[LNH] Adventures Beyond Comprehension #8

[cabbagewielder at yahoo.com]

							November 7th, 2003

	Dear Dad,

	       How go things back in Baltimore?    I'm sorry I haven't
written in awhile.   I've been a bit busy.   I mean, I traced a weird
shiny light all around Mexico.   What a goose chase that turned out to
be.   I still don't know what that was.  Still, the food was nice.

	Then there was that whole thing about those guys at Weinstein
Technologies who were accused of sending age reversal tech over to the
Cubans.   That anonymous tip to the FBI and all that stuff.   No...
that wasn't me.  I tipped the guy who tipped them off.   You know I
wouldn't go anywhere near the feds with a twenty nine and a half foot
pole.    My only regret is I didn't bring the whole company down.   I
know lots of good people would lose their jobs but the company is as
close to pure evil as you're likely to find.

	I helped him start it.   To some extent I'm responsible.   I thought
Weinstein was different. I thought he was one of us. But he turned out
to be no different than all the other corporate fascists that have
taken this country from war to war all for the sake of company profits.
  Sometimes I look at all the things that company has done and I
can't help but think about what that guy I studied with in Tibet told
me.  "That if you save a life, you are responsible for it... and once
you commit an act you must count all the ripples of that act."  You
don't know the half of what they've done.  The stuff on CSPAN that
told the public about the manipulations and the murders.   But there is
more.   The behind closed doors stuff.  Did you know that he had
foreknowledge of the Sig.ago disaster and didn't do a damn thing to
prevent it?   Or that at least 12 billion sentient beings throughout
the known galaxy are dead because of his technology.  It's horrible.


	Look, I know there really isn't much I could have done.   Still, I
can't help but wonder what would have happened if I hadn't given
him that tip.    How different would the world be?

	I knew a guy who dabbled in time travel.   He took me aboard his time
craft and tried to recruit me into his group.  He said he went around
time trying to prevent disasters.   He claimed he prevented a nuclear
war with Russia back in 1962.    Of course, he also claimed that in
1820 a great fire ravaged Africa.  Almost all the wilderness and many
British Colonists and a few native tribes were all killed.

	"How'd ya prevent that one?" I asked.

	 He said the answer was quite simple.  "I went back before the dawn
of time and became a lumberjack.     With the help of my time travel
teams, I cut down the great Sahara Forrest."
	To which I scoffed: "There's no such thing as the Great Sahara
Forrest."
	He just winked at me and laughed.
	"Yeah, Dalt, now."

	What was I saying again... right.  The dangers of time travel.
Anyway, I hadn't heard from my friend in a while.   Then I went to a
little no name place near Siberia.   Yes, yes, I'm talking Tunguska.
  I was looking for signs of UFO activity in the infamous crash landing
there at the dawn of the 20th century.

	I didn't find any signs of an alien ship.   What I did find were the
remains of a small craft.    It looked like my friend's time ship.
I also found a half charred piece of newspaper.    Tesla Experiment
Replay Kills Fifty in Colorado Springs.

	The long and short of it is that you can't play the regret game.
It'll ultimately destroy you.   And if you could change things...
we're still human.  Chances are we'd only mess things up even
further than they already are.

	Anyway, I don't think Crystal will be coming with me if I visit this
Thanksgiving.   I mean, I still see her from time to time but we tend
to keep things strictly professional.   Of course, I tend to do that
with almost everyone.  I really tried with this one, Dad, I really did.
  It's just that I lead a dangerous life.    I told you about what
happened with that duct tape.   The subsequent three encounters were a
little better.  Not by much though.

	Anyway, I took another trip abroad. Funny story that.   Another group
of aliens, not Herb and his buddies, picked me up for a little lab
work.   I hate when Herb loans me out like that.   These weren't nice
people either.   They did all sorts of nasty medical experiments.   The
bastards gave me the flu.

	I don't mean to scare you, but they didn't give me just any flu.
This kinda hot doctor... she'd be a great match for Uncle John...
told me it was great they caught it when they did so they could
quarantine me.   Apparently these extraterrestrials injected with a
live sample of the 1918 pandemic flu just to test some new antiviral
protocols.    It worked, thank Phred.

