Chariots of the Insects

Sometimes it's just weird where memories come from or why they infest our brains. Take, for example, two movies that my brain suddenly became desperately interested in remembering more than thirty five years after I'd seen them.

The year was 1971, and I was very nearly a teenager. It was, in fact, the summer before my 13th birthday if I'm not mistaken. In those days we weren't too hung up about sending our youngsters alone to the theater, and our lone walk-in theater in town was less than a mile from the house. This meant that I alternately walked or cajoled Mom into taking me. Then, for a buck-fifty we got a double feature, and another seventy-five cents got you popcorn.

For purposes of this narrative, I should point out that my mother was and is a voracious reader. She went through phases in her reading, though. One year it was romances, for example. Another year she went all Margaret Mead on us and started buying or checking out books like "Ishi: The Last of His Tribe." She became absolutely fascinated by tribes or races of people that no longer existed. But her most fascinating period for me was the "faux science or explorer" genre of books that were becoming ubiquitous in the late 60's and early 70's. Not to say that there weren't some legitimate scientists or explorers among them. Thor Heyerdahl, for example, had become famous for demonstrating that ancient peoples could very well have navigated across the vast Pacific ocean in boats manufactured entirely of reeds. Mom snapped up all of his books. However, for every legitimate author Mom patronized, there were plenty of supermarket pulp paperbacks to balance them out.

I remember Mom picking up a copy of Erich von Daniken's "Chariots of the Gods," and I decided to read it. I think it was primarily because we Latter-day Saints are fascinated with the whole premise of the Book of Mormon and its depiction of life in ancient America, and von Daniken devoted many chapters to those ancient cultures as part of his "research." It was pretty heady stuff for a young post-Star-Trekian male such as myself.

So you'll understand that, as soon as the movie by the same name was released, I was keen to see it. Back in those days movies would hit the theaters and hang around for absolutely months before disappearing into the void of TV "Movie of the Week" features. So it's not surprising that I didn't get around to seeing "Chariots of the Gods" until nearly a year after it first came out. By that time, it was being paired with a relatively newer film called "The Hellstrom Chronicle," and I decided to see them both.

"The Hellstrom Chronicle" was another faux documentary that was supposed to sound like a scientific treatise on the survivability of insects compared with mankind in a post-apocolyptic world. What it was, really, was a science fiction thriller designed to creep 13 year old boys out by making their skin crawl even faster than the insects were crawling. At least, that's the effect it had on me.

"Chariots" was first in the lineup that day, as I recall. I remember happily chowing down on popcorn during the movie and loving all the footage of ancient artwork that von Daniken kept trying to compare with astronauts or alien beings. The movie was every bit as entertaining as the book, although it may be indirectly responsible for the propogation of every nut-job UFO conspiracist and ET truther that we have out there today. Didn't quite convince me, but I was there for the entertainment value more than anything else.

Then came "Hellstrom." Now, for sheer cinematography, "Hellstrom" was hard to beat. The cameras did a nearly miraculous job of getting up close and personal with several species of insects that I never knew existed and have spent the past 38 years trying to forget. But that's the problem: It's a film I desperately needed to forget. The basic premise was, quite simply, that the earth would devolve back into some sort of tropical rainforest kind of planet (Al Gore had nothing on these people) and that it would be a race for survival between Man and Insects. And Insects (all of which were magnified to the size of industrial construction equipment) would win. (This is where I learned for the first time that cockroaches are pretty much indestructible. Thanks for that, guys.) I can also tell you that, even 38 years later, just thinking about this film can make my skin crawl. Now imagine spending an entire movie that way, and you'll understand why I resolved as a 13 year old boy never to think of that film again.

So why is it, 38 years later, that my brain suddenly, at 1:00 in the stinkin' A.M., decided it needed to remember the name of that film that played as a double-header with "Chariots of the Gods" (a film I don't really mind remembering) just so I could experience that skin-crawling sensation once again? There is no logical or even illogical reason that I can think of, except that it's one of those useless chores in which the brain engages from time to time, like trying to comprehend Congress, or staying awake in staff meeting.

Oh, well. One good thing has come out of this reminiscence. I'm tired enough now to go to bed and get some decent sleep. Assuming I can get these locusts the size of Mack trucks out of my head.

