Thinking about Vulcans prizing “calm” over “happiness”. 

Like how humans look back on their childhood and remember how happy it was - joyful days spent running around in the sun, getting into a bit of trouble, laughing with peers and family - that’s how they know it was a good one. Meanwhile Vulcans might look back on their childhood and remember how peaceful it was. Quiet days spent studying, the warm glow of candlelit lessons in caves, getting along smoothly with ones peers - that’s how they know it was a good one. Humans typically chose their friends and romantic partners based on if this person makes them feel happy above all. The question of “Do you like being with them?” is interpreted to mean “Does being with them make you feel happy?” But since Vulcans don’t experience (or strive for) happiness there would have to be some other parameter. So I was thinking about like, what is a good relationship to a Vulcan? There’s obviously a big emphasis on ‘togetherness’ in Vulcan unions. The Pon Farr ritual Tuvok does with his [hologram] wife involves them committing to becoming “Two bodies one mind” and it’s stated that they give and receive from each other all that they are. There’s also of course the iconic “Never and always touching and touched”. This is all (as was said during T’Pol & Koss’ wedding) “The Vulcan heart, the Vulcan soul, this is our way.” Vulcans are also (ENT) expected to live together for at least a year after being married - I imagine so that they can bond with and get to know one another. In SNW T’Pring wants for Spock to honor the commitments he makes to her so in that case T’Pring values Spock keeping his word to her and placing her above other things. I see a bit of Tuvok in that, where he prizes his commitment to T’Pel over anything else to the point where he’d nearly rather die than break it: (Even though he eventually agrees to having sex with a hologram it MUST be of his wife and he lets Tom/The Audience know that he will NOT be making a habit of it. There’s no ironclad logical reason for him to react this way as a hologram is not a person but his commitment to T’Pel seems to take precedence and I believe that’s his reasoning. His bond with T’Pel is logical, sustaining and important to him and he’s loath to break it over some bodily need. some desire that will pass even if it kills him.) <- By this way of thinking, betraying T’Pel would be the emotional choice while remaining loyal to her is remaining loyal to his logical self. A strong emphasis on loyalty to one’s mate seems to be a common Vulcan trait. In the beginning this seems to be rooted in tradition but later on its probably assumed that the couple will be loyal to one another out of some sort of actual connection between two people as opposed to pure obligation. In ENT T’Pol says that a certain degree of “affection” is eventually expected to happen within a marriage (though the way she says it makes me think this doesn’t always occur and isn’t necessarily The Goal) and her mother says that she and her husband developed a “deep connection” to one another. All this makes me think that a connection and a sense of ‘togetherness’ or ‘compatibility’ would also be prized over more emotional things like a passion for one another. It’s a partnership above all and that would be prized over a romantic union.  It makes me think of Vulcans’ roots in violence and war. Maybe this commitment to a steady togetherness, two people who don’t know each other being able to work together so seamlessly they nearly become one, is a way to show they’ve moved beyond that despite the pon farr remaining. Vulcans are a naturally very emotional species. Someone who incites that would probably not be seen as someone you should spend your time with. Someone who makes your heart pound, sets you ablaze, fills you with passion - that sounds like a bad Vulcan time v_v  Tuvok says as much when he talks about how he was struck with “shon-ha’lock”. Humans wouldn’t see anything wrong with having a crush on someone (and indeed in that episode Tom only comes to the conclusion that it’s a shame Tuvok couldn’t act on these emotions) but it’s obvious that even a teenaged crush when uncontrolled can become a very big problem to a Vulcan. In one of the Star Trek Novels Tuvok even stops being friends with and talking to a girl because she tearfully admits she has feelings for him and he sees that her feelings for him cause her pain.  Instead of thinking “Oh, she really likes me, good! We’re close friends so maybe we can make this work.” or even “I don’t like her romantically but since we’re close friends we can work through it.”  Tuvok thinks “Oh, she really likes me. That must be causing her to become very emotional and I can see she’s clearly upset. I’ll remove myself from her life so my presence doesn’t incite those emotions anymore.” And while him flat out just cutting himself out of her life might seem weird and kind of cruel and a frankly hilarious reaction to someone confessing their love to you - I also think it’s something he thought of as a kindness. If his presence harms her (stirs up emotions in her) then he will remove himself to keep from harming her. Along that vein, calmness or the absence of strong emotions would be a good relationship and one worth staying in. Not that there can’t be any emotions (Tuvok and T’Les obviously care[d] deeply for their respective spouses) but that they must be controllable and able to be cast aside in the face of logic.  I also think that “knowing” the other person would be considered very important (after marriage of course). If you’re to operate as a partnership, a team, and especially if you’re both telepaths you should be able to know your spouse pretty damn well. I see T’Pring attempt to do this in SNW where she is constantly fighting to get to know Spock which Spock self-consciously discourages since he’s been told/shown that his human side is unappealing to Vulcans.  But yeah man idk...just picturing a Vulcan and a human talking for hours...walking along the beach...sleeping side by side...getting to know one another...and at the end of it all one says “You make me feel happy” and the other says “Your presence calms me” and it means, essentially, the same thing.