	They gave me a few other things too.   Hell, if you believe Doctor
Variel, I've been inoculated against the Ebola virus and viral
meningitis.   Do you want to know the worst part of it all?   The
doctors removed my tinfoil.  No, wait, the very worst thing is that
during my fever dreams TBS was airing a Giligan's Island marathon and
that was the only station the chip in my head was receiving.   So it
was on... over and over again.

	Anyway, by the time you read this, I should be at Pete's place.
Call me.  It'd be great to hear from you.     I know Mom and Kerri
think I'm off my rocker, but give them my best.   I know they can't
believe.   I wasn't able to show them everything.   Not like I could
for you.   Someday I'll have the proof.   Someday I'll be able to
come home for good.    Not yet though.

		Your loving son,
		Dalton
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________________________________________________________________________
							December 23rd, 2003

	Dear Dalton,

	      Things have been pretty much the same here.   Though you'll be
sad to hear that the sandwich place you liked down by the harbor closed
down.   They replaced it with a Starbucks.

	Kerri has started dating this research guy at Johns Hopkins.   Don't
know much else.  You know how she is.   I tried to reach you a Pete's
the other day.  He said you had stopped by for a day or two but then
hopped a plane to Miami of all places.  Care to explain that to me?
Can't you remain still for five minutes?   You never have.   Like
father, like son, I guess.

	 I don't know why I'm bothering to write this.  Your mother will
just worry about me.   It isn't like I actually know where to send
all the letters.    Ultimately, I just hand them to you on your
increasingly rare visits.

	 As for your exploits, it has sort of become a game with some of the
family.   We'll see a story on the news and try figure out which ones
are your work.   Why just yesterday, Uncle John was convinced that you
were the source on the whole Mister Paprika Negative One soda causing
cancer thing.  I told him that'd be too obvious.   A soda where you
burned more calories drinking it than was contained in the beverage was
a too good to be true proposition.      Now, Simon the Dog showing up a
year and a half after his disappearance-I knew that was you.   The
news story said he had one of those newfangled tracking chips.  I bet
you somehow used your own transmitter to find him and gave him some
sort of telepathic whammy with radio waves.   Right?

	I agree with you that there is more to this Weinstein guy than meets
the eye. I don't think you should feel all that responsible.  You had
an inkling he'd use the information for immoral purposes.   You
didn't have evidence.   The world-and the people you fight
against-may say see themselves as being above the law.   That
doesn't mean that you should follow suit.   So far, you've always
acted equitably.   You may not have followed the letter or the law but
at least you followed the spirit of its intent.

	There have been times when you've broken it.  On those two
adventures that we shared I saw you blatantly disregard the law at
least half a dozen times.  But only when following the law would be
unconscionable.  Maybe you would have been justified in doing something
and maybe you wouldn't.   You can never tell.

	 You remind me of my older brother in so many ways.   Waving the bill
of rights in one hand and Henry David Thoreau in the other.  Of course,
there is a reason he lives in Canada.  He's still afraid they'd
arrest him for draft dodging. It's been almost forty years.  The war
is over.

	Maybe that's what old coots like me want to believe.   Maybe each
generation goes through life making the same exact mistakes over and
over again.   Maybe we're so busy trying not to be the generation
before us that we miss all the warning signs.

	Tthere are people so eager to try to break the chain.   Maybe you can.
   If either of us believed in that kind of stuff-I'd pray for you.
  I guess it couldn't really hurt.    Of course, you claimed to have
met a few self proclaimed gods.   So maybe it could if I prayed to the
wrong ones.

	How do you deal with it?   The way you live and the adventures you
have?   Some of the information and knowledge seems so contradictory.
 How can anything possibly make any sense?     It's been said:
'There is no knowledge, simply experience.'  If anyone would know,
it'd be you.

	Hopefully, I'll see you at Christmas.   I'll have Aunt Maddie
bring a Dutch Apple Pie just for you.

		Love,
		Dad

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This has been
Adventures Beyond Comprehension#8
Featuring

Dalton Asters in
Dear Dad

And Charles Asters in
Dear Son

By Jesse N. Willey

____________________________________________________________________
Dalton Asters, Charles Asters, Crystal, Herb, the Regal 13 created by
Jesse N. Willey.  Ashley Variel created by Tom Russell.   This document
created by Jesse N. Willey.