These Times

Kirk Ericson | Aug 29, 20240

“Three wars back we called sauerkraut ‘liberty cabbage’ and we called liberty cabbage ‘super slaw’ and back then a suitcase was known as a ‘Swedish lunchbox.’ Of course, nobody knew that but me. Anyway, long story short ... is a phrase whose origins are complicated and rambling …” — Grandpa Simpson, “The Simpsons”

When I’m talking to someone and I hear, “Anyway, long story short …” I try to kill my impulse to interrupt. “It’s too late to make this story shorter,” I think, but try not to say.

And similar to barbs we aim at others, we’re often snared on the same hook. So … here I am, about to make a short story longer.

Last weekend, one of my sons and I met, by apparent pure chance, a retired man with a degree in physics whose career involved pioneering work in the 1970s on particle accelerators, a subject the boy is studying at university.

Particle accelerators are immense, multibillion-dollar structures essential to the pursuit of fusing atoms, which is how the sun creates energy. It’s a pursuit that has the potential to create power that’s nonpolluting and inexpensive, eliminating our reliance on carbon, solar panels, wind turbines and dams, but not, sadly, double AA batteries. The technology requires heating the nuclei in atoms to 100 million degrees Celsius, to the point where they fuse and release energy.

We met this man at his garage sale. The three of us started talking — maybe about a computer bag he had for sale — and it might have been I who volunteered that Ryan was studying engineering.

“I got my degree in physics,” the man replied. Ryan’s eyes widened, and I hung around for a bit before leaving them alone. Their conversation was reaching a realm beyond my comprehension — and some still-in-the-box Ikea window shades were whistling at me.

When we left the garage sale 10 minutes later, Ryan was a glow stick. Imagine the feeling a double A baseball player might have if he discovered he was talking to seven-time AL batting champ Rod Carew.

According to what Ryan told me, that man at the garage sale was a 20-year-old lab tech in the 1970s when he worked at the particle accelerator at “IU” (Indiana University). He said he witnessed the moment when the head of the program figured out how to bump the speed of atoms to get them closer to the speed of light.

That discovery was a fundamental discovery in the world of physics, and it came about, the man told Ryan, because the program chief had shined a laser on an atom to see whether he could get a picture of it. Garage-sale man said he later worked at the prestigious Hertz Institute in Berlin, the only American so credentialed.

“Did you have a doctorate?” Ryan asked.

“No,” the man said.

“Wow,” Ryan replied.

“I’m (expletive deleted) smart,” the man replied.

It seemed a legitimate claim.

It’s highly likely the man was telling us the truth. Ryan checked elements of his story later, and I noticed he was making these amazing claims about his life within earshot of his wife, who offered no corrections. One reality I’ve experienced and witnessed in spouses: Spouses are rarely shy about fact-checking spouses.

To make a long story short … our friend Beth was visiting the other day when I began telling her about garage-sale man, starting the story the day before as a way to explain how a low-rent duo like Ryan and I came to be at a garage sale on the precious and gated grounds of Indian Summer Golf & Country Club along Yelm Highway in Thurston County. I was going to include a long back story, but I stopped and suggested Ryan tell it.

“We met a guy yesterday who …” Ryan said and finished the whole story in a couple of minutes.

And that inspires me to keep my long stories shorter. I mean, next time I tell a story.