The How I survived the solar flares and stayed sane

The geomagnetic storm caused by solar flares that hit Earth last week and triggered the Northern Lights and

threatened to disrupt telecommunications and knock out power grids made me a little paranoid sitting in a 12th floor apartment

in Manhattan, imagining my laptop computer getting fried, smoke pouring from the keyboard, and my novel in progress turned ashes, as well as my entire life's work, leaving me to spend my remaining years in regret,

but perhaps not many years would remain, perhaps the flares which emanate from a sun spot,

17 times the size of Earth, would also trigger thermonuclear war and within three hours Earth would be just

another roasted planet like Mercury and Venus. I worried about nuclear war as a child. In grade school

we practiced ducking under our desks in case of a nuclear attack, but it only made us question the

intelligence of our principal, Mr Lewis, a nuclear bomb makes a deep crater and ducking under a desk doesn't change that,

nor is it protection against radioactive dust clouds.

I'm sure the danger of nuclear war is very real, and the prospect is horrendous but how long can you go on worrying

about it you move on to other things such as the prospect of electing a 78 year old con man from

Queens to high office. Didn't we do that already? Why would we try it again?

We live in an age of disgruntled and when I dine with grumpy people

I listen to their gripes, and when they stopped to take a breath, I talk about the

great progress made in my lifetime, which of course irks them no end for one thing the cash card we used to go

into the bank and hand a check for cash to Mildred the teller with her pert hairstyle and starched blouse, her

specs hanging on a chain around her neck and she'd wrinkle her mouth and peruse the check questioning

the wisdom of handing you money and eventually she'd count out your $30 and say now don't go spending it all in one place and now there are ATMs everywhere

you look and you slide in the card and get $300, no look of disapproval. The laptop

computer you can throw away all your old 45s, the old hits are all on YouTube.

You just type it in the browser and you've got Danny and the juniors singing let's go to the hop

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