Tag 10 People You Want to Get to Know Better

Relationship status: Extremely divorced. Prowl levels of divorced. Four times! Multiple genders! Still hopeful though!  I would like to be in a relationship but probably nobody who is not a quadruped should live in the same house with me; while the other parties involved definitely had contributing issues and one was an honest-to-G-d abuser, I’m the only one who’s done it 4 times.

Favourite colour: This varies; it’s usually pink, but can also be purple and various shades of light blue, teal or peach.  There are shades of yellow and yellowish green that are deeply, almost physically unpleasant and painful for me to look at. I’m very autistic that way.

I always get the highest scores possible on those colour sensitivity tests, and was almost broken as a kid by my mother telling me I had to match colours because to my eyes almost nothing matched so I just wore whatever I personally thought looked good.  Turns out everyone other than my mother thought so too. I was really good at “matching blacks” during my goth stage.

Something I want right now: universal basic income and to quit my job so I can write and dance and learn how to draw again. Song stuck in my head: Oh No!  by Marina and the Diamonds (it’s one of my Starscream songs)

Three favourite foods: My three easiest to obtain favourites are: 1. Rib eye steak, particularly the outer part, rare but not cold. 2. Salmon and asparagus with brown rice farina and cheese. 3. Haagen-Dazs butter pecan ice cream. I’m autistic.  Other brands are close, but for me close but not quite as good is “nasty” not “acceptable”‘ -- if the brand isn’t available, I’ll get some other gluten free flavour.  Too close is deeply disappointing. Something that doesn’t sound awful can only be mildly disappointing and might be good.

Last song I listened to: “You Better You Bet” by the Who.  I always imagine Grimlock singing this to Howlback.

“I don’t really mind how much you love me--oooh, a little is all right When you say, come over and spend the night, tonight!”

(He is demiro, she is aro. She loves him to pieces, but despite the fact that they are so hot for each other they fuck rather than hug hello, she has never been In Love in her life and is grateful for that because she thinks being In Love makes people of every species act crazy AF.)

Last thing I googled: 1960s brutalist jewellery. That’s what @legendtrainer, who tagged me, googled last, and I, who have only ever heard “brutialist” applied to architecture, wondered what the fuck that was. It turns out that I own a fuck ton of it, though it’s all from the 70s and early 80s. I bought it when I wanted to cosplay my Star Trek: TOS OCs.  I thought it would look like Klingon or Vulcan stuff. I wonder if the ones I haven’t taken apart and strung together with other things are worth anything.

Dream trip: I want to go back to Japan with more time and a lot more money.

Aside from that, though, in terms of practical dreams:  I was supposed to go to TF-Con LA but my brother got cancer and I bought him some of his meds while waiting for his coverage to kick in because, you know, I don’t want him to die. And his special food that insurances just don’t cover.

Don’t live in America.  We’re a beautiful country but we’re a cruel one.

