As I looked over the river this morning, it always amazes me that it has a different face each day. Today, white gulls soar and occasionally dive just on target to get their breakfast. How awesome it is that they know to hold their wings just right, to aid their flight. They catch the wind and soar for hours with little effort. Humans learn from them and wonder “whom” “what” has the most intelligence of the  “species”. Scientists have decided now that porpoises are more intelligent than chimps.

     Sunday, January 7th. Was awesome as we were teased by a spring like day and children jumped up and down on the trampoline, near my home, without their jackets and with the usual screams of children having fun. We were teased by more spring like days through the cold months of January and February. It’s awesome to think that in just a few days we will be putting tiny seeds into the ground. In a few weeks, plants will be growing to bear vegetables, fruit and flowers. “Irish potatoes must be planted by St. Patrick’s Day”; we used to hear when we were a child. Nowadays, few of the young pat any attention to the things their elders say. If they did, maybe they would learn something like we do when we watch the seagulls that have flown the skies for thousands of years.

     It’s awesome that we now have three public libraries in my county when there were none when I grew up and I’m just seventy-one. We take television for granted and I saw my first one at twenty-one. Last night I watched via television as scientists now take donated human tissue and transplants it to other humans to save their lives and it is awesome. However, we must remember that the Old Testament warns us “there is nothing new under the sun.” Kinda reminds me of a Sunday in church a few years ago when I was teaching my young nieces’ Sunday School Class and I used the word “awesome”. She got very upset because she thought I was to old to be using that word. It was a word her generation had thought of. It was sorta sad to have to tell her that in my college class I was taking at RCC in “Humanities” a homework assignment was to read a poem from on of our textbooks. The poem was written in (c 2000-1600 B. C.) and was entitled, “The Epic of Gilgamsh”. One line said, “Gilgamsh is awesome to perfection.”

     Recently, I read in a local newspaper that statistics show The Northern Neck is the poorest and least educated of any place in Virginia. Excuse me, but has the Appalachian Area been removed from Virginia? Maybe I will show ignorance, but I’ll keep believing that The Northern Neck is one of the most wonderful places in Virginia and it surely must be as so many people want to come here and many want to stay when they do. It is awesome.

     However, it seems our scientists do come up with what we think is new data every day. In the January 11th. Issue of The Times Dispatch we read, “Scientists have found a crystal believed to be at least 4.3 billion years old, making it the oldest known solid on earth. They say its sparkling facets contain hints that oceans, continents and perhaps even life itself developed much earlier than previously thought. 

     I really thought this was pretty “awesome” until I received my copy of “The Genesis Factor” written by Yacou Rambeel. The book of Genesis from the Bible tells us in code how fast light travels; how far the sun is from the earth; and on and on. Awesome.

     Looking out over my River, I begin singing, “Ole Man River”, and right in the middle of it, I stop and ask, “How many times have you passed this way before?” 

© 2001 Florence Jenkins Muse All rights