Dad lost his job at the gypsum mine1) after getting in an argument with the foreman2), and when Christmas came that year, we had no money at all. On Christmas Eve, Dad took each of us kids out into the desert night one by one. I had a blanket wrapped3) around me, and when it was my turn, I offered to share it with Dad, but he said no thanks. The cold never bothered him. I was five that year and I sat next to Dad and we looked up at the sky. Dad loved to talk about the stars. He explained to us how they rotated4) through the night sky as the earth turned. He taught us to identify the constellations5) and how to navigate6) by the North Star7). Those shining stars, he liked to point out, were one of the special treats8) for people like us who lived out in the wilderness9). Rich city folks, he'd say, lived in fancy apartments, but their air was so polluted they couldn't even see the stars. We'd have to be out of our minds10) to want to trade places with any of them.
"Pick out your favorite star," Dad said that night. He told me I could have it for keeps11). He said it was my Christmas present.
"You can't give me a star!" I said. "No one owns the stars."
"That's right," Dad said. "No one else owns them. You just have to claim it before anyone else does, like that [Italian] fellow Columbus claimed America for Queen Isabella12). Claiming a star as your own has every bit as much logic to it."
I thought about it and realized Dad was right. He was always figuring out13) things like that.
I could have any star I wanted, Dad said, except Betelgeuse14) and Rigel15), because Lori and Brian had already laid claim to them.
I looked up to the stars and tried to figure out which was the best one. You could see hundreds, maybe thousands or even millions, twinkling16) in the clear desert sky. The longer you looked and the more your eyes adjusted to the dark, the more stars you'd see, layer after layer of them gradually becoming visible. There was one in particular, in the west above the mountains but low in the sky, that shone more brightly than all the rest.
"I want that one," I said.
Dad grinned17). "That's Venus18)," he said. Venus was only a planet, he went on, and pretty dinky19) compared to real stars. She looked bigger and brighter because she was much closer than the stars. Poor old Venus didn't even make her own light. Dad said. She shone only from reflected light. He explained to me that planets glowed20) because reflected light was constant21), and stars twinkled because their light pulsed22).
"I like it anyway," I said. I had admired Venus even before that Christmas. You could see it in the early evening, glowing on the western horizon, and if you got up early, you could still see it in the morning, after all the stars had disappeared.
"What the heck23)," Dad said. "It's Christmas. You can have a planet if you want."
And he gave me Venus.
That evening over Christmas dinner, we all discussed outer space. Dad explained light-years and black holes and quasars24) and told us about the special qualities of Betelgeuse, Rigel, and Venus.
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Post By：2009-7-30 11:43:43