No pressure tags (seriously, NO PRESSURE): @bitegore (who I know very well but not about this kinda thing); @byzantienne (who I was very close to for years but rarely see now because she is Married and writing really good books and it’s Ninety-Three Thylacine, I know animals are weird choices but when have I ever not been weird); @stuffbyshelby2; @guesso13; @inktheblot (who I wanted to be friends with for years because of the videos and finally met in TF-land); @satellitesoundwave;  @shychangling; JD (you keep changing blog titles); @jariktig; @cybervillainess.

get to know me

tagged by @xcziel. Took me a few days, but I finally just sat down at my computer and got to it.

name: my internet name is thewindsofsong. I also go by windy. I don’t give my rl name to anyone i haven’t met irl because I am technically internet old and trust no one with personal information

pronouns: she/her

Break so this isn't super long and annoying to get past

star sign: aries but I don’t really know what that means because I don’t follow astrology at all

height: 5'4"

time: 9:42

birthday: 4/10, but sometimes i say 4/13 because thats two unlucky numbers in one birthday

nationality: american

fave bands/groups/solo artists: Hozier, Florence and the Machine, Mitsuki, Liu Chang are the ones that come to mind right now. There’s more, but those tent to be the artists I come back to a lot. Neutral Milk Hotel is old and gone and only listened to when the mood is right

song stuck in your head: Highland cathedral because of a tiktok atm. A bunch of people sang different notes and layered on top of each other to sound like bagpipes. It was pretty awesome.

last movie you watched:Rurouni Kenshin! The 2012 live action movie!! Currently one of the organizers for a weekly watch party that happens in the dmbj discord server. Its been a lot of fun watching movies with everyone there every week!!!

last show you binged: Does Moonfall Echo count? I technically binged it, but the whole series is also like a hour a most and I watched half of it on my lunch break today

when you created your blog: some time in early 2012 i think?

the last thing you googled:月陨回声 - would it surprise anyone to know that thats the original Chinese title for Moonfall Echo? No? No one? ok….

other blogs: twoscats. I sent all the cute animal things there and then watch them on worse days.

why i chose my url: I was young and knew that i liked music and that my favorite element was air. One day the winds of song came into my head and it has been my online handle ever since.

how many people are you following: 140 which is actually a lot for me. I should go through and do some pruning… I usually keep it down to around 100. I curate my tumblr experience a lot and I credit it to being the reason why its been as positive as it has been.

how many followers do you have: 675, but my blog is also suuuuuper old so the majority of them are probably inactive blogs that are just hanging around.

average hours of sleep:6-7. I’ve tried to sleep more than that but it just doens’t happen easily. I tent to wake up super early and have a hard time falling asleep again

lucky numbers: multiples of 3 and 13

instruments: marimba. Used to play it back in high school and just loved the sound of it. Also have a lot of great memories playing in both marching band and drumline.

what i'm currently wearing: halloween pjs. They’re very comfy and Halloween is great and deserves more than just one month ok?

dream job: housewife/artisanal soap maker. Let me do nothing but focus on keeping a clean house, cooking new foods, occasionally making and selling fantastic handmade soaps! I could binge all the dramas! Write all the fanfics!! DO ALL THE THINGS!!! But alas, I live in a capitalist hellscape and must work to contribute to bills. I think I’m doing close to the next best thing which is working from home atm tho.

dream trip: all expense paid trip across japan during a non busy season. My Japanese is bad and suuupeer informal because I absorbed it all from watching 15ish years of anime, but it's workable.

fave food: right now the first thing that comes to mind is a great breakfast sandwich.

top three fictional universe you'd like to live in: star trek times? Where capitalism has been abolished and things are pretty great? Ummmmm beyond that, maybe Natsume Yuujincho universe because interesting things can happen, but they aren’t world ending. Spirits exist and sometimes they form heartbreaking connections to mortals, but they're still so beautiful! Third might be idk, dmbj world so long as I never enter a tomb? Hearing about Wu Xie’s disastrous adventures could be fun

last song: That wasn’t the tiktok one? Probably Golden Sands sung by Liu Chang

last stream: I watched a bit of Liu Chang’s 4/28 stream that got uploaded to youtube. I do not have a problem, don’t judge me.

