A Cutting Commentary of one’s own

One of the moments I remember well from the early aughts was a conversation I had with my dad about an article he’d written for the popular astronomy publication Sky & Telescope. The conversation I remember was about the reader response to his article: environmentalists up in arms about the deforestation of a Connecticut mountainside in the name of stargazing. What may have gotten lost in the shuffle was that at the time Dad had another hobby besides astronomy: building a yard! Perhaps I didn’t understand this clearly in my youth, but people don’t just create yards because chainsaws ‘go brr’ or because exercising control over a landscape is fun; he did it so we, his kids, would have somewhere to run and play. That yard has given us decades of good times, though it really was a spectacular spot for stargazing too, especially laying back on the rock for a panoramic meteor shower viewing. Astronomy is an enjoyable hobby, but here’s another one: finding the real tangible objects that…