Now that the boys (including my daughter) have got things pretty well in hand at Charlie’s Soap, I have the luxury of getting into mischief.

When our four kids were young, and it was time for bed, it was my job to read them a good bedtime story and clear out the goblins from the closets before turning out the lights.  I would shake the closet doors and wrestle the imaginary boogie men to assure the kids everything was alright for the night.

You can imagine that absolutely nothing scares them now, so I have to work on a higher plane to get a rise out of them or anyone else who is in earshot.

Now for a good bedtime story for all the rest of you.

I have been hearing the gloom and doom folks since before I started Charlie’s Soap.  Obviously, I didn’t think doom was around the corner when I ventured out into the business world with little more than a hunch and some moxie.  It is much the same now as it was in ’74.  The Climate Change folks declaring the debate is over before anyone can say “WTF”  is a total hoot.

The cover of Time magazine back in 1974, just two years before I developed the formula that would become Charlie’s Soap,  proclaimed the coming of the next Ice Age.   Yes, the next Ice Age.   Each generation has its harbingers of doom and almost always they are dead wrong.  Who’s to say when they just might be right?

This Earth and nature is governed by cycles.

See, things run in cycles.

Consider, at the most basic level of the Earth’s science, the carbon dioxide-oxygen cycle. You know this from sixth grade science class: the continuously occurring process whereby animals inhale oxygen and then exhale carbon dioxide, and plants use the CO2 and “exhale” oxygen.

There are more such cycles that affect the Earth. Some cycle through in a breath, some take eons. Here are just a few, handy links included — on the house!

Water cycle

Nitrogen cycle

Annual seasonal cycle (you know this one)

11-year sunspot cycle

172-year solar centric/sunspot minimum cycle

11,000-year ice age cycle

26,000-year Milankovich cycle (wobble of axis through the poles)

100,000-year eccentric orbit cycle

100,000,000-plus year carboniferous cycle

Even the geographical positions of the North and South Poles are shifting unusually quickly. The north/south magnetic field swap cycle may cause earthquakes, and we’ll all be sent back to the Stone Age.

All of which is to say, we really don’t have a clue what we are in for.  Some very respected scientists around the globe say the 11-year sunspot, the 172-year solar minimum cycle, and the 11,000 year ice age cycle could be all well upon us this cold, cold spring of 2013.

That’s why I’m thinking back to 1974. A simpler time, maybe, compared to today’s real and imagined horrors. Maybe that’s why I tried to formulate Charlie’s Soap to be as simple and effective as possible.

I hope I’ve rattled your closets.  Night night, kiddies.

Monday was Earth Day.  In preparation for the day, I cranked up my tractor and moved and mixed dirt and compost, cleared and leveled a small plot just south of my earlier attempts at farmering.

Seems I dug into a clay bed, added compost, and created a 50-by-50 foot wetland.  Don’t tell the EPA on me.  They’ll sneak in a few snail darters before I can get the grass started again.  Maybe they will be impressed by my recycling efforts.  I’m reusing some old cedar porch flooring to make the boxes.

It’s getting a bit late for some crops, so I have to hurry up if I intend to eat off the land this fall.  I’m planting a box of potatoes, a box of tomatoes, a box of squash, and transplanting a box of cabbage that survived the winter in my old wetland.

This is the time of year when the Neo-Druidry declare their intentions to rid us all of the scuorge of modernity.  I’m doing my part.  I haven’t had a haircut in months so I can weave in this nice flower wreath.

Taylor, my son, has just entered a contest that promises the two winners a trip to real space camp and a real launch to space.  My oldest kid wants to be an astronaut.  He has always wanted to be an astronaut and spent lots of time preparing.  The Taylor you all have gotten to know has had this dream for a long, long time.

Back in ’81, I wrote a short story, “The Little Black Book,” that described the upcoming first Shuttle launch.  It was a story supposedly written by Taylor recounting his exploits in the space program.   He was only 9 when I wrote this story, but he studied hard and launched himself as far as he could to achieve that dream.  He went to Space Camp three times, majored in physics, and earned his private pilot’s license before getting his Masters in physics at Clemson.

