The Early Show

Outside our house it is very dark. There are no street lights and all my neighbors turn off their driveway lamps before going to bed , which is usually about 10 PM.

It is 4:45 A.M. and it is taking me a little while to adjust my vision until I glance at the sky and see stars and planets so bright they make me feel like I am observing a screen in a planetarium. The first one appears followed by another and another. These are the remnants of a comet that our planet passes through to give us this spectacular show. The planet Venus looks like a dim bulb compared to the brightness of our shooting meteors. They last for a minute or so and then there is a delay of a few minutes before we get the next round of Roman Candles. It is almost like there is someone setting up the display. The show mostly appears in the south but occasionally there is activity in the east or west.

Suddenly,the stillness is interrupted by a cry of " Holy ----! " We are overwhelmed by a shooter, with a large ball for a head , that seems to be covered with red , sort of like an incandescent apple peeling off layer after layer of bright white light. As I sit on my garden chair waiting for the next act, I think of all the people who are up at this time of day to see these Leonid Meteor Showers. I arrive at the conclusion that it takes a lot of will to get out of a warm bed on a weekend to go outside and look at the sky. I also speculate that most observers are Senior Citizen males who don't require much in the way of will power. Retirees don't need a weekend to catch up on sleeping.They are also up around 4:30 every morning visiting the smallest room in the house . The next performance is scheduled for the year 2034.By then those who want to see the show will press a switch by the bed, the roof will open, the room will rotate in any prescribed direction, the Star Wars Theme will play and nobody will have to get up to go to the bathroom during the show. During the frequent,but short,intermissions,I think. I think about the wonder of it all and have decided to speculate further on this topic. Stay tuned...it will be forthcoming.