Connectivity
Benjamin Staudinger, Milky Way, wikimedia commons Later, I will be conscious of the fact that being outside at night is one of my favorite things. I will experience a kind of internal exhale when I have an opportunity to just sit out, alone, hearing cars on the highway and the Empire Builder sounding its horn about a mile west of us, beyond the Mississippi. I will love slow hours, watching the moon move, airplanes and satellites, a light breeze shifting the maple tree. This night, though, I have been called away from my basketball—I’m acting out a radio broadcast of a Minnesota Gophers game on a toy hoop taped to the living room paneling—and asked to go out to the garage and check on my father. He has been working for a long time on a complicated repair to his Oldsmobile, and it’s a cold, mid-winter night, so he has the heater on. My mother is worried about the ventilation. “If he’s blue, it’s probably too late,” she tells me. I hurry out the door and immediately feel t...