Institute Day

Surely you remember the hatching room at the Museum of Science and Industry.  Some kind of huge heat lamp and a bunch of eggs, and presto the miracle of, well I think we can call it birth, or close enough for a bunch of 1st or 2nd graders, the bird part I reckon, of the birds and the bees.  And how did bees get in there?  I think I knew that once, but I have forgotten.  It was still there maybe ten years ago the last time I was there, chiefly to see the trains, and I guess it will be there for eternity.

I guess you were satisfied with learning about what that stringy thing was called, but what I was interested in was why does the chicken lay so many eggs.  My internet search revealed that the chicken is not the only bird that lays eggs in that pipeline fashion.  Okay then, it is not an abnormal bird behavior, but the question remains why does such a bird do that when it is clearly not in their evolutionary interests to be wasting so many nutrients.  And the answer is that in the wild, where the proto chickens dwelt before we domesticated them, there is always some helpful male around to fertilize the egg, so they do not go to waste.

The institute is a peculiar institution is it not?  When I explain to people how I spend about an hour every morning writing a post to an old high school buddy who i have not seen, nor communicated with, since we graduated from high school, I see some rolling of their eyes, but then they are used to my being peculiar, so it is no big deal.

The first link is of course your sister who somehow found her way into waitressing at the House of Chin.  On learning her last name, of course I asked her about you and learned that you were living at the top of Michigan.  Well how about that, but I did not inquire further.  And then when I left the House of Chin I lost track of her, well not entirely then because her husband played on the same softball team.  But when I left Champaign in the middle eighties i lost contact with her.
 
And then in 2009 I joined fb, and all these people came out of the woodwork.  Susie and I had several Champaign friends in common so i reconnected with her.  And then one day I got to thinking about you.  Even though I wouldn't have agreed with your decision, it always stuck in my mind how you stood up to the forces that were in Gage Park and didn't go on to college like almost everybody else.

I asked Susie about you and when I learned that you were a right winger, well that was even better because, like you, I get bored with talking to people who agree with me.  I think we wrote emails to each other for about two years before you instigated The Institution, and now there are five and a half years of The Institute archived on the world wide web for anyone to read, though nobody but us, despite our urging, follow.

December 12, 2013, the first posting of The Institute, I think we should make December 12 Institute Day.

That comes to roughly 1500 hours or 62 days or two months that we have been plinky plonking on the keys, and sometimes I ask myself, as I am sure you do, why am i doing this.  And the reason is that we like to write, and you really need somebody, even if it's only one person, to read what you have written.  The timing is right too, with me writing in the morning and you in the evening.  Your posts come after I am in bed so that I don't read them until the next morning, and i think you don't read them until the end of your day.  I guess you are winding down after a hard day of maintaining the freehold, whereas I am winding my way up, draining my pot of coffee and waiting for the thunk of my newspapers outside my door.

And there it is, so I guess I will begin the second part of my day now.  I'll be leaving for St Louis tomorrow morning  and I won't be getting back till Monday afternoon, so I guess it will be Tuesday before I, in the words of Merle Haggard, am right back with the crew.