Although he didn't know it, Jerome had joined Thoreau’s mass of men. You know - the kinds who lead lives of quiet desperation?
His early years have been spent in lively, enjoyable pursuit of his primary goal; to gain Fame and Glory. He couldn’t remember where he’d first heard the phrase (I can, but this is his story, not mine) but he liked it and quickly adopted it as an excellent set of goals. Fame and Glory. What else could anybody ask for?
He first tried putting together a band. It was easy, right? And lots of money and girls? Way kewl! But the band couldn’t even get gigs at the Sheraton lounge. He went solo but didn't have fingers long enough to do well on those sneering guitar strings. He tried piano (fingers again), trumpet (no embouchure), and even the drums (nobody within six blocks liked that idea). He tried to emulate the dancing singers of his time but his size 12 dogs didn't mind real well and besides, his moonwalk looked like a drunken stagger. He joined a couple of school teams but was either too big (gymnastics) too small (football) too quick (golf) or too slow (wrestling).
He tried to excel in school but could only manage a 3.6, pretty acceptable but not Fame and Glory numbers. He tried painting, photography, wood carving, and even pottery. (One of his art teachers asked him if he had tried sports because, well, the art thing just wasn't working.) (Which was funny in a sad sort of way, because one of his coaches had suggested that maybe he should take up art.) He even tried his hand at counted-cross stitching a life-sized heron, which turned out remarkably well (his mother had it framed and proudly hung it on the living room wall) but both his brothers (one older and one younger), and his sister (older and with no goals in life other than to "find a man") ("good luck" was what Jerome usually thought to himself) made so much fun of his "feminine activity" that he finally liberated it from it’s public display spot. He ended up sticking it in the basement behind some boxes of books that his dad had put on top of some old bags of hardened, ready-mix concrete. Nobody was in a rush to break up and move the bags, so he figured nobody would be looking behind them anytime soon. His mother kept asking what happened to her favorite heron, but everybody in the family, including Jerome, pleaded innocence. So while the heron found a new permanent home in the basement, Jerome had to endure his siblings’ femininity comments well into adulthood, a fact that grated him to no end.
By the time Jerome was middle aged he’d turned to inventions. He tried this, he tried that, he tried about six times to get something patented. One was a plastic cut out pasted into a golf tee. Huh? Another was a hose that automatically recoiled itself. (Idea was stolen and the company made millions.) Another was a self closing toilet seat. The prototype almost got his dad.
Maybe his wackiest invention was a simple coffin lined with brass plates that he'd coated in a complicated mixture of chemicals. Jerome claimed the coated brass would preserve a body for millions if not billions of years. It got perhaps the fastest rejection of all of his patents.
Thing was, patent applications weren’t cheap and the mortgage could only go unpaid for so long. So before he was 45 Jerome was broke, childless, divorced, and had generally given up on ever achieving his Fame and Glory. He also discovered that love could hurt worse than anything else. (Big surprise, huh?) And because he couldn't stand seeing his ex-wife every week or so walking around town with whichever new boyfriend she’d picked up (she’d certainly found her fame and glory) he moved back to his hometown and got a cheap room at the local “Y.” The best thing about that was that the Y was less than two blocks away from of his childhood home and he could walk over and take care of his parents whenever he felt the urge, now that they were both getting old and senile. (He could also visit the brass-lined coffin and still not found heron in the basement. But even he'd forgotten they were down there.)
Two days after his mother died (and 3 1/2 years after his father passed away,) he finally took the turn that got him his oh-so-more than five minutes of fame and questionable glory.
He walked over to the old place, turned the key in the lock, and once again entered his past. He spent the day going through what was left of his parents’ possessions. Upon inspection of the basement, he’d been reintroduced to the coffin invention, now full of National Geographics and other incredibly valuable treasures (old toys, an erector set his mother had saved from his youth, some of his sister’s dolls and a two sets of golf clubs.) He’d found the heron thingy behind the still hardening cement and since he surely didn’t want to remind anybody about it, he stuffed it under the padding on the underside of the coffin lid. He’d actually used the spot to hide his Playboys at one time and several of them still held his interest, ragged and dog eared as they were. After a day of thinking about what a waste his life was, he decided it was time to check out. Despondent, discouraged, depressed, Jerome started back to his crummy room at the Y. On his way he walked into the local convenience store and for no known reason, held them up. Jerome's weapon of choice was a comb in his pocket that he told the clerk was a gun.
