On Borrowed Time, Part Seven; Stonehenge

Science has yet to determine the origins of Stonehenge. To date, each new revelation regarding the “meaning” of the rocks has been a revelation in what they thought they knew about the old meanings. It astonishes me that we can look at something today and determine so much of what we know so little about.

To put things in perspective, the heart was a mystery to man until the first fluid pump was invented, then we “understood” it all.

So what happens next?

When we invent the next level of astro-thingamajig, will we understand Stonehenge?

Stonehenge has always intrigued me, the first reasonings I was exposed to back in the ‘60s, I believe I saw it in Scientific American magazine, explained that the site was a guide to celestial events. The writers of that article explained that an exact copy was built somewhere in the South, but it didn’t work. Why? They assumed that the problem was that it was not built on the same parallel.

Why didn’t they compensate?

This is Science, an exact…I give up!

This left me with the attitude that Scientists don’t really know what they are doing.

So I had to go look for myself.

When Calvin and I left Lakenheath AB in Central England, our nest stop was London, via Stonehenge. What? Via Stonehenge? No way you may say, Stonehenge is on the other side of London. But even though we were riding two-up (that means two people and only one bike) we were on the fastest motorcycle at that time.

Remember Steppenwolf? Born to be wild!

I recall hearing on one of those radio broadcast interviews that the author of that song, Dennis Edmonton, AKA Mars Bonfire, wrote it just after he had gotten his first car, something like a ’62 Comet, and he saw a poster for a Harley-Davidson motorcycle that showed the bike exploding out of a Fourth-of-July bang with a caption something like Born to Be Wild!

So, we had a motorcycle, we had the time, we were in England, we were “Born to Be Wild!”

I started to become worried when we were getting close, I had figured that the site for Stonehenge would be somewhere out in a field, kind of isolated. We were on the main road and getting close, all the signs said so. What was really confusing was that the map showed it on one side of the road and the park entrance on the other.

I could see it just ahead. The road looked like it would run right through the center of the stones.

So there it was, we had arrived and just as the map depicted, the parking lot was on the wrong side of the road. We parked and walked through a tunnel to get to the site.

Who in their right mind would build a road so close to one of the great wonders of the world? Why didn’t they go around and give the site some room? Again, I give up.

So there I stood, amongst the rocks. No, make that stones.

I cold feel the life in them. I had to touch one to feel if it was cold.

Everything in England is cold let me reassure you. Foggy and cold. No wonder they tried to settle the world, no one wanted to stay in this dreary place. Listen to me, I grew up in San Francisco, so I don’t really mean it. Foggy and cold is nice, but the English really do have a beautiful country, some of the landscape is remarkable.

I don’t really know how long we stood there, but the moments are etched in my mind permanently. I wanted to be there when the sun rose over the heel stone. I wanted to taste the essence of this remarkable location.

Calvin had kind of gone off alone. I saw him walking around with his helmet in his hand. It appeared he too was enthralled with this fantastic location and all it means.

I looked at him almost as he looked at me and with a wink of an eye we both knew.

Enough! Lets go to London and party!