Jack H. Schick

Working Weekend Duty

I don’t particularly like it when it’s my turn to be Weekend Duty Supervisor at the sewer plant. They do give me an extra ten hours pay and a compensation day off the following Friday, but I still have to getting up at five in the morning and drive 50 minutes both ways eleven days in a row. I don’t have to stay at the Plant for eight hours, usually just three or four, but I’m on call the whole time. My weekend... (posted by Jack H. Schick 1 day 5 hours ago.)

Hi-Desert Fire Fees Approved

Well, the bill isn’t in the mail just yet, not until June. Since there was a delay getting an endorsement from the California state regulators it will be a double bill, for the 2011-2012, and the 2012-2013 years this first time. They say it’s only going to amount to a measly $300, but, when I think about it, that’s a day and a half’s wages and could buy enough gasoline to... (posted by Jack H. Schick 1 day 17 hours ago.)

An Elephant in the Room

Monsieur Louis Cressonnier, the French owner of Hotel des Indes in the city of Batavia on the island of Java, had been up most of the night. About 1:00 a.m. there had been a particularly severe grumble from Krakatoa, a hundred or so miles to the west. He’d grown used to the frequent tremors of the East Indies, but they’d become almost constant since the tiny volcanic island in the Sunda... (posted by Jack H. Schick 2 days 16 hours ago.)

Endlessly on to the Sea

He sat on the broad, decaying beech stump, his mind almost blank. The steady patter of the late Autumn rain on his plastic hood and brim of his cap, the occasional tickling, cool splash on his cheek and bare hands twitched him from reverie bringing him almost into this world, but the dreamy, remote isolation persisted. Distracted, he watched the drops hit his knees and splatter. The water pooled and accumulated in the wrinkles of... (posted by Jack H. Schick 5 days 4 hours ago.)

A Friends' Cemetery

I was dressed up like William Penn and giving an historic chat in the Meetinghouse library to a surprisingly large and interested groups of people during the big gala we put on to celebrate the Quakers' 300 th year in our Upper Bucks County, Pennsylvania community, when an older, scruffy looking fellow walked up and, without saying a word, handed me a slip of paper. I was still blathering in response to some question about Quaker... (posted by Jack H. Schick 6 days 15 hours ago.)

"Some Say the World Will End in Fire, Some Say in Ice" (Robert Frost)

Mankind has been lucky, so far. Over the past few million years the surface temperature of the planet has been much colder than it has been over most of Earth's history. However, the most recent, Pliocene-Quaternary Ice Age, has been relatively short, and, compared to previous cold spells, ice has covered only a moderate portion of the Earth's surface. For... (posted by Jack H. Schick 8 days 16 hours ago.)

Consequences of Eavesdropping: A Difficult Assignment

I’m lazy. I had a great allegory story, which was our assignment a few weeks ago. It involved deforestation of the Brazilian jungle, a conflict between a timber baron and a jaguar. But, creating the proper atmosphere of a jaguar creeping through the forest at night and pouncing on someone is difficult. It’s also difficult to create the setting of a lumbering... (posted by Jack H. Schick 10 days 3 hours ago.)

Alfred Russel Wallace: The Wandering Mind

Naturalist Alfred Russel Wallace (1823-1913), was sunburned, thirsty and starting to seriously worry about his own survival; but, he couldn't help feeling disappointed and depressed over the loss of his entire collection and most of his journals. When, on August 9, 1852, 28 days out of Brazil on its way to England, the brig Helen caught fire and was abandoned, Wallace desperately... (posted by Jack H. Schick 13 days 21 hours ago.)