In the fictional universe of “Star Trek: First Contact” the first human contact with the Vulcans takes place April 5, 2063, which date is 51 years from today. Since the number ‘51’ brings forth thoughts of Area 51 and all its legends of extraterrestrial contact, it seems appropriate to commemorate the occasion with something from exactly 51 years ago. This postmark, on a commemorative honoring Mahatma Gandhi, a man decidedly ahead of his times, is a quite suitable choice.
A Day of Heights and Depths
On this day of heights and depths, it is March 25th, 2012 in the USA but March 26th for James Cameron, on the western side of the International Date Line as he reaches the lowest point in the Marianas Trench of the Pacific Ocean. Tiger Woods finally emerges from the depths of a quarter-decade-long drought by achieving a PGA win. In the heights above, Venus, Jupiter and the crescent Moon are all in extraordinarily close alignment in the evening sky.
Now something about the stamp: Ridgecrest, NC is about a mile from Black Mountain, the setting of the novel One Second After, in which William R. Forstchen vividly depicts what might happen in the months following an electromagnetic pulse (EMP) detonation over the USA. Ridgecrest itself is most noted for its Christian retreat center of the same name. The synchronicity in this stamp postmark, from the day of humankind’s first, and prior to today only, descent to the bottom of the Marianas Trench, comes from the evocation of heights in the name ‘Ridgecrest’ and the gentle irony of James Cameron attaining a high point in his multitalented career by successfully descending to that deepest point in any of the world’s oceans.
This is the first post-2011 entry to my Year of Elevens tumblr, and it marks the seven times eleven, or 77th, anniversary of Elvis Presley’s birth. It was also in ‘77, specifically August of 1977, that Elvis died suddenly and unexpectedly. The stamp is postmarked Jan. 8, 1935 in Missouri, not far distant (whether alphabetically or in miles) from Mississippi, where Tupelo draws many tourists annually to the house where Elvis was born. Since the above was written, today the 8th of January, 2012 became a date that will long be remembered, for the 316-yards personal best passing record set by Tim Tebow, capped of course by the 80-yard overtime winning touchdown. This of course brought to mind Tebow’s oft-photographed eyebrow markings from his college days (the NFL allows plain black only, no text) of John 3:16. What’s the elevens connection, you might ask. Well, the 316 day of 2012 (a leap year) is 11/11, November 11th.
Christmas Synchronicity: Red and Green Striped Border on Michael Buble Birthdate Item
After Alvin Plantinga (see previous Tumblr) the next stamp I found to match a birthdate was for Michael Bublé, September 9, 1975, and what a marvelous Christmas synchronicity! Most of the world has for generations used red and blue as the envelope border colors to mean “this is airmail” but not Algeria, where the convention was to use red and green. On old envelopes used in the English speaking world, border colors of red and green, though rarely used at all, have always been reserved for something else entirely: the celebration of Christmas, and a message of “inside this envelope you’ll find a Christmas card.” In sorting hundreds of thousands of dates on stamps over the years, I have very rarely run across the red and green combination, and only a handful have been airmails, usually from northern Africa or the Middle East. And since people don’t mail out their Christmas cards in September anyway, the only way the red and green would come up is one of those very scarce variety airmails. Yet here is one from the birthdate of the singer who now tops the charts for his album simply titled Christmas.
Holiday Season Synchronicities
This Tumblr was, for the most part, on hiatus since the March 11th tsunami revealed how challenging the year 2011 would turn out to be, and I entered a period of personal challenges as well that absorbed my attention and energy. I have now resumed lookups of stamps for birthdates when I feel moved to do so, and synchronicity has again smiled on this endeavor. Appropriate to this holiday season, the postmarks I have been finding reveal a strong Judeo-Christian theme.
The other night I saw a news story on Tim Tebow’s extraordinary run of come-from-behind football victories for the Denver Broncos. Looking up what I had for his birthdate, there were four items, two of which carried strong synchronicity. In particular, a Florida postmark from that date of August 14, 1987, though without a stamp since it came from a piece of metered mail, stands in for Tebow’s outstanding Florida high school and college career which included his winning the Heisman Trophy in 2007. A stamp from Essen, in what was then West Germany, has a perfectly centered postmark over a commemoration of a 1200 year old cathedral. This, of course, represents Tebow’s staunch, and very public, Christian faith. The two are shown below. The next day I came across a New York Times book review discussing the work of Alvin Plantinga and looked to see what I had for his birthdate of November 15, 1932. The postmark, visible only at its start and end, the rest off the top of the stamp, is Jerusalem, in what was then the British Mandate Palestine.
October 5, 1962 an Extraordinary Day for London and for LA
This day was the premiere of two landmarks in entertainment history: the first Beatles single, “Love Me Do” and also “Dr. No” the first James Bond film. Both premiered in London, predating by some months their release in the USA. Exactly forty-nine (seven squared) years later was the day of passing of Steve Jobs, pioneer of another landmark in modern cultural history, the Apple personal computer.
The postmark on the stamp to the left is quite appropriate to marking the occasion, since it was Los Angeles more than London that would ultimately benefit most from both of the day’s releases. Centered in Los Angeles, the recorded music boom of the 1960s certainly got a major, though indirect, boost from the popularity of the Beatles, and the movie industry thrived alongside the enduring popularity of the James Bond franchise. The stamp to the right, from France, stands in for the worldwide popularity of both James Bond and the Beatles, and like the other has a postmark date of the 5th of October, 1962.
Anniversary of an Enigma
Why, on the night of Sept. 19, 1961 did one of the famous of all ufo encounters happen to Barney and Betty Hill, and not to someone else?
Suppose it was their names. At the time, there was one—and only one—pairing of Barney and Betty well known to the American public. This was the fictional couple, Barney Rubble and his wife Betty, in the Flintstones cartoon series, which had been airing, as the first cartoon series in evening prime time, for about a year.
The location of those ufo events, fifty years ago tonight, was, in part, directly over the Old Man of the Mountain—New Hampshire’s iconic symbol in natural stone, a Hill which indeed became Rubble in 2003.
Appropriate to Barney Hill’s profession as a mail carrier, the fifty year anniversary is marked by the above pairing of two postmarks—one on Barney Hill’s 33rd birthday across a New Hampshire statehood commemorative, and the other on a space communications-themed commemorative in the mail stream on the actual night of the ufo encounter.
Synchronicity in Three Qubits
A team of three physicists, an experiment performed in India on three qubits, to demonstrate the third of three fundamental quantum theorems, successfully performed and now published. One of the three physicists, Jharana Rani Samal, was honored posthumously as the lead author of this Quantum No-hiding Theorem experiment paper: she was murdered 12 November 2009 by a jilted lover on her 27th birthday; three cubed years to the day after her birth. My find from the day she was born: the above postmark from Copenhagen, a city whose name is highly evocative of the mystery and majesty of quantum mechanics, as discussed in an earlier entry to this Tumblr blog.
Friendship 7 Squared
Happy memories of watching John Glenn lift off 49 years ago today, while eating breakfast cereal and getting ready for school. Friendship 7 was the name NASA gave to the capsule in which he flew, and 49, of course, is 7 squared. Also in squares and cubes, a more somber anniversary. It is eight years (two cubed) to the day since 100 people (ten squared) died in America’s fourth deadliest nightclub fire, at The Station in West Warwick, Rhode Island.