Now, many years and lots of soap later, there seems to be opening up another opportunity for him.  I heard that he just entered a contest,  AXE Apollo Space Academy, that could finally get him his wish.

Do me a favor.  Look up the contest, and then read the short story below and decide if you want to vote for him.  If you don’t want to vote for him, then vote for me.  I’m signing up today.

–Charlie

The Little Black Book

April 1981
By Charlie Sutherland

Our newly created artificial gravity is gently pressing us to the floor, and I can see the semi-annual change court of colors beginning with the new spring-fall on the globe now permanently directly overhead.  I’ve been here on Geo-7 for two wild and hectic years and just now have time to enjoy it.  I came here to finish a project I started some years ago with extremely strong metallic crystal fibers.  The work is finally complete, and I’m anxious to get back to the tranquility of L514 with its lakes, woods and meadows all spread around inside its eggshell thin geodesic exoskeleton frame.

The first car was launched yesterday, and our crew has it on scanner.  Our outer airlock has opened, but it will be a while before we can see it.  There’s not much to do but wait … and remember.

It was back in April 1981.  My dad and I had been glued to the TV set for the three days it was in orbit trying to catch word of its progress.  The mission was nearly over and it just re-entered the atmosphere.  We waited for the long silence to break as it skipped along the fringe.  There was worry about its heat shield, and no one knew whether it had survived or not.

“Crackle …  Edwards.  This is Columbia. Over.”
    
“Go ahead, Columbia.  We read you loud and clear.”
    
“Crackle … e’re go for landing…”
    
“OK, Columbia.  We read you ‘Go for landing.’”

Cheers were heard in the control room, and soon after, the first American Shuttle was safe, in a long dusty slide, at home.

“Wow!”  I said, “That’s what I want to do!”

“Me too!” laughed Dad as he stretched himself off his low stool and walked toward the kitchen for a drink.  “I’m afraid it’s a little late for me, but you can make it if you want it bad enough.”

I had books and books on stars and space travel and a model of everything launched since Sputnik.  On clear nights Dad and I would set up the crude telescope he had made and spend many happy hours studying the heavens.  Dad didn’t have much formal education but seemed to know everything about astronomy.  He even knew when to look for satellites.  It was great fun!  He kept my early dreams alive through my college years and made sure I never lost sight of my goal.  I finished my doctorate in Physical Chemistry in ’97 and was accepted soon afterwards for astronaut training.

Space in those early days was rough work and the conditions were not always the best, but it was worth every grunt and sweat just for the adventure.  We loved it.  Most of us rookies stayed in low orbit manufacturing plants or shuttled the freight and people back and forth between Earth and orbit.  Those rides were a thrill, and a risk too, but more and more people were making the move.

A roar of smoke, a rush of wind, and a hardy high old price of a ticket!  The dreams of permanent homes in space were coming true and construction at L5 was beginning.  We were all excited.

We still had to go home periodically to keep our bones from melting away.  They called it leave, but it was mostly for debriefing and physicals.  Well anyway, I was home on leave visiting my folks back in ’04.  It was a short visit – just enough for a meal, spend the night, and head back to the Cape.

During supper, while I was telling my dad about my job and the wonders of space, I saw, half hidden in his excitement, a twinge of sadness that revealed the dream he could never reach.  I tried to change the subject, but he wanted to know everything.  His lack of education might have kept him from joining the adventure, but it didn’t keep him from understanding every part of it.

It was dark when I got up the next morning.  Mom had breakfast ready, and Dad was wheeling the small electric car out of the garage so he could light the heater.  He drove me to the station, gave me a hug as I started to leave and shoved something into my hand.

“What is this?” I asked as I stared at the little black book.  It was frayed from hard use, and the edges of the thin paper were starting to yellow.

