Finally I said, “Well, Ben, maybe it’s just that you have a headache, so everything is annoying to you. I get that way.” That prompted his first laugh of the day.

At school, one of the other moms said hello to him and asked how he was.

“I have a headache,” he said.

“Oh, that’s too bad,” she said.

“My Dad gave it to me,” he replied.

:-/

My first real telescope was from Montgomery Ward. I am sure even moderately experienced amateur astronomers would scoff at the quality of such an inexpensive, store bought scope. Nevertheless, from ages 12 to 22, it was certainly better than owning no scope at all and I always enjoyed using it. I have since seen better telescopes and would very much love to own one, but that in no way renders my cherished memories of my first telescope worthless. I often think of it this way: For whatever an astronomy purist might say to deride my first telescope or any department store telescope, it was certainly manufactured with better specifications and quality than Galileo’s handmade telescope that he used 400 years earlier to discover four of Jupiter’s moons.

It was a 60mm refractor, meaning it had a 60mm diameter lens at the front of the tube and the viewing lens at the other end of the tube. I don’t recall the tube focal length, but I think it was about 600mm. It came with a very heavy and stable tripod mounting — with the outer tube of the legs made from heavy steel and two inner extensions made with lighter aluminum. Everything moved smoothly and tightened down securely.

Unlike most beginner scopes today, which are actually better than what I had, it had a single viewing lens mounted in an extendable tube. With the viewing lens pushed all the way in, it offered a default 15X magnification. That was great for spotting objects and getting them centered in the scope. You could then slowly pull the viewing lens out to three additional positions that it would stop at with an audible click. Each click doubled the magnification. You could go from 15X to 30X to 60X to 120X. Of course, you would have to fine-tune the focus of the image each time, but the convenience of just incrementing through the stops was worth it. It saved time over swapping eyepieces and kept moisture and dust out of the tube. I haven’t seen a similar design in over 25 years.

My first telescope died when the focusing rack-and-pinion broke. The “rack” gear — the long, straight one — cracked one night in cold weather, about ten years after I got the scope. Unfortunately, I couldn’t fix it, nor could I replace it. I went as far as trying to find a replacement for the entire eyepiece assembly, but whoever made the Montgomery Ward telescopes in the 1970s had used parts that matched neither the metric nor the English sizes.

For nearly 20 years, I have longed to own another telescope. Now having two sons, I am eager to introduce them to the wonders they could see. I know what a high quality and expensive telescope would offer and it would be fantastic to own one. However, I keep reminding myself that they will likely be just as amazed as I was to look through any telescope and see mountains on the moon, moons orbiting Jupiter, rings around Saturn, the stunningly beautiful Pleiades, and the amazing colors in the Orion nebula.

I would love to find a great quality telescope at a cheap garage sale, but I am not averse to buying a “low” quality telescope at a department store. My advice to anyone thinking of getting their kids a telescope is this: Do not go overboard, just make sure it is from a known brand name (Celestron, Meade, Bushnell, or Tasco); even a modest one will give your kids a glimpse of the beauty and wonder of our universe. And that is certainly a great start from which they can grow.

It’s been tough keeping this a secret for the last few months. We initially heeded the cautious advice of doctors and baby-book experts by not sharing the news openly. We limited it to only our closest family. The advice is, of course, a precaution just in case the pregnancy is
lost, which often happens in the early months.

It got harder to keep it a secret when my wife developed placenta previa and was ordered to bed-rest for three months. I live close enough to work that I was able to scoot home for lunch each day to help her, but I’m sure my co-workers noticed my unusual new daily ritual of rushing out
the door promptly at noon and at 5:00.

Lila and Fetus Lee are doing well enough now that we can share the news openly. However, I must say that I’m both confused and annoyed by some of the responses we get. Yes, we’ve had many congratulations, but that’s often followed a few minutes later by another response. It’s along the lines of “Your life is over now” or “Once the baby comes, you’ll never get a full night of sleep again” or “Children are a lot of work.” Here I was looking forward to this and feeling happy and proud from the congratulations, and then the conversation plummets into the negative.

I’m sure these people don’t mean to be so negative, but they just can’t seem to help themselves. They seem to think that in some collegial, conspiratorial way they are sharing something with me. Nevertheless, it is annoying.

Look, it’s not that I don’t want to know what reality is. I know children will provide hours of fun and hours of stress. I know babies cry, sometimes for no identifiable reason. I also know they sometimes smile and even giggle. I know diapers are stinky. However, I also know it can be very soothing to hold a baby and give it a bottle. I know children will, at some point, whine and cry over not getting something they want. I also know, however, that they sometimes say things in funny ways that make you laugh. Moreover, I already know all these negative things that people feel compelled to tell me, but I am happy that I am going to be a father and I would appreciate it if people would let me enjoy that.

That said, I am eager to get on to the next bit of news for this blog…

I am informally suspending the “rants and chants” theme of this blog for the next few months. Instead, I want to do some writing whose primary audience will be my children.[1] I will post it here, however, for the value it may have to others. Moreover, since I believe the Web to be a more universal and hopefully enduring place
than my hard drive, I also hope that posting it here will ensure that my children will be more likely to have a chance to read it someday. If anything should happen to me before they are old enough to know me, at least there will be some chance that they might someday find and read this.

Beginning next week, I will be posting some essays about the lessons I think my children should learn in their lives. They will need all the help they can get to survive and thrive in this crazy world.