Monthly Archives: August 2026

Posted in opinion

PICTURE THIS!

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By Suzanne Sparrow Watson

Like many Baby Boomers, I’m spending an increasing amount of time sorting through my “stuff”.  I’m heartbroken that some of my things will end up in the proverbial dust heap, foremost among them my Lenox china.  But the days of formal dinner parties are over, even for me. Somehow parting with my beautiful dinnerware seems like I’m giving away a part of history.  So, in an obvious “stick you head in the ground” move, I walked away from the china cabinet and tackled the photo albums and family DVDs. But even something an innocuous as photos is wrought with thorny decisions. I have too many items in too many formats.

My godfather was a bachelor who spent a great deal of time with us and was an aficionado of gadgets.  He was always willing to try something new and one area he focused on was photography. I spent my childhood being blinded by the flash camera and fascinated by the melting blue bulb when it was ejected. I always raced to pick it up and invariably burned my fingers. Every time. I was not the sharpest tool in the shed. My godfather took thousands of pictures of us and until recently, I had his box of Kodak slides from the 1950s and 60’s. About fifteen years ago I had the most meaningful slides converted to DVD format. There are great pictures of our parents in their prime and us kids at various stages, from sports uniforms, scouting outfits, dance recital costumes and proms. But there was a limit to what I could put onto DVDs and I was left with a significant number of slides I just didn’t have the heart to discard.  Luckily when Bob came to visit a few months ago I mentioned the box to him and he gladly took it off my hands. Now it can take up space at his house and then someday his kids will discard them because they won’t know what to do with them either. 

My love affair with slide photography ended in 1968 after some friends of my parents who had visited Europe came over for dinner, bringing the slides from their trip and their new carousel projector.  We spent two hours watching slide after slide of churches, cathedrals, cafes and rivers, listening to them drone on about each attraction. I’ve had anesthesia that didn’t put me to sleep as effectively. I learned a lesson from that though – no one is as interested in your vacation pictures as you are.

My treasure trove of photos mirrors the progression of photography. I have a few Polaroid photos, which was the next fad after slides, I have a LOT of photos taken with disposable cameras, and an overabundance of photos with sepia or gray lenses from when my husband went through his “artistic” phase of photography with his SLR cameras. Video cameras became popular in the 80’s and my husband jumped on that bandwagon as well. While the video camera is long gone, I was able to convert the old tapes to DVD. My box of photos ends around 2010, because like many people, we started using a phone to take pictures. Now, I have hundreds of photos in the cloud and only get a printout for a special frame or symbolic occasion.

But my photo dilemma remains: what to do with the DVDs of our old slides and videotapes? I don’t own a DVD player anymore because I can stream just about any movie I want to see. Sure, I could get an optical reader to attach to my computer, but I have a feeling it would end up being one more thing I use once and ends up being clutter. My current plan is to convert the DVDs to a thumb drive and distribute them to the next generation.  I figure from that point on it’s their job to worry about what comes after thumb drives. I think I’ve had enough format changes to last a lifetime.  I will include a note to each of them about what the drive includes and who is who in all the old photos.  Oh yeah, and a reminder never to bore people with their vacation photos.

Posted in Science

I Took Up Space in School

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by Bob Sparrow

The dunce hat had my name on it.

Those who have known me for a while don’t have any trouble believing that I probably just took up space in school, but I also was very interested in space. So, I feel obligated to tell you about this week’s big space event – the Perseid Meteor shower – named after the Greek god, Perseus, son of Zeus.

If you’ve ever looked up at the night sky and wondered what the heck is really out there, then you may be interested in the rest of this blog. If you’ve looked up and said something like, “My neck hurts”, it’s probably best not to waste any more time here.

New Moon

            For those still with me, let me tell you that this week, particularly Wednesday and Thursday, the Perseid Meteor shower will provide a particularly spectacular show, due, in part, to a new moon. You probably already know this, but despite a new moon sounding like the moon should be big and bright and new, it’s actually a ‘fingernail’ moon which gives off the least amount of light and thus makes other things in the sky easier to see, like a meteor shower.    

Meteors or as they are typically called, shooting stars, are not actual stars, but rather bright streaks of light caused when tiny pieces of space dust and rock burned up in Earth’s atmosphere. Yes, tiny pieces of space dust – how tiny? They are actually no bigger than a grain of sand! But they travel at such a high speed, between 125,000 miles per hour up to 160,000 mph, that they create a glowing bubble of superheated air up to a foot wide.

Perseid Meteor Shower – coming our way this week!

