Periodicity

I just downloaded a periodic table to reference at the farm. I thought it would be handy to have on hand. I took at look at it after I got it down and was surprised.

I remember that the first time I saw a periodic chart it was as a giant wall map in my grade school. Big and bright and full of colors for an old map. You could see the wrinkles and creases in it that poured down the face of it like rivers heading to an imaginary watershed. The printing was thick and coarse and if you ever have felt one of the old style window shade teaching aids, you know the tactile sensation I'm thinking about right now. I can remember staring at that periodical chart as the revolutionary war raged on verbally during history class and poetry was spoken aloud lauding "The Fence" by Robert Frost. I was intrigued with the"Heavy Elements" and maybe that was because it had the word "heavy" in their title and I was entering my prepubescent Heavy Metal phase. There was something cool about them.

There was some dispute I recall over their names and our particular chart had the Soviet names and the American nomenclature. I recall thinking about what a great day it would be in America when we could look at the periodic table and see our victory in the cold war impressed upon the world of science, for all of history remaining to gaze upon. When I thought about that day, I could see parades in the street and confetti and streamers. I could not see who the central figures in the parade were in my mind, but I thought that they would have to be the scientists that proved that America discovered these elements and named them first. What a day that would be, I thought, when scientists were paraded through the street! When the US population could call a rare earth (more heavy metal names) element Americium or Californium and know it was the right name in their heart. The skies would be blue and the flags would wave on that day, I could tell you!

How sad to see that the heavy elements that were unofficially named at the bottom of the chart have been officially converted to the American version. The greatest imaginary day of my youth had come and gone with no fanfare, and no scientists were paraded through the street. There was no Stout Soviets to beat their shoe on the table and protest strongly against this travesty. Oh, how I miss the Soviets! A nation can only be as great as it's opposition, and we my friends are swirling in a power vacuum that the Soviets have left us.