When the cops showed up Jerome walked out of the store, whipped the black comb out and pointed it at the cops, while at the same time screaming that he was going to “Kill ya all!!” The hail of gunfire put an end to him and the comb. He made it on all the local nightly news reports except one. So much for fame and glory.
The only good part of all the commotion was that the county had identified his parents’ home in the holdup investigation, and his still living siblings were located and informed of the whole shooting thing less than 2 days after the comb became dead. Yes, they already knew about it. But none of them wanted to be embarrassed by association. Nevertheless, his oldest sister finally took the plunge (no telling what was in that house) and showed up in town. After walking through the house she decided it was time to put the brass-lined coffin to good use. At least Jerome finally got a small but apparently long-term return out of one of his inventions.
He was mourned with hardly a pauper’s funeral and was buried in a corner of the County cemetery (Potter’s Field sort of spot) with nothing more than a small block of stone to mark his life.
Name. Born. Died. No F and G there. Interpretation? “Loser!”
Exactly 1,113,751 years later, (give or take a year or two) the Disperiato III landed approximately 200 miles from Jerome's childhood home and favorite convenience store. Of course by then the home and store had long since disappeared, as had all other hints that at one time there was a thriving civilization on the third planet of this backwater solar system located way out here at almost the end of an arm of the galaxy.
The Disperiato III was a Class I survey ship. And that's what they did. The flybys had indicated possible rich deposits of zinc and other metals that the Hortians were desperate for. The survey teams designated the landing site as "Prime" and proceeded to expand their grids from there. They were more than a little startled to receive some sonar scanned echoes from the very first pulses. Yes, they had anticipated metals and were extremely pleased to discover how rich the deposits seemed to be, but they also got pings from archaeological returns that exceeded their wildest expectations. The teams, recognizing the significance of those pings, immediately called for additional assistance.
The geologists had moved on to the rich mineral deposits by the time the true archaeologists arrived. Yet even so, the geologists kept reporting more and more archaeological prospects.
The first archaeological vessel, the Foxton I, following established procedure, set down approximate 200 miles from prime, and interestingly enough (or there wouldn’t be a story) on the very spot where Jerome's favorite bar used to offer up libations. Let the digging began.
Over the course of the first solar cycle, the original dig brought up tremendous amounts of treasures. Each was carefully catalogued, sealed, stored and otherwise prepared for trans-shipment back to the Hortians central system where it would be offloaded to one of the warehouse worlds. Once the artifacts arrived at the warehousing facilities, the scientists studied, cleaned, began re-cataloging, tested and otherwise pontificated on each item. After the mandatory five years, the items were allowed to go the block for auction.
Now as a matter of fact, the Hortians civilization and all of its subcultures, valued archaeological artifacts above all else. Such items had tremendous religious significance, an explanation of which will be avoided here. Suffice it to say, artifacts were gold for both the pocket and the soul.
And thus it was that even today, 700 years later, the single most expensive artifact ever auctioned, cataloged, studied, discussed in universities throughout the known universe, or pondered about by great and not so great minds is the creature discovered packed within a brass lined box, remarkably preserved even after all these cycles. Who were they? What were they, why the brass lined vessel? Was the creature a venerated God, a favorite pet, a famous and important member of their society? This male was definitely somebody important, because of all the burial sites discovered so far, he was the only one who was found to be in such an elaborate, scientifically advanced coffin.
And hanging next to the open, brass-lined box was a portion of a portrait of some sort of exotic flying creature which fine minds agreed generally came from the same time period. In fact, the portrait had been linked to fossils that the archaeologists had discovered. Was the creature the symbol of a great nation? The pet of a ruler? Another God worshiped by others? Were they a pair?
In any case, the artwork itself was considered to be incredibly exquisite and brilliant in its execution. And except for the creature in the brass box, it remains the most expensive artifact ever auctioned throughout the known systems.
Today, the creature, still in its brass lined box, and the exquisite artwork occupy the most prominent places in the most prominent museum in the known universe; located next to each other, these are the two venerated artifacts that we see in the Central Forum of the Universal Imperial Museum. And because of the goodness of Sar Vincent the XXIII, the Central Forum is opened for 12 hours once every 20 years so that the masses can pass through and offer their respects. Both artifacts have been loaned to the museum by the families of the respective owners. Both have been viewed by millions of museum vid visitors each year. Billions of others own holograms, replicas, and other echoes of the two artifacts in their homes, community hallways, and other official public, and not so public structures.
In short, the two items are the most revered and talked about artifacts across more than 900 worlds.
