Gateways To Science

My writing and photography has garnered a fair dose of newspaper column inches, a few magazine and website articles and, well, more than 3000 of my own blog posts, but not much by way of good, old-fashion, hard-cover books.

In 2004, my pal Ron Lieber hooked me up with some expat pals of his, Mike Ogden and Chris Day, who were compiling a collection of inspirational essays called “2Do Before I Die”. They helped me edit my original, somewhat rambling remembrance of Mister Rogers, “Mister Rogers & Me,” into the version you read today (and the launching pad for our documentary which, it ends up, is currently “in consideration” for the Sundance Film Festival).

A few years later, a Dutch publisher stumbled on an online photo of mine that I granted him licence to reprint in his book, “Groene Stroom” (“Green Flow”). I assume it’s some sort of environmental text book, but it’s tough to tell on account of it being in, yunno, written in Dutch. All I know is my photo (of the sun, of course) appears in a chapter called Zonneboilers (which, best as I can tell, means “sun boilers”).

Last year, just a few weeks after publishing my post, “The Miracle Of Showing Up,” I received an email from a educator in Texas requesting my series of photos of Nantucket Bay. Yesterday, I received the textbook: “Gateways To Science: Second Grade.”

The chapter is entitled, “Weather Changes.” Over the course of eight pages, below the ever-changing image of the exact same scene, the authors advise:

Weather changes day by day
You can see it as you work or play
Rain may fall. Wind my blow.
No matter the season, you should know.
Weather will change either fast or slow.
Weather is everywhere you go.
Rain and snow fall, clouds go by, and
The Sun shines brightly in the sky.
Weather changes hour by hour.
You never know when the rain may shower.
Weather is everywhere. It’s all about.
Check the sky before you go out.

I was never much for science, really. I enjoyed the earth sciences (like geology), but struggled through biology and chemistry (and avoided physics outright). Still, at the end of the day, “Check the sky before you go out” strikes me as pretty solid advice.

What’s more, it really goes to show what Bo Lozoff has been saying all along. If you show up every day, you’re going to see — and do — miraculous things.