From
Samuel
Ray
® . . . . . . .
. I
now have a new email address. It is
Best wishes,
(13 January 2003 email)
® . .
. . . . . .Dear Masatsugu,
When I last wrote to you, I had in mind writing again, in
order to tell you a little bit about my start as a planet observer. The whole
story is too long and boring to go into now, if ever, but part of it may be of
some interest. The small town where I lived as a boy did not have a large
library, so, assisted my kindly Aunt Evelyn Black, I used the library at a town
about ten miles away.
One day, as I was leaving the library, an
elderly gentleman named Robert Buford noticed that I was checking out some
astronomy books. He pointed out that he was returning some astronomy books, and
he suggested that perhaps I might like to read the books he was returning. I
said that I had already read those books. Amused rather than offended, he said
that he was pleased to meet someone else with an interest in astronomy, and he
invited me to visit him sometime to talk about the sky. I arranged to visit
him, and we had a good talk about astronomical things.
I did not know it at the time, but Mr. Buford was dying. After his
death, his wife gave me his books and his collection of Sky and Telescope magazines. Among those books was a volume by
Patrick Moore. Although not exactly a profound work, the book was one more
piece of kindling that would eventually come to flame. It fired my imagination
with the belief that amateurs could do valuable science. Whatever one may say
or think of Mr. Moore - and I have never met or corresponded with him - his
book did one rather isolated country boy a little good and no lasting harm.
Among the good influences there was a warming of my feelings toward the Brits.
I had studied history texts that portrayed the British - the American
experience of them -as only slightly less venial than Northerners, and it was
good to see another side of things. In late adult life, I have found Rogers, McKim, Graham, and others to be unfailingly friendly and
generous.
Perhaps you would be interested to read about
the first time I used a telescope, but that will be a story for another time.
We have snow on the ground. I will forward to
you a photo that I took yesterday of
(
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. . . . . .I am emailing a photo of our first flower of the
year, a snow drop, with
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. . . . . .Dear Masatsugu,
You asked when I met Mr. Buford. My best guess
is that our acquaintance was made in about 1959. The library was much smaller
then than now. There was a statue of a Confederate soldier on the front lawn.
My first use of a telescope was in roughly the
same era. An elderly lady, Mrs. Fluornoy, who owned a
telescope invited me to come to see her and look at
the stars with her telescope. I accompanied my aunt to a church function held
at Mrs. Fluornoy's home, and I reminded her of her
invitation. Mrs. Fluornoy, the hostess, stopped her
dinner preparation long enough to set up her telescope for me to use. She left
me to use her 2.4" Unitron refractor for the
rest of the evening. It seems, from the vantage point of 43 or so years, that
everyone else had a good meal and some sort of religious activity. I had
Jupiter, Saturn, a first quarter Moon, and some double stars. Wow! What a night!
I hope you like the photo of the showy sunrise.
Best wishes,
(
Sam