We work but we don’t work much

Maybe I should talk  about the weather. It changes faster here than it does anywhere. The first part of last week we had rain mixed with snow. Two inches of snow was predicted for Tuesday morning but it didn’t happen. What DID happen was that for about 5 or 6 mornings in a row I had to scrape frost (ice once) off my windshield!!! I know, I know, I could do that in Oregon. In fact I wouldn’t do it in Oregon. I would wait for it to melt before venturing out. I don’t even have an ice scraper in the pickup. So I start the pickup early, burn up a lot diesel, melt some of the frost, then use my Shari’s VIP Card to scrape the rest.

Then about Thursday it began to turn nice. We had 70* or so weather – short sleeve shirt weather – over the weekend. Nice today but clouds moving in. Now they tell us a cold front is escaping from Canada, will bring high winds tomorrow, and rain/snow Wednesday. Oh well. Such is life in the winter.

Wednesday morning all the keyboarders went over to my cousin Jim’s office for an overview of the typesetting process. We all wanted to see what happened to the pages we so carefully typed into the computer. Jim is one of the typesetters. That is the old term; now they are called compositors. So he showed us in a very quick modified way what he does to turn our pages into a book. It is very interesting and depends greatly on the computer program he uses.

I finished keyboarding my section of Náhuatl  (pronounced Naw – watt) later that day. I thought I was going to start a new book on Thursday but Sharon (our “boss” – she doesn’t like to be called that) realized the very last section of Nahuatl had not been assigned. So I photocopied those pages and started on a different computer. It is hard for me to shift from one keyboard to anther but sometimes it is necessary. By the way, we photocopy the pages because it is a lot easier to see the text enlarged and flat rather than in a book constantly trying to close. Then I copied some pages for another person. Then I helped correct some pages. Finally I got back to the computer. As far as keyboarding, it was a very unproductive day – about 4 pages!

The Mountain View Assembly of God Church was our choice for worship yesterday. It is rather small but by far the friendliest church we have been in. It is only  a couple blocks from the Center.

Today is President’s Day and is a holiday at the Center. So we played tourist. We went with a lady from Washington State to see the old mission church just south of Tucson. Mission San Xavier (pronounce hav ee air) del Bac was built in 1797. It is… well, I guess the word is  “interesting” to see what is important to those who built it and who worship there. No,  maybe the word is sad. I mean no offence to the Catholics but there is so much superstition. At one end of a side room is a life size representation of St. Xavier laying on his back. People pin notes, pictures, objects to his clothing in supplication that he will help them with their problems. Most of the objects are small legs or arms (like charms) or other body parts representing the part of the body that needs healing. People bow, cross themselves, and kiss the head. They lift the head three times. It is said that if they can do this they have a good heart. I watched all this happen.

The “body” is at the far end of this room just below the dark statue. By the way, there are 50 statues in this church.

This is the front. There are carvings of lions on each side of the altar. The whole room is rather dark with lots of echoes. Also, lots of candles representing prayers. I guess it is easier to light a candle than to speak directly with God.

The church is called “The White Dove of the Desert.” It can be seen for many miles. It is a “working” church in that they have regularly scheduled services here.

So from this “beautiful” (in a human sense) but rather dreary (in a spiritual sense) place we went to the Titan Missile Museum. Did you know there were 54 Titan II Missile silos in three locations during the 1960s, 70s and 80s. Eighteen were in the Tucson area, 18 round Little Rock, Arkansas and 18 near Wichita, Kansas. All were dismantled and the silos destroyed except this one which was preserved as a museum. Here are a few pictures as best can be taken in confined spaces.

The missile in the silo ready for launch. Just kidding. This one could never be launched – no fuel.

The warhead looking up from level three.

The whole thing looking down from the top (through a Plexiglas canopy).

The control room. There were a lot of “fail safes” to keep a missile from being launched accidently or maliciously by a rogue technician. One of the keys to actual launch is in the very middle of the picture on the top row in a small round window. The other key is to the left out of this picture. Both had to be turned at the same time.

And finally, me standing next to the warhead. In this little black thing was enough energy to destroy 900 square miles. Kind of scary. This was all cold war stuff. The concept was to have enough power to destroy the Soviet Union and let them know it. Meanwhile they had enough power to destroy us and we knew it. So no one started anything. Well, there is a lot more to the cold war than that, but I don’t have the time.

So in the space of 4 hours we went from a fingers crossed hope that God would show favor to a fingers crossed hope that our power would convince them not to use theirs. I don’t know the moral here but I prefer the faith model. We don’t have to “prove” ourselves to God. We simply trust him because he said so.

Blessings.