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FROM
THE ARCHIVES.......1986
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flag-draped knotty pine casket pulled by two brown
mules, and behind the casket a flower-festooned truck carrying Dr.
Measely's spotlight, which occa- sionally came to life without warning,
swinging this way and that, sending hot 1250° beams willy nilly
among the mourners, and causing them to scatter frantically. A
large model of a black hole was pulled by a U.S.P.S. delivery jeep
to symbolize Sir Hor- ton's greatest discovery of all, the black hole
in the Newark Bulk Mail Center. His son and heir, Bill Measely,
walked quietly along, accompanied by a small group of pig-nosed macaques,
and sometimes stopped to wipe his face with a red check handker- chief.
A gravelly voice boomed
suddenly over the hills and headstones. Horton Measely
was a man whom we knew, and who knew us, and who knew that we knew
him. Horton Measely was a man, and he knew it. The ceremony
went on that way, brief but poignant, filled with glowing accolades
from colleagues and detractors alike.
Eventually people
grew bored and began to drift off. The sun broke through the clouds
as the final vigilant slipped silently away. Light breezes ruffled
the petals of the flowers on the great man's grave. A dog picked
up a wreath in its mouth and carried it off. It began to rain. |
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Rain
squalls darkened the horizon and rapidly moving clouds periodically obscured
the scene yesterday as the Sir Horton Measely cortege moved solemnly through
the streets of Washington on its way to the Arlington National Cemetary.
Though the scene was sometimes hidden, nothing could conceal the greatness
of the man, gone now because his hydrogen laser spotlight swung around with-
out warning and burned him severely.
People stopped and looked
up from their shopping as the growing crowd went by, past the Washington
Monument, past the Lincoln Memorial, past the Tomb of the Unknown Primate,
across the Arlington Memorial Bridge, and into the cool, clean air of Arlington
Cemetary. A 707 flying high up seemed to dip its wings in salute, but that
was probably only one person's imagination.
Millions of closed eyes
looked on as the great horde of dozens of simple people inched hesitantly
down the grassy aisles. In the midst of the nervous throng was the
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