Every other Saturday and Sunday afternoon at 3:00, I do a program we call "Sky Over Gastonia" in our planetarium. It's an old-fashioned, guy-in-the-dark-with-a-pointer planetarium program. It's nothing fancy. We don't have special effects other than our stars. I let the computer take the houselights down because it does it more smoothly than I can manually.

My approach is pretty simple. I imagine that a friend has called me up and asked me to take him out on a clear night and show him whatever is of interest to me on that night. It's a simple approach but I find it works pretty well. I always imagine a specific friend although it's a different friend each week. In my mind, he's sitting just to the right of our planetarium projector.

Naturally, there are some other things I have to do for the program to work. There's our standard safety briefing about the locations of the exits and how we don't allow re-admission if someone leaves. And I try to make eye contact with each and every person at least once during this part of the program.

This weekend, the approach must have worked. After my Saturday afternoon program, one man came out, shook my hand and said, "I never realized how much I'd enjoy this program." Something similar happened today. About a half dozen ladies commented on how much they enjoyed the program and how it sounded like I was doing it just for them.

Glenn, it was your turn.

I hope you enjoyed the show.

© 2004, JC Craig. May be reproduced with the author's permission.