayous, and creeks and imagine where an overnight stay by an anchor would be desirable. I can see in my mind already the early sun, which might produce a sky that would cloud the visual concepts, fill my soul to overflowing and bring me joy and satisfaction so intense and dramatic, an energy that I do not know how to describe. Such moments are wonderful to recall in another place, another day. To remember them intensely, to see them in the mind’s eye, to touch the water, to hear the geese flying South in the fall is to relive the moment and, perhaps, even to experience it better in the memory. I find it like a moment of uniting with the great all or feeling the hand of some power and energy beyond reason. Yet, there is something to be said about daydreaming, having long periods to contemplate, or as some call it, to enjoy brainstorms, freeing the imagination to take us where it will.

It is one thing to have brainstorms. It is another thing to be unable to experience such intangible visions. I should find this crippling to the soul and to human experience. Flights of the imagination allow us to live two lives: the real practical one and the one that we create in our imagination. Brainstorms or unbridled visions are good. Sometimes they offer deliverance from painful realities. There are times when what you think and how you perceive the outer and the inner world seem more dream than fact. This is difficult to explain to someone who refuses to test reason, to question the solidity of the material world, what I call the narrow side of preconceived ideas—the narrow side being the area of cognitive thought that some human beings have no curiosity about. People like this seem to lack a soul—to lead an even sterile and limited existence. I see such a man and think him totally wooden and only skin and bones, lacking depth, lacking luster and exuberance for this wonderful gift of human life, of the very thing that distinguishes every human creature from all others. The mere body that lacks creative imagination and a rich life of the mind is empty: lifeless, dead, and withered to nothingness. A sad, sad pile of dust, indeed!

Some would call our lives a trek through a brief moment of eternity, maybe no more than a fast-moving train powered by a robot engine that has no thought, just mechanical features to move the train forward and back. Among the multitudes, some have soul, those whose knowledge and baggage is overflowing with positive energy, hope, expectation, and beauty. They delight in new discoveries, new thoughts. They can look forward to the trip as well as the end of the trip. These may draw many intelligent decisions. They have learned to pause and reflect on the spiritual and sensual experience of their own moment in eternity. Perhaps, because of calm reason, these people seem to have fewer troubles and problems to make them cross over the tracks and become lost in the social and community chaos. They have learned to live a life of high consciousness of their own being and that of those around them. Of course, they experience heartaches, disappointments, disease, and death just like others. They do not despair but forge with hope ahead. They accept that they must deal with hills to climb, valleys to wind around, and curves to negotiate. Some unfortunate travelers get off early because terrorism, violence, and viruses take a heavy toll. The ones with a good hand of