No house burning, but . . .

As I've said before, "The Star Splitter" by Robert Frost is a favorite poem of mine and many amateur astronomers, not only because it captures the wonder of starry nights, but because it captures the obsession – and the pressure on family budgets - in a way that all of us caught up in this hobby know all too well.

(Click image at right for larger version.)

But I now know at least one guy for whom this poem was deciding factor in a strange and wonderful series of coincidences. He's my friend Bob Magnuson who had to scrounge long and hard for his scope and when he finally decided to buy it, it was a very difficult decision. But I'll let Bob tell that story because it meshes so well with the poem. First, the relevant lines from "The Star Splitter:"

. . . So Brad McLaughlin mingled reckless talk
Of heavenly stars with hugger-mugger farming,
Till having failed at hugger-mugger farming
He burned his house down for the fire insurance
And spent the proceeds on a telescope
To satisfy a lifelong curiosity
About our place among the infinities.

‘What do you want with one of those blame things?’
I asked him well beforehand. ‘Don’t you get one!’

‘Don’t call it blamed; there isn’t anything
More blameless in the sense of being less
A weapon in our human fight,’ he said.
. . .
He had been heard to say by several:
‘The best thing that we’re put here for’s to see;
The strongest thing that’s given us to see with’s
A telescope. Someone in every town
Seems to me owes it to the town to keep one.
In Littleton it might as well be me.’

Keeping in mind that Brad was in Littleton, NH now read what Bob had to say when I quoted from this poem in another recent post.

May I sharesomething about Frost's poem, likewise a favorite of mine? Last year, I was contemplating buying my 15" dob from a total stranger in Ohio, and was worried about losing the money that I had so carefully horded for a 'real telescope.' I think it was Astronomy mag that published some of Frost's poems last spring, with 'The Star Splitter' as the crown jewel, which I agree it is.

It must have been twenty years since I had read that poem, but I have visited the Frost Museum, in the house where he summered in Sugar Hill, NH, and I like Frost's work. Well, reading that poem again became like a Bible revelation to me, since the telescope that I was contemplating was a Starsplitter brand, and I was sitting in my in-law's living room as I read the magazine, in Littleton, NH. And of course you know the other line in the poem - 'In Littleton, it might as well be me.' I may be thick headed, but I got that message. I bought the telescope as soon as I got home.

I wrote Bob and asked his permission to publish his comments. He wrote back, giving the permission and added:

Believe me, the hairs stood up on my arm, and my poor mother-in-law could not understand what I was babbling and laughing about. An even stranger part of the story is that the mailman arrived just as we were backing out of the driveway to head north, and I grabbed the mail and threw it in the back seat. Otherwise, that magazine would have sat until Monday, and I would not have been in Littleton when I read it. Truth can be stranger than fiction.

My wife has often accused me of burning the barn and a lot else to support this 'endless hobby'. She allows as how Frost really understood amateur astronomers to have even put that 'horrible idea' in his poem. "That's awful" she said as I gleefully read the poem to her; then, after a very pregnant pause, she added "Don't get any ideas, Buster."

You gotta love it. Bren. I might add, has been more than generous in this respect as I keep bleeding the dwindling bank account to roam the universe alone and with friends. But I notice she doesn’t leave any matches lying around ;-)