Tales of No Television
Sep. 15th, 2003 08:44 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
akirluSome years back, I worked for the then Executive Officer of Physics at Caltech. Late one rainy afternoon, another of staff came thundering down the hall to my isolated office and shouted, "Run up to the roof and look east! Now!" Hell, I didn't even know I could get onto the roof from the fire stairs. But, no fool, I ran.
There I discovered two things. One: the setting sun lanced low through the clouds and against the backdrop of the misty, towering San Gabriel mountains cast an enormous double rainbow, two 180-degree arcs glowing like excited halogens in the rosy air. Two: the whole damn community of Caltech -- students, faculty, and staff -- had dropped whatever they were doing to stand awestruck on the roofs and lawns of campus, looking eastward. To me the wonder of that rare, amazing rainbow competed with the wonder of being part of an entire community that would drop everything to just stand and watch it. There's something really special about grown-ups who can still stop, and notice, and be amazed at the world.
The next day, da boss shared his own rainbow story. David, another tevee-less militant, had been picking up his toddler from day care at the time. "And there were all the kids, playing with trucks and building with blocks and happily playing on the floor. Only one was standing at the window, nose and all ten fingers pasted to the glass. That's my kid!"
There I discovered two things. One: the setting sun lanced low through the clouds and against the backdrop of the misty, towering San Gabriel mountains cast an enormous double rainbow, two 180-degree arcs glowing like excited halogens in the rosy air. Two: the whole damn community of Caltech -- students, faculty, and staff -- had dropped whatever they were doing to stand awestruck on the roofs and lawns of campus, looking eastward. To me the wonder of that rare, amazing rainbow competed with the wonder of being part of an entire community that would drop everything to just stand and watch it. There's something really special about grown-ups who can still stop, and notice, and be amazed at the world.
The next day, da boss shared his own rainbow story. David, another tevee-less militant, had been picking up his toddler from day care at the time. "And there were all the kids, playing with trucks and building with blocks and happily playing on the floor. Only one was standing at the window, nose and all ten fingers pasted to the glass. That's my kid!"
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