currently reading: Cats Paw by Merinnan & xantissa for like the 16th time. I don’t really read books and i’ve never really taken the time to examine why, but with fics like theirs, I never really saw a reason to try and go into reading random books that I don’t know or characters that I don’t already have a connection to.

currently watching: Moonfall Echo. I’ll probably be rewatching it a few times because I can. Its so weird. I don’t understand how they’re actually making this work with everything else? And apparently A Chinese Ghost Story is a part of this somehow?

what is antipoetry to you: Absolutely no idea. I had to analyse a bunch of poetry back in high school, but that was a long time ago. Is antipoetry just prose?

currently craving: takoyaki lowkey allllllllll the damn time. I actually have a takoyaki pan, but making takoyaki takes so much work. I usually just make pancake balls and drench them in syrup.

I feel like Penders gets a bad rap. Sure he's an asshole and writes weird shit but a writer should be entitled to some legal rights, even bad ones. And I say bad but I've not read much Penders. I recall the sonic comics being popular back in the day even though I've never been really plugged into the Sonic fandom

The legal rights of authors in situations like this are difficult and complex in a way I probably cannot entirely grasp. I know that corporations like Marvel and DC have done very poor jobs with attribution, and that guys like Jack Kirby and Bill Finger didn’t get the credit (or the money) they deserved.

At the same time, there are laws and guidelines in place for this stuff to prevent exactly what Ken Penders did. He tore down a record-setting comic book series for his own personal gain, so he could write an ugly graphic novel that may not even actually ever be released. He traded the enjoyment of hundreds of thousands of readers just to serve his own selfish whims, because nobody gets to play in the sandbox but him. We have examples time and time again of this happening.

And while you may think that sounds selfish on a consumer level, circumstances of all of this are very different from what happened to those early Marvel and DC guys.

Penders deserves a bad rap because that’s what he gave himself. A few months ago I reblogged an old post made by Sally Hogan where she explains the entire Ken Penders vs. Archie Comics lawsuit fiasco. That blog is here, but I point out something very important in my reblog:

…the most important thing this has made me freshly aware of is the fact that Ken Penders said, out loud, that Sega owns every character he ever created for the Archie Sonic book. He worked for them for 12 years (1993 to 2005) fully aware that he was writing for a licensed book and would never see a dime in royalties or ownership rights.

(…)

Over a decade of that man’s life and from the moment the pencil touched the page, he knew it was not his to keep, and he was absolutely, unquestionably fine with that.

Until Archie replaced him.

Ken Penders has sworn up and down that this is about the rights of creators and he’s getting what he’s owed and fair is fair (he’s even said this directly to me in tweets). And yes, truthfully, creators deserve to own their creations and get royalties. But Ken Penders in 1993 knew 100% where he was, what he was writing for, and internalized the limitations that come with the territory of working with a license. And despite all of that knowledge, he remained on staff for 12 years.

This is not a case where Stan Lee and Jack Kirby were co-creating an entire universe and Stan gobbled up all the ownership because of some backdoor dealings or whatever.

Ken Penders signed on to write for a license he did not own, and he knew he did not own it. It was in his contract when he began work. It was a job like any other, and it’s one where he didn’t even care for the source material originally.

At some point that changed, and Ken began viewing himself as “the one true author of the Sonic universe.” But he’s not allowed to do that. He wasn’t given that title by anyone but himself, and it wasn’t his to take. And in trying to take it, he brought the whole thing down.

He’s personally argued to me that we don’t know how many times the book almost got canceled, and how little Archie themselves apparently cared for it, but it doesn’t change the fact that he was the one to finally unbalance the house of cards. He is the cause of the effect.

And for what? At best, his Lara-Su Chronicles book will be lucky to even reach a tenth of the sales as the Archie Sonic comics did even in their worst days. They say “strike while the iron is hot,” but for Ken Penders and The Lara-Su Chronicles, things could not be colder.

