The Night

Screen capture from Netflix series Night on Earth

I started watching an interesting series on Netflix last night, Night on Earth. Using special low light and infrared cameras, the makers of the series look at life in the wild after dark. As a human who has evolved to stay hunkered down and near the campfire after sundown, it's a very interesting series. Especially the scenes on the African savanna.

Large herds of grazers, here and there a pride of lions or a pack of cheetahs. Off in the distance can be seen the lights of Masai villages, humans like me staying well away from the dance of life and death "out there."

I've always had a fascination with the night, especially growing up in a very small town far away from the light pollution of the larger cities. I remember being able to see the Milky Way in the night sky. The last time I saw that was twenty years ago, returning to my parents after a trip out to Indiana for a job interview.

I was on the last flight into Bradley International in the first week of August, 1999. I had driven there from New Hampshire the day before. The company I was interviewing with had provided me with a hotel and a rental car, I would spend one night, interview in the morning and fly back that second day. I remember that the outbound flight almost didn't occur. The weather was horrible, lots of rain, lots of lightning, but it cleared sufficiently to get me to Fort Wayne.

Coming back to an airport in the process of shutting down was somewhat unnerving. No place to get coffee, no place to grab a soda at the airport before getting my car from long term parking and making the hundred-plus mile drive back to Mom and Dad's place. One thing I noticed was that for early August, it was pretty chilly.

I did find a 7-11 open near the airport and got a beverage for the long drive up I-91. Off into the darkness I went. The drive was somewhat uneventful, I say somewhat because I had to make a stop at a rest area inside Vermont, which I suspected might be a haven for ne'er-do-wells, druggies, and sexual perverts, which was a bit nerve-wracking. Fortunately there was a State Trooper there, also answering a call of some kind. (Mine was a call of nature, I know, I know, TMI.)

Anyhoo, I got back into the car and headed back up the road, arriving at my parents' around 0230 in the morning as I recall. Good Lord was it cold! I had on nothing but a coat and tie and the air was bone chilling. (I later learned that it was around 31°! Remember, this was August.) Before bustling into the house and a warm bed, I looked up at the sky.

There it was, stark and awe-inspiring, the Milky Way...

Something like this, but nowhere near as bright.
(Source)

I lingered for a few moments before retiring for the night.

Oddly enough I used to spend a lot more time outside at night when I was a smoker. Rather than stink up the house I was exiled to the deck outside of the kitchen. From there I would survey the night sky and look for the stars and constellations I know. I would also listen to the sounds of the night, the chirping of the tree frogs in summer, the various nocturnal birds, sometimes I would see the flicker of a bat against the night sky.

One night I went outside and the neighbors were out and informed me that there was an owl perched upon our lamp post next to the driveway. Sure enough there was, a very young owl who didn't appreciate the attention he or she was attracting from the local humans.

Foxes, skunks, and the occasional deer were companions on my nightly smoke breaks. While I don't miss the habit, I do miss having the excuse to go outside and observe the night. I will do it on occasion, but it's not the same for some reason.

I still remember the night I was traveling across northern New Mexico in January, making my way from northern Colorado down to San Antonio (which I always hear in my head as "San Antone"). Having to stop to answer a call of nature (hey, what else should I call it, even if it is TMI), I pulled off to the side of the road. (Route 87 as I recall.)

When I switched the headlights off I was overwhelmed by the night sky, stars, as Carl Sagan would have said, "billions and billions of them." I had never been so far from civilization in the dead of winter with such a clear sky overhead. It struck me that that was the vision our distant ancestors had before we became town and city dwellers for the most part.

No sky awash with the lights of a nearby town, heck, wasn't even a house within ten miles of me, but a clear sky, no moon, with all the stars of God's Heaven laid out before me. Spectacular and not a little humbling, I can tell you.

Though I lingered only a few minutes to behold that sky, the image of that has stayed with me all the years since. There is a reason so many legends and stories came from what our ancestors saw in the night sky. With such a show before one every night, and not really being equipped to wander around the plains/forest with all the toothy bastards looking for a meal, we stayed close to home and told each other stories of the sky.

Now with technology, we ape-lizards can hunt with the best of 'em at night. Still though, evolution made us creatures of the sun, we still approach the dark with a certain amount of atavistic fear. Thousands of years taught us, not really to fear the night, but respect it. Without our tech, we're deaf, dumb, and blind under the night sky.





Do watch that Netflix series, very entertaining.