Vic Socotra

22 June 2009

The Longest Day

(Orbital Mechanics)

They called the daylight assault on the Normandy Beaches The Longest Day in the cool movie based on the Cornelius Ryan book with the stunning international cast released back in 1962.

The movie, if you recall, was shot in black and white, just like real life.

It must have been a long day, but it was by no means the longest. I have been sliding into a relationship with the natural rhythm of the planet mostly because of the frontage of Tunnel Eight at Big Pink. The balcony floats in the moisture-fed rich green leaves over the pool, and the inconvenience associated with working during the day makes the extra sunshine critical. This weekend, June 20-21, was crucial in my relationship with the sun, since despite the clouds, it was the summer Solstice, and the official beginning of the summer.

Yesterday was the beginning of summer in the northern hemisphere at 1:45 a.m. EDT, not that I got up to note it. The part of the whole solstice thing that is critical is the exercise and the onset of the official drinking hour.

They understand in Wiltshire, in the west of the UK. The annual observance at Stonehenge drew 36,500 revelers, including assorted druids, Wicca devotees and King Arthur Pendragon. He used to be known as John Rothwell, and I suspect more than an occasional recreational drug-user. The King was joined by a legion of his subjects out for as good a time as you can have at that hour.

It’s complicated, but I am a Master of Science, so here it is: the earth (point “A”) spins around its axis (rod “B”), which is an imaginary line going right through the planet between the north and south poles (points “C” and “D”), which are also largely imaginary, since there are magnetic and virtual ones (points “E” and “F”) that wander around.

That magnetic drift is as disquieting as the motion of the sun across the sky. In aviation school we learned the formula like this: TVMDC-AD.

True heading

Adjusted by Variation

Gives you Magnetic Heading

Adjusted by Deviation

Gives you Compass heading

Add for Westerly variations.

That was way too hard to remember, what with the Marine DI's waiting to grab and torture us, so they gave us a rhyme devised in an ancient time, seemingly as distant as the Druids:

“Timid Virgins Make Dull Companions- Add Whiskey.”

It has served me in good stead ever since. The earth’s axis (rod “B”) is tilted somewhat off the plane of the earth's revolution around the sun. The tilt of the axis is 23.5 degrees; or roughly aligned with the service road in front of the Assembly of God church across the street from Big Pink, and the gap between those two big trees at the State Department Party House on the corner.

It is a huge shift, and why we enjoy the four seasons in this part of Arlington County.

I prefer reading in the sun or paddling tranquilly in the blue waters to the drear months when the pool is closed. I chase the sun both vertically and horizontally. When the pool closes in the fall- I shudder at that prospect already, now that we are tilting back toward the darkness- and have worn a little parade route down the autumnal axis of the settingsolar disk. For now, with the sun slashing across the sky, let to right, I just move up to the balcony to wring the last golden rays out of the day.

It was a relief to be gone, and a relief to be back, comfy in Big Pink.

The tendrils of recovery are happening here, though not in Michigan or California. They are ripping down some more of Buckingham, to build the mirror image of The Madison at Ballston Station, which it may be on the former, but is a long walk from the latter.

Another tentative block of upscale luxury townhomes is rising on the long swath of green east of George Mason Drive.

You can hear the recovery happening in the movement of large machines in the dawn’s early light, and you can hear it in the lyrics to an improbable rap song about our little urban village under the trees at:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4T1RMuoQnKo

It is the very apex of the light here, and I suspect one of the problems in plaes like Tehran is their proximity to the equator. They did not have the bittersweet knowledge that the darkness is surely coming now, more than five hours to be shaved off our allotment of light.

I think the Mullahs would be less virulent, if they knew that they had to get out to the pool right now and get their shirts off to enjoy the season. Hell, for all I know, they might even think the winter is a relief.

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