Stories

Six Words: Productive, Video, Print, Paralyzed, Citizen, Overview

She thought she was being a good citizen when she wrote the letter to the editor and was delighted when she saw it in print. It turned out to be more productive than she could have imagined when she was asked to expand it into an op-ed.

Soon, she was asked by a local network to make a video where she would give an overview of the article. It was during that video interview that she froze, completely paralyzed, in front of a live audience. Fame might have been fleeting, if it wasn’t being broadcast live. Instead, like a bear and forest fires, her picture became the image for the phrase “A deer freezing in the headlights”.

Six Words: Relaxation, Huge, Celebration, Connection, Needle, Moving

There was no relaxation time for the host in the days leading up to the huge celebration. Connections were planned between the theme of the event and the food that would be served. Everything was moving in the right direction. She’d been so focused on the planning and the preparation for so long, that her friends were needling her that she’d become a recluse because she was so focused.

Six Words: Exotic, Minority, Landowner, Video, Community, Posture

There was nothing particularly exotic about the new neighbors, although they were clearly a minority in this community. They just wanted to be homeowners like everyone else. We didn’t know whether they had any particular posture on politics or religion or anything else, but there were a few landowners who had a bias against anyone who was at all different. As a precaution, I helped them setup a video monitoring system around their house.

Six Words: Comment, Debut, Fluctuation, Feature, Oral, Transfer

There is an awkward time in the life of every boy in the tween years. There may be growth spurts which everyone notices and can’t be hidden. But there is another feature that changes, that can lead to awkward moments and that boys hope are never noticed as they transfer from boyhood to manhood. Not every boy finds himself in an awkward situation where the embarrassment may occur, but because of reasons they can’t control, it happens to some.

The worst time is when a young man makes a debut speech in front of a class or a school assembly or his bar mitzvah. He never knows whether his voice will fluctuate between his new, deeper tones and a squeak. Usually people pretend to ignore the oral surprise and don’t comment on it afterward. But some can’t help but giggle or even laugh out loud.

Six Words: Fixture, Crosswalk, Other, Arrange, Asset, Example

A common fixture at crosswalks in big cities are pedestrian warning lights, telling people when to walk, and when to wait. Sometimes they display timers when walking is permitted, showing how much time is left before it will change back to displaying Don’t Walk. There are a few different arrangements as to what these warning lights can display. In some other countries, parts of France, for example, the walk sign is a little, animated green man. Parents tell their children, and tour guides tell visitors, to wait for the green man before crossing a street. These walk, don’t walk lights, are a real asset in saving lives.

Six Words: Cassette, Positive, Notorious, Density, Uncertainty, Interest

This week five of the Nobel Prize awards were announced. The prize in Physics is always the second one announced, and is usually the one that interests me the most, although they are often notoriously difficult to understand. This year’s Physics Prize was awarded to three people whose work in quantum mechanical tunneling seems to challenge the density of matter.

The Nobel Peace Prize was announced on Friday. While there was uncertainty about who the recipient would be, I was positive that a certain someone who has been campaigning for it would not be the recipient.

The three winners will split about $1.2M, but they’ll each get their own medal. Each medal will come in a nice cassette. Some will simply leave the cassette open to display it, but others will choose to frame it so they can hang it on a wall. I was surprised that the medals are made of green gold. I’d never heard of green gold until I researched what they are made of. The green gold medal is then gold plated, maybe so no one is green with envy?

Six Words: Trustee, Calorie, Exemption, Survey, Cater, Lemon

The trustee of estate sent an annual survey to each of the beneficiaries of the trust, inquiring about their projected needs in the coming year. They were also reminded to watch their calories, because the trust encouraged them to take care of themselves and to watch their diets.

A couple of the beneficiaries discussed the reminder during a catered birthday party and decided that eating the lemon meringue pie should be an exemption to their usual dessert-free diets.

Six Words: Center, Particle, Constellation, Cinema, Requirement, Regret

I don’t know what you’re going to regret more this afternoon: this list of words or that you let a geek like me participate. You’ll probably think you’d rather be at the cinema, because I’m going to tell you a little bit about the God particle.

For most of us it was a requirement to learn some science in school. You probably learned something about atoms and that atoms are like a constellation with protons and neutrons in the center, and electrons spinning around them. That description of an atom was described in 1913 by Niels Bohr, so it is called the Bohr atom (NOT the bored atom, and I won’t bore you much longer).

When some students – surely not you – learned about the Bohr atom, they wondered why they needed to know that at all and hoped they could remember it long enough to pass a test. But not physicists. Physicists want to know what protons and neutrons and electrons are made of, and what makes them stick together. Today we know that the things that make them stick together are called bosons. There are also officers on ships called bosons, but they’re boss men, not sub-atomic particles. The bosons in atoms get their name because a man named Bose first identified them.

Of course physicists want to know what bosons are and the answer to that was proposed by a group of people, including a man named Peter Higgs. Because the Higgs boson was so hard to find, when Leon Lederman wrote a book about it, he was going to title the book, The God Damn Particle, but the publisher wouldn’t let him, so the title was shortened to The God Particle.

Class dismissed.

Six Words: Musical, Cattle, Kidney, Forget, Bottle, Aquarium

A lot of the fish that we eat is farm raised, and of course we can’t forget that all of the meat that we eat is farm raised. Fish and fish farms have some things in common with cattle and cattle farms. Cattle are kept from wandering away by fences. Fish are kept from wandering away by the edges of their container. Cattle farms are kind of musical because of the mooing and burping. If you’ve ever had an aquarium, you may have seen bubbles from fish burping, but you’ve never heard the sound of a fish’s burp.

Fish and cattle are both dependent on water for life. Cattle often have access to a stock pond where they drink, and wade, in water. Fish do everything in water. Fish and cattle both have kidneys and digestive tracts, and you know what that means. It means be careful where you fill your water bottle.

Six Words: Opponent, Factor, Ostracize, Shadow, Letter, Infect

The Health and Human Services Secretary is an opponent of vaccines! He has issued letters and policies to that effect. He doesn’t factor in how many people will get sick or how many children will be infected with preventable diseases. Some will suffer lifelong disabilities. Some will die. It is no wonder that he is ostracized by scientists and the medical community and even by his own family. Many members of his family cast a long shadow because of what they have contributed to this country. This man doesn’t cast a shadow at all. Neither do vampires.

(referring to Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.)