And if you’re defending Ken Penders but you’re not really familiar with his work? C’mon, dude. I survived Sonic 06, I survived Sonic Lost World, I survived Sonic Forces. I quit reading Archie’s Sonic comics largely because of Ken Penders. That should tell you a lot.

I want you to ask yourself something: outside of the Sonic comics, is Ken Penders known for anything? If you check his Comic Vine Profile, you’ll see that outside of some Star Trek comics, he mainly did a few forgotten one-offs and contributed to character encyclopedias. Sonic was this guy’s only ticket in the comics industry worth anything.

Now, I want you to compare to Ian Flynn, the guy who took over after Ken Penders was fired. Publishers love this guy, because he’s actually a good writer and is largely credited with righting the sinking ship that was the Archie Sonic comic…

…until it struck the iceburg named Ken Penders and he forced it to sink.

MWSA Interview with Nancy Panko

Date of interview: 19 January 2019

Based on actual events, Nancy Panko’s award winning novel, Guiding Missal, is narrated by a small Catholic prayer book carried in the pockets of three generations of servicemen, beginning in 1942 during WWII and ending in 1993 with the Battle of Mogadishu during Blackhawk Down. It is a tale of faith, family, patriotism, and miracles both on and off the battlefield. The book began as a result of efforts to re-create her father-in-law’s military history as a birthday present for her husband, Butch, on the 50th anniversary of the Battle of the Bulge. As she held the Military Missal in her hands, Nancy thought, “If only this little book could talk.” In her novel, she gives the prayer book a voice.

The making of Guiding Missal was a May 2017 segment on WRAL-TV’s The Tar Heel Traveler. Nancy and her book participated on Robby Dilmore’s WTRU radio show, Kingdom Pursuits. The Military Writers’ Society of America presented Guiding Missal with the 2017 Silver Award-for Historical Fiction. Guiding Missal has over two dozen five-star reviews on Amazon and has been lauded in the Raleigh News & Observer in Cindy Shaffer’s Book Beat column.

Nancy is a retired pediatric nurse and a twelve-time contributor to Chicken Soup for the Soul and Guidepost magazines. She is a member of the Cary Senior Writing Circle, The Light of Carolina Christian Writers’ Group, and The Military Writers’ Society of America.

She and her husband migrated from Lock Haven, Pennsylvania to North Carolina in 2009. They have two children and four grandchildren. They love being in, on, or near the water of Lake Gaston with their family.

MWSA: How did you find out about MWSA?

Nancy Panko: My Publisher, Wally Turnbull of Light Messages in Durham, NC, sent me an email saying he thought I ought to enter my novel, Guiding Missal, in the 2017 contest as a Historical Fiction contender. He continued, ""I think it could win a medal."" I joined MWSA, entered the contest, and won a Silver Medal for Historical Fiction.

MWSA: What was your inspiration for your book?

Nancy Panko: A pocket-sized Catholic Military Missal was returned to my husband in 1994 after having been carried in the pockets of three generations of service members over a 50-year span. It had given guidance and solace to the men who carried it in their pockets during The Battle of the Bulge in World War II, the cold war and building of the Berlin Wall in the 1960s, and during fighting in the dusty streets of Mogadishu, Somalia during what became known as ""Blackhawk Down."" As I held the fifty-year old military missal in my hands, I thought, ""If only this prayer book could talk. I think it was then that the seed was planted to write about it’s journey.

MWSA: What writing projects are you working on these days?

Nancy Panko: I had my tenth submission to Chicken Soup for the Soul published in a January 9, 2019 release, Messages From Heaven. Presently, I'm working on a second novel about a guardian angel who comes into the human realm with a newborn baby and stays to protect the child until her days are done. It is a generational story beginning during the World War II era on a dairy farm in central New York State. I continue to submit short stories to Chicken Soup based on my personal experiences in hopes of reaching the magic number of 20 contributions.

MWSA: Now that you've finished writing and publishing Guiding Missal, what do you know now that you wish you had known before you started?