“It’s not really much.” he said, “Just some notes on some silly ideas I’ve had from time to time.  It would be nice to know that those ideas made it to space even if they stayed stuck on the pages of my ragged old notebook.”

Gee, Dad … With security …”  I tried to explain why I couldn’t take it, but the look on his face made me agree to try.  Besides, the little book fit nicely in my personal pouch.  I could get more shaving gear later.

My new duty station was Landsat 16.  It had a modest crew and quarters were tight. I quickly unpacked my gear and stuffed Dad’s book in the back of my locker where it was well hidden from my new mates who might not be happy if they discovered my unauthorized notebook.  Secrets were very well kept and accounted for on this mission.  Back then crew members were each issued only one NASA notebook which was subject to inspection anytime, and every page had to be completely filled before we could get a new one.  No waste.

The following June, I was working on a particularly boring training project – tracking icebergs south of Australia and practice estimating wind and sea currents.  Notes were not necessary for this exercise because we merely radioed the iceberg positions and our guesses to ground stations that calculated the actual currents and sent back our scores.  There was plenty of time to kill, so I took the opportunity to smuggle Dad’s little book in my suit pouch for some reading material.

After three days of this, even an uneducated window washer could nail down the signs and guess the currents right on the money.  It took several minutes for the ground stations to send back data and we were out of sight most of the time.  We could get in a couple guesses each orbit and be gone for almost two hours before the bergs came back into view for two more guesses.  Booooring!   We were in a polar orbit, so sometimes we wouldn’t see the same bergs for several orbits.

When I first opened Dad’s little book the first page right margin read down, “Check the back pages first.”  I guessed that was meant for me, so I flipped the book over and started at the back to read forward.

Dear Taylor,

I hope you find these notes useful.  Please read them carefully and dismiss any outdated junk you come across.  That should be about 70% of what you find here.

Loving Dad

Dad always ended his letters to us kids this way.  Sure brought back memories.  I laughed out loud and started in as instructed.  That old book was crammed full of all kinds of ideas and observations and projects – finished and unfinished.  There were solar heaters, textile machines, laser printers, and even plans for an artificial eye.  The notes and math on one particular idea really caught my real ones.

That was the real beginning of my life and career.  With the spark of Dad’s ideas and my education and experience and opportunities, I moved on to better and better responsibilities and more opportunities.  With that old book and my continuing conversations with Dad, life was indeed exciting.  He was getting on in age, but new medical advances and his love of keeping fit and his continuing interest in the sciences kept him young.  Social Security had long since been gone and he was still stuck in a do-nothing job on Earth.  Those who had not provided themselves a large enough estate to retire had to work.  Mom and Dad had spent their savings on my education.  My meager salary wasn’t enough to cover their retirement, but this project I was working on at Geo 7 just might give them some exciting things to think about.

Some ideas buried in that old book, far ahead of their time, with calculus calculations ground out by hand and verified using a primitive 8-bit Sym-1 computer hooked up to a teletype for input/output, were the seeds of this most ambitious project.   I was in charge of the whole thing.  This massive satellite, Geo 7, with its hundreds of workers, all the manufacturing and deployment systems in space, and the ground station in Ecuador were all under my command.  It had taken a great deal of material and planning to get ready for this.  And now it is going to take precise coordination and maneuvering of this city in space to accomplish this ridiculous, foolhardy, but extremely clever enterprise.

Once the project was approved, it took 18 months to get all the systems and material in place for this first and only attempt.  There was no backup.  This had to work first time or all the crew of Geo 7 would have to be rescued and the city abandoned.  The future advancement of exploration was depending on this one shot.

The special craft, pieced together from conventional hardware, with its two sets of rockets pointed in opposite directions, and its cargo of 4.4 million kilograms of clothesline thin cable made from hundreds of barely visible, flawless, pure iron crystal filaments was moved into position and locked on its target 36,000 kilometers away.  It was high noon in Ecuador and the moon and sun were both at our backs to help balance the forces for this first and only attempt.  Tether One’s first set of rockets fired a short burst to set it in motion to the mountains of Ecuador.  We watched the cable wriggling and looping away from the craft and spinning away around the just fired and now cooling rockets like a long ribbon in a stiff breeze.  Tether One was now in free-fall and picking up speed, nudged only occasionally by small thrusters to hold the precisely straight line marked by the laser beam from Earth.  The cable still attached to Geo 7 vibrated in ever changing harmonics as the strange craft sped on its path.

