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In 1976, as in 2021, November 30th fell on a Tuesday.

In 1976, I had returned home from my first term at college; that particular institution provided a Christmas break that ran, officially, from Wednesday, November 24th through Sunday, January 2nd, 1977.  I had been separated from all the nuances that had made my life---since October 13th of 1975---more than the mere existence that it had been prior to that date.  And on November 30th, 1976, I had already been at home a week with my First Beloved; the community of c.b. channel 22; and my high school mentor.  Yes, my parents had insisted I resume my old seasonal job as rear chainman and rodman on the survey crew, so that the neighbors would not draw the conclusion that I was unambitious ("You're not going to lay around here, day after day!"),  but my Beloved, now working toward the compleition of Senior year, was not available during my daytime working hours anyhow.  

I remember the clarity of a sudden realization that came to me in the evening of November 30th, 1976, as I was preparing to leave my parents' house to go to my Beloved's home.  I suddenly felt as if I understood, without putting much effort into it, the difference between a psuedonym or pen- name, and an appellation.  With neither fear nor fanfare, I seemed to hear that still, small voice---which, on a sultry Friday night of July, 1974, had summoned me to step outside my parents; house and look upon the starlit sky just shortly after midnight---telling me that my c.b.  handle, Starwatcher, was an appellation; that I was to sign it to my poems, going forward; and that I was not to be ashamed of it, or akward with it, when I returned to the campus on Sunday, January 2nd, 1977.  During the previous ten week term, the appellation had helped me "stay together" against the onslaught of the college's implicit attempt to change incoming freshmen; but I had told no one, there, of it; and, in my several submissions to the campus literary journal (all of which were rejected), I had created "pen names" (being endlessly fascinated by the use of pen names, as I still am).  This, I have realized since that last Tuesday of November, in 1976, was wrong.

The appellation's form has evolved, over time, to Starward, but its significance to me is in no way diminished.  Just as, in 1976, I was about to embark on an indescribably joyous season in which all of the prior summer's nuances were validated (not least among them, my Beloved's midnight blue socks, from which shoes had been removed); so now, as my embarcation to Heaven is now far more imminent and real than ever it had been before, the season is again joyous, and I now consider---toward the approaching November 30th---what final appellation will help me to focus that joy as I wait patiently for God's will to be done.

Starward