Remembering Diversity University

It is with some sadness that I note the passing a couple of years ago of an online environment that once held tremendous significance in my life. I got to thinking about it today as Mrs. Woody and I prepare to celebrate a dozen years of wedded bliss. I quickly found that the environment no longer seems to exist. A library association newsletter explains: Diversity University MOO was taken offline early in 2006 after a run of (depending on whose history you read) between 11 and 14 years. (I'd bumped into the librarian who wrote the article, by the way. A tremendous lady.) DU was the brain-child of Jeanne McWhorter who saw in it the tremendous potential for on-line education, with particular benefits for many with learning disabilities. What it became was a mighty social network that pre-dated Facebook or MySpace by a good many years, and boasted a sophistication that AOL's chat rooms could only dream of.

For the uninitiated, a MOO (MUD, Object Oriented) was an online TELNET technology based on an old text-based gaming platform. An over-simplification, to be sure, but there are numerous articles on Wikipedia and elsewhere that explain the concept more fully.

Diversity University was unique in that it had a definite purpose and theme. Its goal was to provide an online learning environment and was patterned after a typical college campus. You could visit numerous buildings (history, art, library, etc.) and socialize anywhere on campus. I became a programmer there and created some rooms in the US History section.

But for me, the most significant aspect of my experience at DU was bumping into the future Mrs. Woody after a mutual absence of more than a dozen years.

By sheer coincidence (or not, we've since decided) we were both evaluating DU as a technology for potential use in our respective industries (aerospace for me, and educational publishing for her). By the time we bumped into each other, I was well into actually programming my own rooms and controls. Mrs. Woody was just getting her feet wet, so to speak, and saw a character online one day who went by the name of "Woody" (it's always been a nickname of mine) and who claimed to be from a town where she used to live. The fact that this Woody had been a singer and an actor particularly intrigued her. So she asked him about it.

Imagine my shock and surprise to hear from this very pretty blond lady whom I hadn't seen since just after my mission.

The rest, as they say, is history. No mere coincidence can account for our meeting that day. I had by that time decided to separate from my first wife in advance of our inevitable divorce, and it is perhaps fortuitous that she lost her connection information to DU for a couple of weeks after our chance encounter (I hadn't even asked her for her phone number). By the time we met virtually again, I was on my way to bachelorhood. Our friendship was rekindled in due time and blossomed to the point where I knew that here was my eternal soulmate.

So Diversity University holds a very special place in my heart. It was there, for example, that she first called me "Bud." I'd never gone by that name in my life, but was thrilled when she tagged me with it. That was my grandfather's nickname, and I considered it a true honor to be called that by this wonderful woman. It was there also that we consumed many an hour playing virtual Scrabble® (in the days before company lawyers threatened anyone who dared create and play such a game online). We chatted endlessly about anything and everything that popped into our minds. And we continued to build worlds together there and on other MOOs that she joined with me. It became good practice for the worlds we would soon build together in real life.

The last time I was able to log on to DU (apparently more than a couple of years ago) I visited my old virtual office and found everything in order. Nice and neat; not anything at all like my real office. And Mrs. Woody's character sitting in the office with me. We were both asleep, according to the interface. We'd been asleep for many years by that time.

Now it's gone. I'd like to think that whoever retired it kept a copy of it on some archive somewhere. I hate to think that all that creativity just simply vanished into the ether. I had met some wonderful personalities over the months I was active there. One Scottish gent, fresh out of college and with no prospects for work there, came to America to be with a sweet lady he'd met at DU himself. Last I'd heard from them they were planning their life together in West Virginia, I think. There was a young kid from the Netherlands who loved to chat with Mrs. Woody and me over a wide range of topics. His desire to learn about American life was insatiable. There was the passionate young liberal meteorologist who loved to get into political discussions with the campus "token conservative." He tried to tweak me on all sorts of issues, and I generally tweaked him right back. Those were fun conversations. Mrs. Woody and I even had a chance to meet another DU couple who had flown out to Los Angeles to attend a conference, and specifically wanted to meet us. We'd become good friends in the virtual world, and meeting them was a wonderful experience. She had numerous health challenges, though, and I often wonder if she's still okay, or even still with us. If not, I hope she knows that we love her and wish her well.

There were only a couple of personalities that I tried to avoid over that span of time, and in each case they tended to burn out and leave before I got too distracted myself. Otherwise, I have nothing but fond memories of my time spent at DU. I got married to the best part of that experience, and we've lived happily ever after.

Long live Diversity University.