Please read this...When junk's been here, for 10,000 years. . .

<p class="p1">Fast forward. 10,000 years from. Nah, let's just make it a thousand years. What the heck. Next week. Let's just skip ahead to next week.</p><p class="p2">Of course, even though we might want to do such a thing, time travel still remains a fig newton of our imagination. And a wonderful topic for those who like to write science fiction.</p><p class="p2">H.G. Wells penned a fascinating tale of travel through time. His book, "The Time Machine," was published in 1895, which, I think, was the last time that the Cubs were in the World Series. </p><p class="p2">Mr. Wells lived and worked and wrote back before there was Facebook and Twitter and various other ways to waste time in the 21st century.</p><p class="p2">"The Time Machine" was, and probably still is, a fun book to read, even though the future that the story painted wasn't the brightest, especially if you happened to be on the wrong side of human evolution.</p><p class="p2">Hollywood has brought "The Time Machine" to the big screen a couple of times. In your writer's humble opinion, the first version was the better of the two. </p><p class="p2">To be honest with you, I can't remember if Mr. Wells addressed such issues as finding junk in a creek bed in "The Time Machine." Lucky for you, I decided to pursue the topic.</p><p class="p2">A couple of weeks ago, on one of my weekend walkabouts, I ventured along the banks of a creek which meanders not far from the place where I call home. The walk took place on a glorious, sunny and warm afternoon.</p><p class="p2">Thanks to the sunshine and warm weather, frogs were quite active. Mostly, they were hopping from the bank of the creek into the water to get away from the big and ugly creature which had invaded their world. I even saw a couple of little fish. </p><p class="p2">There were other things that I saw in the creek bed, too. The things that I saw might have seemed a bit shocking. Not so much anymore. Mostly, what I saw was disappointing.</p><p class="p2">There were what looked like a couple of pieces of computer junk. And a beer bottle. </p><p class="p2">The discovery of these treasures led me to wonder just how long they could last. So, I did approximately two and half minutes of research on Google, where I learned the metal junk could decompose rather quickly. Plastic could take, oh, maybe 500 years to go away. </p><p class="p2">The beer bottle, made of glass, could still be there in a million years. I'm guessing that if there still happened to be any beverage left in the bottle, it would probably be flat in a million years. So much for that party I was planning for my time travel adventure.</p><p class="p2">In the FYI category, I ran across a U.S. Geological Survey document which stated that approximately 325 million personal computers would become obsolete in the United States – between 1985 and 2005. Of that total, 55 million would end up in landfills. And, apparently, one would end up in a creek.</p><p class="p2">Please understand that I'm not even pretending to be an expert on the processes of decomposition in the environment. Still, the idea of junk hanging around for a million years is, well, kind of fascinating. And really, really disturbing.</p><p class="p3"> </p>

This circuit board just might be gone, though. Thanks to the decomposition of the deadly products in this 21st century junk, there just might be some 12-legged, six-eyed frogs hopping around in the creek.



10,000 years from now. I go for a walk on a Sunday afternoon. Guess there's a good chance that the beer bottle I saw in a creek bed back in 2015 could still be there. Nice to know that.