News from the J-FLARE Observatory

Several years ago, back in Columbusland, I'd cart the telescope that I bought in New Mexico to various parts of the city and invite people to take a look at the most easily observable objects: the Moon, Saturn, sometimes Mars.

Apparently, giving my friend's father some 'scope time made such an impression that he decided to get one for her husband the next Christmas. This instrument was twice as nice as mine, with a motorized, auto-find controller and a proper, omnidirectional mount.

I was interested to see this thing get set up, but it sat in the front room for months, nestled next to the arcade games (and here, I don't mean a PlayStation or Sega; actual, standup consoles that one would find in an arcade). I stopped by one night, eyed the still-unopened box, and said I was going to start to put it together. But my friend didn't think that'd be the best idea. So I let it go.

Fast-forward five or six years. My Lady Friend and I were in Columbus some time after our first year in Korea (where I left most of the pieces of my NM 'scope, after losing bits in Egypt and trying to rig it together in Asia). We ended up going to the house that I'd lived in before moving to Seattle, so that I could pick up a few things I left behind. It turned out that my friend's husband had left his telescope there, also. So into the van it went, back to Chicagoland.

Soon afterward, I think on the first night that I took the 'scope to the end of the driveway, I received the news that my friend's father had died. I thought about the celebrity nickname that I read that he used for himself -- J-Flare (J. Flaherty) -- and I thought that would be an appropriate, official-sounding name for the telescope he'd bought.

In the last couple of weeks, I've finally taken it upon myself to heft this thing down to the main drag and see who wants to go to the Moon. On Friday, I think there were three people who stopped to look who said it was their first time to peer through a telescope. Tonight, there were three or four more.

So, like the light that shines from faraway stars, the effect of one person's inspiration continues to be seen across time and space.