“All secure for firing!  Countdown commencing at T minus 30 seconds and counting … 25 … 20 … 3 … 2 … 1 … ignition!”  The huge bank of rockets covering a large part of the Earth side of Geo 7 roared silently defiantly at the Earth and we were pushed out of our secure geosynchronous niche orbit and into an uneasy uncertainty assured only by our remaining locked on the beam of the ground based laser and the continually changing harmonic overtones created by the cable resonating throughout our little city.

Sixteen hours later, right on schedule, we saw the flash against the now dark side of Earth as Tether One’s larger retro rockets came to life to slow the craft, much lighter now with its payload nearly depleted.  “Thirty seconds to touchdown!” blared over the intercom.  We all held our breath.  “Touchdown!”  We have touchdown at T plus 16 hours, 22 minutes, 37 seconds.”  We anxiously watched the scurry of activity on our TV screens as the loose end of the cable was secured in place.  There was very little left on board, and it all had to be removed and attached securely or Geo 7 would be set adrift and carry all the cable away with it.  Rescue shuttles were at the ready, but it would take months to retrieve the space city’s crew as it drifted further and further away in its new orbit.  The cable soon began to tighten and thrusters on the space side of Geo 7 struggled to slow the massive satellite.  The tension rose sharply past 2 million kg. briefly and dropped to a steady 980 thousand kg and vibrations began to subside.  It would take weeks to completely stop, but incredibly, the cable was holding.  Geo 7 was swinging on that tiny cable like a kid’s toy on a string.  We had done the impossible.  Now the Earth and all of her people were full partners in the space adventure.

During the months that followed, 8 more cables followed the first to complete the task and hold the crawlers.  We merely slid the new cables down the first and added the exact amount of mass to Geo 7 to hold the delicate balance.

The silver crawler sparkled in the sunlight against the dark blue Pacific.  We had been watching it for the last 100 km.  It was the first fully electric elevator to space – complete with extension cord, and it was just about to finish its first assent.  The crawler slid silently through the outer airlocks as they closed behind it.  There was a pause as the pressure was equalized to Geo 7 specs.  Then the inner air locks opened and the crawler moved through them to rest in the middle of a group of dignitaries who had gathered around the base of the 9 cables.  It was the 40th anniversary of the first launch of Columbia and appropriate festivities were planned for the arrival.

The crawler door opened and the crew prepared the way for our special guest.  An old man still about 6 ft. tall with thin greying hair stepped out and surveyed the surroundings.  “Bully!” he said, with a twinkle in his eye.  “I could use a drink.”

“That’s my dad!” I said.  He had introduced himself, said thanks, asked why everyone was standing around, and said he needed to get to work.

By the way, this railroad to space was to be named after him.

More “NEW AND IMPROVED” news from P&G!  Just when we thought It couldn’t  get any better, good old Proctor and Gamble has done it again.  It’s beginning to worry me that they are now only a few years behind us — my  tongue firmly planted in cheek.

Seventh Generation, and California with its new Prop. 65, have convinced P&G to  reformulate and lower the amount of a possible carcinogenic and birth defect causing chemical  — 1,4 dioxane — in Tide and other products

I know it is quite a chore for the big guys to make changes, but before we all sing praises, we might want to look further into how much of a change might have actually have been made.

Certain reactions to make household and laundry detergents (a.k.a. surfactants) will produce 1,4 dioxane.  And that can be a problem.

For those of you interested in the chemistry, the following is for you.  For the rest of you,  feel free to skip this part.