Ya made it, buddy.
His early years have been spent in lively, enjoyable pursuit of his primary goal; to gain Fame and Glory. He couldn’t remember where he’d first heard the phrase (I can, but this is his story, not mine) but he liked it and quickly adopted it as an excellent set of goals. Fame and Glory. What else could anybody ask for?
He first tried putting together a band. It was easy, right? And lots of money and girls? Way kewl! But the band couldn’t even get gigs at the Sheraton lounge. He went solo but didn't have fingers long enough to do well on those sneering guitar strings. He tried piano (fingers again), trumpet (no embouchure), and even the drums (nobody within six blocks liked that idea). He tried to emulate the dancing singers of his time but his size 12 dogs didn't mind real well and besides, his moonwalk looked like a drunken stagger. He joined a couple of school teams but was either too big (gymnastics) too small (football) too quick (golf) or too slow (wrestling).
He tried to excel in school but could only manage a 3.6, pretty acceptable but not Fame and Glory numbers. He tried painting, photography, wood carving, and even pottery. (One of his art teachers asked him if he had tried sports because, well, the art thing just wasn't working.) (Which was funny in a sad sort of way, because one of his coaches had suggested that maybe he should take up art.) He even tried his hand at counted-cross stitching a life-sized heron, which turned out remarkably well (his mother had it framed and proudly hung it on the living room wall) but both his brothers (one older and one younger), and his sister (older and with no goals in life other than to "find a man") ("good luck" was what Jerome usually thought to himself) made so much fun of his "feminine activity" that he finally liberated it from it’s public display spot. He ended up sticking it in the basement behind some boxes of books that his dad had put on top of some old bags of hardened, ready-mix concrete. Nobody was in a rush to break up and move the bags, so he figured nobody would be looking behind them anytime soon. His mother kept asking what happened to her favorite heron, but everybody in the family, including Jerome, pleaded innocence. So while the heron found a new permanent home in the basement, Jerome had to endure his siblings’ femininity comments well into adulthood, a fact that grated him to no end.
By the time Jerome was middle aged he’d turned to inventions. He tried this, he tried that, he tried about six times to get something patented. One was a plastic cut out pasted into a golf tee. Huh? Another was a hose that automatically recoiled itself. (Idea was stolen and the company made millions.) Another was a self closing toilet seat. The prototype almost got his dad.
Maybe his wackiest invention was a simple coffin lined with brass plates that he'd coated in a complicated mixture of chemicals. Jerome claimed the coated brass would preserve a body for millions if not billions of years. It got perhaps the fastest rejection of all of his patents.
Thing was, patent applications weren’t cheap and the mortgage could only go unpaid for so long. So before he was 45 Jerome was broke, childless, divorced, and had generally given up on ever achieving his Fame and Glory. He also discovered that love could hurt worse than anything else. (Big surprise, huh?) And because he couldn't stand seeing his ex-wife every week or so walking around town with whichever new boyfriend she’d picked up (she’d certainly found her fame and glory) he moved back to his hometown and got a cheap room at the local “Y.” The best thing about that was that the Y was less than two blocks away from of his childhood home and he could walk over and take care of his parents whenever he felt the urge, now that they were both getting old and senile. (He could also visit the brass-lined coffin and still not found heron in the basement. But even he'd forgotten they were down there.)
Two days after his mother died (and 3 1/2 years after his father passed away,) he finally took the turn that got him his oh-so-more than five minutes of fame and questionable glory.
He walked over to the old place, turned the key in the lock, and once again entered his past. He spent the day going through what was left of his parents’ possessions. Upon inspection of the basement, he’d been reintroduced to the coffin invention, now full of National Geographics and other incredibly valuable treasures (old toys, an erector set his mother had saved from his youth, some of his sister’s dolls and a two sets of golf clubs.) He’d found the heron thingy behind the still hardening cement and since he surely didn’t want to remind anybody about it, he stuffed it under the padding on the underside of the coffin lid. He’d actually used the spot to hide his Playboys at one time and several of them still held his interest, ragged and dog eared as they were. After a day of thinking about what a waste his life was, he decided it was time to check out. Despondent, discouraged, depressed, Jerome started back to his crummy room at the Y. On his way he walked into the local convenience store and for no known reason, held them up. Jerome's weapon of choice was a comb in his pocket that he told the clerk was a gun.
When the cops showed up Jerome walked out of the store, whipped the black comb out and pointed it at the cops, while at the same time screaming that he was going to “Kill ya all!!” The hail of gunfire put an end to him and the comb. He made it on all the local nightly news reports except one. So much for fame and glory.