Nancy Panko: I wish I had had more education in the writing process. When I started Guiding Missal I had only taken a Creative Writing class in my Senior year of high school. I learned that I had some talent to write but life took some twists and turns. As a Registered Nurse, we had training on how to write clear, concise nursing care plans. Twenty-three years of care plans and charting gave me a backgroud of proper grammar and use of the English language, the rest was desire to tell a story. I learned as I went along with the help of great editors, through participating in webinars, and taking advantage of free writing classes at our local colleges and universities. It was a process but I had a lot to learn. The payoff was that I was first published with Chicken Soup for the Soul at age 71 and published my first novel at age 74!

MWSA: How did becoming a Silver Medal Winner help promote your book?

Nancy Panko: The prestige and honor of being recognized by MWSA was respected by folks who looked at my book and made it more likely that they would buy it. The Silver Medal sticker on the book was always an attention getter. I believe being an award-winner has resulted in more speaking engagements. We live in an area populated by military and former military families and the book is very popular with them. I have affiliated myself with a local organization, Military Missions in Action, attending events selling books with a portion of my proceeds going to this worthy cause of helping vets and their families. Everyone always wants to know about the Military Writers' Society of America.

MWSA: How did you get started writing?

Nancy Panko: I loved English, literature, reading and wrote stories and poems for special occasions for my family from the time I was a school aged child. I tried my hand at submission to Reader's Digest Humor In Uniform in the mid 1990s and was accepted. It was only a 400 word count submission but they paid $400! I thought I was ""hot stuff."" The next evening our water heater exploded and it cost us $475 to replace it. I learned quickly not to get too ""puffed up"" because the deflation isn't worth it. Years later, after my nursing career of twenty-three years, I was relating a story of a patient who changed my life. My friend encouraged me to write the story in the hopes that it could help someone reading it. I did. It was published in a magazine in California then in Chicken Soup for the Soul, and finally under a different title in Guidepost Magazine. I had the writing bug from that point on.

MWSA: What was the most interesting part of your writing journey?

Nancy Panko: In order to begin Guiding Missal I had to re-created my father-in-law's military history. Everything he'd brought home from his Tour of Duty, including citations and medals, was gone. A fire in the Army records center in St. Louis, Missouri had destroyed his section of records. After unsuccessfully trying the court house and other leads, I felt defeated.

A week later, a phone call changed everything. My brother-in-law, Pete remembered Dad receiving a yearly newsletter from the secretary of the 289th Cannon Company. He had kept it! It had names, addresses and phone numbers. I felt like I’d won the lottery.

I contacted the gentleman who sent the newsletter. He encouraged me to call others on the list, giving me names. These men had served with Dad and knew stories no one in our family had ever heard. I began personal interviews and received letters from members of the company, men in their eighty’s, who were eager to tell their stories, as well as Dad’s. They gave life to Dad as a soldier. One man sent a booklet of the history of the 289th Cannon Company. Others sent actual war maps detailing their trek across Europe, driving the Germans out of France, the liberation of concentration camps and the surrender of the Germans.

A long letter from Uncle Joe, Dad's brother, gave me much more information and some very funny stories. Both Dad and Joe were serving in the ETO (European Theater of Operations.) It was 1945 in France, and the brothers had not seen each other for two years. As fate would have it, they were reunited when they literally ran into each other in a tent. Both were marking time while waiting to be shipped back to the States. Uncle Joe added humor and laughter with page after page of stories of their antics.

Without the volume of material these men provided, it would have been impossible to tell Dad’s story. I began to compile the information in a notebook. That single notebook grew to three notebooks.

MWSA: What would like us to know about you and/or Guiding Missal?

Nancy Panko: Guiding Missal - Fifty Years. Three Generations of Military Men. One Spirited Prayer Book was an honor for me to research and write. I spoke to many heros and listened to their stories. In tribute to all who served, I needed to get this story right because men died serving our great country. The story is historically correct but the human element also had to be authentic. The men I interviewed made it all possible. Receiving validation from MWSA was a great honor. I am happy to say that through this validation, Guiding Missal has been recently approved by the U.S. Army to be featured in a book signing event at the 82nd Airborne Museum in Fayetteville, NC to be announced.

