Ed rothwell’s
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Chase the prettiest butterflies, find the beauty in life, and embrace the sublime.
About me
What does a boy do while growing up on the outskirts of Grand Rapids, Michigan? He fills a swimming pool with frogs, an aquarium with bees, and a basement with model trains. He builds tree forts with his pals and they go door-to-door asking the lady of the house if it’s OK to search her window wells for newts. He builds a huge subterranean habitat for his gerbils using Legos. He shoots his BB gun at things he shouldn’t, feeds the horses way too many sugar cubes, digs an uncountable number of holes, and falls in the creek more times than his mother thinks is proper.
Then what? Well, he meets his best friend and they go on long bike adventures. They do a few other things most kids probably wouldn’t think of. They set up an intercom between their houses so that they can talk all night and share their music. They plant listening devices around the house, tap their sisters’ telephones, and build parabolic microphones, remote control cameras and a speaker system on the roof. And why not build a pirate AM radio station, put up a really tall antenna, and play records for a 4 square mile listening area? Of course the antenna needs a flashing light in case of low-flying airplanes. Bored yet? How about pulling some sophisticated phone pranks that still have people scratching their heads — and record them with a Sears and Roebuck reel-to-reel tape recorder to share with friends at school. And, sure, why not make some special effects movies using dad’s 8 mm camera and show them to the sixth grade class? The teacher might just want to take them with her to an educational conference.
Then comes junior high and the world speeds up. High school, junior college, and then off to the wilds of the upper peninsula to experience 360 inches of snow a year, cross-country ski, snowshoe, go two-tracking, and meet the wife-to-be. An important lesson learned — be sure to find an amazing gal who can wear thermal underwear and still look fabulous. Graduate, get a job, go to grad school — east coast, west coast, back and forth, back and forth — more grad school, and finally settle down to a nice cozy faculty position at Michigan State, along with the best colleagues anyone could hope for. Have two incredible kids, learn to fly, buy a chunk of woods, get tenure, write a hundred research proposals, some books, a few hundred papers, graduate a couple dozen PhD students, and, wow, before you know it, it’s time to have some grandkids and retire. Then what? Well, you circle back around, and start all over again. Rinse and repeat. You build gadgets, break out your old shortwave radio, put up antennas, and you relearn how to catch frogs, find bees, and, why not? — chase the prettiest butterflies. Oh, and you make sure to spend long afternoons reminiscing with your best friend about building a pirate radio station, because life is an amazing adventure.
