Author Adelle Bradford

Welcome to my friends and readers:

I sincerely hope that you will find some of this reading entertaining and / or stimulating. Any comments and or critiques are welcome. And, of course, purchase my books and stories and tell me what you think. You may also wish to visit my page for Readers Reviews.

Please also follow the link to my United Kingdom website http://adellebradford.org.uk. This site has been up since the beginning of October 2006. It appears to be developing a readership as well and I am very happy about that!

Adelle Bradford
Suffolk, Virginia, USA

About Time

I have always had trouble making sense out of centuries.

At the time of this writing, we live in the twentieth century, but it is clear to me that I live in the 1900's. So do most of the other people I know, with a few notable exceptions it might be better to ignore. At least we all write 1900 - something on our checks and letters.

            I have been told that the year 2000 is right around the corner from where I live; I suppose this accurate, chronologically speaking. In my mind, of course, it is 'chrono' speaking because it doesn't 'logically' follow for me. I always have to make mental calculations to determine the actual year I mean when dealing with those pesky centuries.

Take Eppingen town, Germany, for example. According to their written records, so say their publicity brochures, it was built sometime before the ninth century (the 800's). Every student of Roman history knows it was built much earlier by the Romans, a matter for later discussion.

Anyway, like a proper tourist, I stood in front of the Piping Tower in the center of old Eppingen town. According to the brochure, it whistles when the wind blows, thus its name. I waited and waited and the wind blew and blew, but it didn't make a peep of a 'pipe'. Oh well, at least I have a picture of me standing in front of it.

The Piping Tower was built in the 1200's (thirteenth century), and served various functions including being the town jail in the 1800's, which was, of course the nineteenth century.

The tower is just down the narrow, crooked, cobblestone street from an imposing Catholic Church, which was built in the 900's (tenth century) on the ruins of a Roman temple they have dated back to 50 A.D. (first century). Remember the historical accuracy I mentioned before?

The Roman temple was built on the ruins of a Pagan temple or worship site that they think dates back to 4000 years before Christ, a time when Gods were plentiful and people were not.

I must digress here for a minute. Fact: almost without exception, when one European or Middle East religious faction conquered another, which seems to have happened frequently, it was the practice to build a bigger, taller temple to the conquering God on top of the temple of the losing God as a kind of gesture of contemptuous supremacy. I have no idea why this 'gesture' reminds me so much of several male dogs making pissing passes at a post... .

Back to the subject. Let's see, 4000 years is 40 centuries, and you have to count backwards... .

Now, I live in Mauer, which has written records dating back to the 800's, which was, in fact, the ninth century...or was it the seventh century? See, I'm getting very confused, but just wait!

The remains of the famous Heidelbergenesis Man- -and many animals like wooly mammoths, giant bears, boars, and wolves- -were all found about a half mile from where I am presently sitting as I write this. These remains all date back further than 600,000 years. . .six hundred thousand years! Let's see, would that be 6,000 centuries? And... .

You figure it out. I have always had trouble making sense out of centuries.

Germany 1997

E-Mail: cygnet@adellebradford.org
E-Mail: cygnet@adellebradford.org.uk