Fresnel Lenses and Grandpas

 Fresnel Lenses and Grandpas

By Bobby Neal Winters

For preachers, light is a metaphor for wisdom.  For scientists it is a phenomenon of physics made up of photons which are sometimes waves and sometimes particles, depending on what needs to be explained at the time.  I am fascinated by it.

I have a fresnel (it’s pronounced fre-nel, those darned Frenchmen) lens the size of a sheet of copy paper.  It focuses light down to a fine point like a magnifying glass.  I got it because I wanted to show  my grandchildren cool stuff.  Like most such things, my grandchildren liked it for 30 seconds or so and I am still playing with it.

I burned down the bulk of a stump with it one day.  This is to say, I used it to catch a stump on fire and the stump burned over the course of the day.  It’s not a death ray--at least not this one.

I was playing with it yesterday.  I am trying to make a frame for it that will hold it steady so I won’t go blind while staring at a focused image of the sun.  While doing this, I noticed--it was hard not to notice--that even at noon the sun is almost hugging the southern horizon. I say hugging the horizon, it is just over 30 degrees above the horizon. 

It is that time of year. The rays of the sun don’t get a very straight angle on us and what they do get doesn’t last very long.  

Anyhow, as the angle of the sun changes throughout the year, I got to thinking I need to make a frame for my fresnel lens that will adjust as well.

When I was a boy, I didn’t know about fresnel lenses.  We had magnifying glasses and I was never able to start a fire with one of those.  I burnt holes in leaves and pieces of paper; I put black spots on wood; I sent any number of pillbugs to their heavenly reward; but I never actually caught anything on fire.

So this fresnel lens represents progress.

My grandchildren are really still too young for this, and they live in a different world.  They are being raised by gentler people than I was, people who won’t tolerate insect abuse.  Because of this, it will take them longer to get into the arena of burning up stuff.  When they do, they will find their grandpa has some tools made.

As I write this, I look back at the paragraph and worry.  Are they being protected too much by their parents?  Are they having too many hills made smooth by their grandparents?  The young need the struggle.  I believe that is true.

But I think it is also true that we seek out and find the struggle.  If I smooth out a hill, that means they will simply find the next, higher hill that much more quickly.  We need struggle, and life gladly provides it.

Those of us who are grandparents, are lenses for our grandchildren.  We gather the light of our lifetime and focus it into a bright spot for them.  The trick, it seems to me, is to get the focus right on the right spot.  

But then it occurs to me, is that my decision to make?  I am the lens, but only they will know where they need the light.  With that being the case, my best choice is to offer them as much of myself as I can, so they can take from me what they need.  Being an old man who plays with children’s toys with childlike joy, might be something they need some day.

 Bobby Winters, a native of Harden City, Oklahoma, blogs at redneckmath.blogspot.com and okieinexile.blogspot.com. He invites you to “like” the National Association of Lawn Mowers on Facebook. )