Timing Is Everything

Get ready for 2061, the next time Halley's Comet will streak through the sky! As I will be 110 then, I will probably be able to see it from above, if you follow...I hope so. I'll get in touch.

Halley's Comet is a periodic comet, occurring on a regular basis, almost as often as the Orioles win the World Series. Most people call it "Haley's" Comet, because of the 1950s rock and roll band Bill Haley And The Comets.  And in my mind, it shares space with the event called "Halley's Comment," when a guy in my history class named Pete Halley remarked to the teacher that only a fool would sit and learn history. 

But Halley's Comet "premiered," if you will, in 1835, the same year that Samuel Clemens, who became famous as Mark Twain, was born. In 1909, Twain said, "I came in with Halley's Comet... it is coming again next year, and I expect to go out with it". 

What Mark Twain looked like

Danged if he didn't die on April 21, 1910, and that was one day after the comet reached its perihelion ( the closest point to the sun). 

 

What Halley's Comet looks like

I was born in 1951, the same year that J.D. Salinger's "The Catcher In The Rye" was published. "If you really want to hear about it, the first thing you'll probably want to know is where I was born...but I don't feel like going into it, if you want to know the truth."