Heretofore you may have only heard of Halley’s Comet, (Just so you won’t embarrass yourself when pronouncing this name, it’s Halley – like valley, not Haley – like daily) which occurs every 75-76 years. So, if you didn’t see it in 1986, it’s not coming again until 2061 – some of us may miss that.  Incidentally, Halley’s Comet is not technically a meteor shower, but let’s not get too deep into the weeds here. The other meteor you may have heard about is Hale-Bopp, which appeared in 1997 and the reason you may remember it is because 39 members of the Heaven’s Gate religious cult died in a coordinated mass suicide in Rancho Santa Fe, California. They tragically took their own lives because they believed an alien spacecraft was hiding behind the passing Comet Hale-Bopp and would transport their souls to a higher level of existence. No one knows where their souls really went, we just know that they didn’t go to an alien spacecraft hiding behind Hale-Bopp.


Hale-Bopp Comet

OK, back to class.  If you truly want to watch the Perseid meteor shower live, on this Wednesday and Thursday, you should get to a fairly dark place – away from streetlights or any other lights, and look in the Northern sky. Best viewing time is from after midnight to just before dawn. At that time, you should see 50-100 ‘shooting stars’ per hour! If you’re not inclined to awake at that time of night, you could take the less-spectacular way of watching it the next day on YouTube, or you could wait until next year – it comes around every year at about this time.

Class dismissed. I’ll go put my dunce hat back on,

Posted in opinion

Football Returns: Excitement, Tradition, and the Hall of Fame

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By Suzanne Sparrow Watson

Finally, our long national nightmare is over. Okay, that might be a little hyperbolic, but for those of us who are football fans it’s been a very long offseason. But this week we can finally watch a football game again and that is to be celebrated. If you’re a fan, you know that there’s just something different in the air when football season begins. If you’re not a fan, I guess you can run to Target and buy the Halloween decorations they’re already displaying. But for those of us who love the sport, the opening of football season always brings familiar rituals. Jerseys come out of closets. Fantasy drafts spark arguments. Tailgates return. Even a simple schedule release can become a reason to circle dates and imagine what might happen.

I grew up a 49er fan, and they remain my favorite team, even though they have broken my heart more times than I care to think about. But after 28 years in Arizona, I also root for the Cardinals, who have elevated losing into an art form. The good news is that for us Cardinal fans, this season arrives a little earlier and with an extra layer of pride. Our team will be playing in the first game of the 2026-27 season on Thursday. Sure, it’s the Hall of Fame game, which is generally a snoozer, but we have something – or should I say someone – extra to root for this year because the 2026 HOF class includes one of the greatest players the franchise has ever known: Larry Fitzgerald. Fitzgerald’s induction isn’t surprising, but it’s good to know that the NFL is acknowledging what Arizonans have known for years, namely that Larry Fitzgerald was special from the beginning, and he remained special for nearly two decades.

Fitzgerald’s numbers are staggering: 1,432 receptions, 17,492 receiving yards and 121 touchdowns across 17 seasons, all with the Cardinals. Only Jerry Rice finished with more catches and receiving yards in NFL history. But the numbers only tell part of the story. Fitzgerald was more than a stat sheet. He was reliability, professionalism and grace wrapped into one of the most complete wide receivers the game has ever seen. He could outleap defenders, run precise routes, make impossible catches look routine and deliver in the biggest moments.

Ask Cardinals fans about Fitzgerald, and the memories come quickly. The 2008 postseason run. The unforgettable sprint through the Pittsburgh Steelers defense in Super Bowl XLIII. The playoff classic against the Green Bay Packers, when he took over in overtime like a player refusing to let the moment slip away. Not only was he magnificent on the field, but he was also magnanimous in the work he did in the community. If there was a good cause that needed support, Larry Fitzgeral was there. Fitzgerald gave Arizona football some of its most electric Sundays, but he also gave the franchise something just as valuable: a high standard both on and off the field. Fitzgerald’s Hall of Fame recognition is a reminder that greatness in football is not only measured by explosive highlights. It is measured by consistency, preparation, toughness and the way a player carries himself.

The calendar may still say summer, and the Arizona heat may still be hanging around, it’s great to know that the NFL is back and college football is just around the corner. Also around the corner is my brother Bob’s Monday Night Football pool, that he has been running for more than 30 years. Last year I did a lot of research on ESPN about betting favorites and schedule difficulty. I came in almost at the bottom of the pool. Generally, the people who do well seem to make their choices based on the color of uniforms or because their Aunt Sally lives in Pittsburgh so obviously the Steelers should be favorites. In any event, I am just warning that if you participate in a football pool that the ESPN predictions are not your friend.

Regardless, for those of us who are fans we start this week with refreshed optimism. Every fan base gets to dream again. Every team is undefeated. Every Sunday feels like it is carrying the possibility of something memorable. The season is beginning, and one of Arizona’s all-time greats is taking his rightful place in Canton. That is a pretty perfect way to start.