MWSA: How is your book, Guiding Missal available?

Nancy Panko: It is available in print, digital and audio formats. Through Amazon, Audible.com, and iTunes."

People of Duluth: Bob King

For someone like Bob King, the world is too interesting to ever be bored. A native of Illinois, Bob has many roles in our community: a long-time photo editor at the Duluth News Tribune, a husband, father, and, perhaps most famously, the face of amateur astronomy and star-gazing in the Northland as AstroBob.

    Bob was born in Evanston, Illinois, right next to Chicago. He lived in the big city until he was four, and spent the rest of his childhood in the suburb of Morton Grove. His passion for both photography and the heavens began at an early age. From what he remembers, it was clouds that first turned his eyes to the sky. “I’ve always been photographing clouds,” he says. The space program in the 60’s also captured his imagination. When the astronauts of Apollo 11 made their first steps onto another world, he was there to take a picture—of his television set.

    He received his first camera and his first telescope when he was 12 and made great use of both. He purchased his first “professional” camera in 8th grade from a friend, an Argus 35 mm. What would be considered a piece of junk today set him on the path that would eventually lead to a career.

    Bob attended the University of Illinois in Champaign, where he went for—of all things—a degree in German. “How I got into journalism was pure chance”, he says. “In my senior year, I didn’t really want to become a German teacher in some small Illinois high school, because that looked like my fate.” He had a friend at the time that had seen his photography and mentioned the local newspaper, the Champaign Gazette, as a place to apply. He did and got the job, starting as an engraver before moving up to become a photojournalist, learning it in the field, as he had only shot art photography as a hobby and knew nothing of the traditional newspaper style. For a time he was even the church editor.

    His first encounter with Duluth was on his way to witness a total solar eclipse in Winnipeg in ’79. After passing through and being impressed with the town, he began paying attention to  a Duluthian who regularly contributed to a photography magazine he subscribed to. Hoping to learn something from him, Bob applied at the News Tribune and was hired, making the trek from Illinois (which was too hot, anyway) to the Twin Ports.

    Fast forward to the present, Bob has been the News Tribune’s photo editor for 27 years, a job that is “more of a title”, because most of his time is spent on the ground—or in the air—taking pictures. “My real passion in photography is street photography. That’s what I like the most. Going out—scrappy stuff—finding people doing things.” He enjoys talking to people when he is out. “They’ll tell you things about their lives. That’s the best part of my job, those moments.”

    His career as “Astrobob” began 9 years ago, when his editor was looking for interesting topics for online content. He suggested astronomy and, as they say, the rest is history. Grinding away, he pumped out articles on the blog every day of the week for years. Eventually, it paid off in the form of new writing opportunities. He now contributes regularly to both Universe Today and Sky and Telescope Magazine, thanks to exposure from the site.

    Opportunities tend to snowball. In Bob’s case, his experience with Universe Today led to a book deal. His first ever book “Night Sky with the Naked Eye” was released in November 2016. He describes the writing process as being difficult, having juggled his different writing commitments and his work at the News Tribune, all while trying to meet a tight deadline for the book’s first draft, followed by the constant back-and-forth between him and the editor.

    With one book under his belt, he has been asked to write a second only a month ago. He has a few ideas floating around, ranging from a cosmic bucket list to a tale tracing our origins from star dust. Suffice it to say it will not be a standard guidebook.

    Judging by this generation’s obsession with smartphones and social media, I thought it was a fair question to ask: what happened to America’s interest in space and the space program? Do kids still look up at the night sky with the same sense of wonder children in the era of Apollo did?

“People do love the space missions. They love the Hubble photographs, but I don’t sense so much an active interest.” Whenever he shows pictures to kids in his community ed classes, however, he can tell the love of space hasn’t died. “I guess we just have a lot of things vying for our time.”