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Justin99
My father was an exploration geologist in Australia mainly, in his early career dad geologically mapped large areas of Australia, South Australia mostly, during the 50s and 60s, and his maps were used by the Dept of Mines. My childhood memories are filled with images of topographic maps on the lounge room floor, my mother Dawn, an artist of some repute, coloured the maps according to the mineral content and sediment makeup, our boxer dog Jazz was taught the important command "MAPS!", which caused her to immediately respect the temporary colourful floor covers and carefully tippy toe around them in the couple of inches left uncovered, she was brilliant at it actually, not once did she step on a map and injure it, she loved dad so much too, and missed him terribly when he would set off in his Landrover 4WD, and disappear into the interior of Australia for 9 months or so at a time, uncontactable, we would only know of his return when the Landrover pulled into the carport. Dad is responsible for instilling in me a curiosity about how nature works, a love of the heavens above, particularly man made objects flying overhead, (like Sputnik, which he would point out to us as it silently flew over, a tiny shooting star that lasted from horizon to horizon), and one terrifying night, an Aurora Australis, in the early 60s in Adelaide, SA, I was so impressed with this bizarre sight, of a waving red curtain in the sky (and did I say terrified?!), that I drew it, in our Grade 2 drawing book, as a multi-coloured convulsing ribbon in the sky, I think I received my only 'gold star' from the nuns for the picture, which I still have to this day. As early as I can remember, I wanted to be an astronaut, or should that be an aussienaut? I was skinny as a kid, these days, I'd need a Saturn V just to get into low orbit! I live in Katoomba NSW Australia these days, and get to see a lovely big night sky, if the Moon isn't too full, or the clouds too abundant. Cheers, justin