The only good part of all the commotion was that the county had identified his parents’ home in the holdup investigation, and his still living siblings were located and informed of the whole shooting thing less than 2 days after the comb became dead. Yes, they already knew about it. But none of them wanted to be embarrassed by association. Nevertheless, his oldest sister finally took the plunge (no telling what was in that house) and showed up in town. After walking through the house she decided it was time to put the brass-lined coffin to good use. At least Jerome finally got a small but apparently long-term return out of one of his inventions.
He was mourned with hardly a pauper’s funeral and was buried in a corner of the County cemetery (Potter’s Field sort of spot) with nothing more than a small block of stone to mark his life.
Name. Born. Died. No F and G there. Interpretation? “Loser!”
Exactly 1,113,751 years later, (give or take a year or two) the Disperiato III landed approximately 200 miles from Jerome's childhood home and favorite convenience store. Of course by then the home and store had long since disappeared, as had all other hints that at one time there was a thriving civilization on the third planet of this backwater solar system located way out here at almost the end of an arm of the galaxy.
The Disperiato III was a Class I survey ship. And that's what they did. The flybys had indicated possible rich deposits of zinc and other metals that the Hortians were desperate for. The survey teams designated the landing site as "Prime" and proceeded to expand their grids from there. They were more than a little startled to receive some sonar scanned echoes from the very first pulses. Yes, they had anticipated metals and were extremely pleased to discover how rich the deposits seemed to be, but they also got pings from archaeological returns that exceeded their wildest expectations. The teams, recognizing the significance of those pings, immediately called for additional assistance.
The geologists had moved on to the rich mineral deposits by the time the true archaeologists arrived. Yet even so, the geologists kept reporting more and more archaeological prospects.
The first archaeological vessel, the Foxton I, following established procedure, set down approximate 200 miles from prime, and interestingly enough (or there wouldn’t be a story) on the very spot where Jerome's favorite bar used to offer up libations. Let the digging began.
Over the course of the first solar cycle, the original dig brought up tremendous amounts of treasures. Each was carefully catalogued, sealed, stored and otherwise prepared for trans-shipment back to the Hortians central system where it would be offloaded to one of the warehouse worlds. Once the artifacts arrived at the warehousing facilities, the scientists studied, cleaned, began re-cataloging, tested and otherwise pontificated on each item. After the mandatory five years, the items were allowed to go the block for auction.
Now as a matter of fact, the Hortians civilization and all of its subcultures, valued archaeological artifacts above all else. Such items had tremendous religious significance, an explanation of which will be avoided here. Suffice it to say, artifacts were gold for both the pocket and the soul.
And thus it was that even today, 700 years later, the single most expensive artifact ever auctioned, cataloged, studied, discussed in universities throughout the known universe, or pondered about by great and not so great minds is the creature discovered packed within a brass lined box, remarkably preserved even after all these cycles. Who were they? What were they, why the brass lined vessel? Was the creature a venerated God, a favorite pet, a famous and important member of their society? This male was definitely somebody important, because of all the burial sites discovered so far, he was the only one who was found to be in such an elaborate, scientifically advanced coffin.
And hanging next to the open, brass-lined box was a portion of a portrait of some sort of exotic flying creature which fine minds agreed generally came from the same time period. In fact, the portrait had been linked to fossils that the archaeologists had discovered. Was the creature the symbol of a great nation? The pet of a ruler? Another God worshiped by others? Were they a pair?
In any case, the artwork itself was considered to be incredibly exquisite and brilliant in its execution. And except for the creature in the brass box, it remains the most expensive artifact ever auctioned throughout the known systems.
Today, the creature, still in its brass lined box, and the exquisite artwork occupy the most prominent places in the most prominent museum in the known universe; located next to each other, these are the two venerated artifacts that we see in the Central Forum of the Universal Imperial Museum. And because of the goodness of Sar Vincent the XXIII, the Central Forum is opened for 12 hours once every 20 years so that the masses can pass through and offer their respects. Both artifacts have been loaned to the museum by the families of the respective owners. Both have been viewed by millions of museum vid visitors each year. Billions of others own holograms, replicas, and other echoes of the two artifacts in their homes, community hallways, and other official public, and not so public structures.
In short, the two items are the most revered and talked about artifacts across more than 900 worlds.
Ya made it, buddy.
Fame and glory, Jerome. Fame and Glory!
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