Small amounts of 1,4 dioxane (diethylene oxide) are created in any ethoxylation reaction. In the reactions to make surfactants, mono ethylene oxide molecules are attached to the fatty alcohol end of hydrocarbon alcohol molecules.

These hydrocarbon alcohols can come from either mineral, animal or vegetable sources.  They are chemically identical – no matter what the source.  I don’t know where P&G gets theirs, but we were actually the first in America to use vegetable based linear hydrocarbon surfactants.

Back to the reaction:  Depending on the characteristics of the surfactant desired, more or fewer of these mono ethylene oxide molecules are added to the hydrocarbon alcohol.  So, where does the nasty 1,4,dioxane come from?

Once in a great while, a mono will attach itself  to a another mono, and this forms a very water soluble di-ethylene oxide molecule: 1,4 dioxane)

To get rid of this 1,4 dioxane at the end of the reaction to create the desired surfactant, steam is introduced to the mix, blended in, and vacuumed away.  The steam readily binds with the 1,4 dioxane and carries it away where it can be recovered for other uses.

This purging procedure has been used for years. Since we were aware of a concern, we at Charlie’s Soap insisted that our surfactants are adequately purged. We have since discovered that even without this purging, the amount of 1,4 dioxane is well within FDA guidelines because ethoxylation is not the major source of the dioxane.

P&G and 7th Gen should be getting credit for conforming, but it is no big deal. We at Charlie’s Soap have done this for years.

It is unclear how much exposure to 1,4 dioxane can actually cause cancer or birth defects, but the FDA requires less than 10 ppm for food products. P&G makes ethoxylated alcohol surfactants for many of their cleaners and could have, or should have, done this purging without the fanfare years ago.

– Charlie Sutherland

SOURCES

http://www.philly.com/philly/blogs/greenliving/Tide-Getting-the-stains—-and-the-carcinogen—-out.html

http://www.sasoltechdata.com/MarketingBrochures/14Dioxane.pdf

http://www.seventhgeneration.com/learn/blog/newsflash-tide-turning

http://swiftcraftymonkey.blogspot.com/2010/11/much-maligned-ingredients-ethoxylated.html

What, with the promise of not-so-good times as defense, Social Security and debt service eat up nearly all of our national revenue, is there to brighten our days ahead?

An ordinary fellow can still throw his stinky clothes and the dog’s blanket in the same washer load, chuck in a scoop of Charlie’s Soap and know that all will be clean, soft and stinky free. What else can a man want?

Ain’t life grand?

What a year this has been.  While our nation wrestled with the notion of falling off a fiscal cliff, we actually grew a bit at Charlie’s Soap.

All the credit goes to you guys out there. Customers like you have trusted us to make products you can rely on. We’re grateful for your support. You found our cleaners in stores big and small this past year, from Whole Foods in the Northwest and Southeast to Sickles Market in Little Silver, N.J., along with the hundreds of other small retailers who have supported us for decades.

As for us in 2012, we didn’t change a thing. Charlie’s Soap is still Charlie’s Soap.  We have, however, upgraded our manufacturing and quality control to ensure the accuracy of that statement with the increased production you folks are now demanding.

To reflect the internal changes, we have given our outsides a new paint job. Not just the doors and walls of our shop in Mayodan – but the labels on our bottles and jars. We hope you’ll like the new look as much as we do. Plus, they’ll tell you exactly what’s inside the bottles and jars.

Oh — Jenny (our CFO)   insisted I get a haircut.  I may look better, but all my strength is gone. Here’s why:

The holidays were dampened with the kind of wog that has hit almost everyone within a 200 mile radius of Mayodan.  Son James and his wife, Dawn, were first, then Morgan, son No. 3.

Then Wayne, 82, (our longtime plant foreman) got pneumonia and ended in the hospital for a few days. He’s doing better now,

Jane, my wife, and I were next.  Jenny got a milder case but still is coughing a bit.

Christmas finally was celebrated on Friday evening at our house when we all, except for Dawn, started getting better.  The celebration was so relaxed and turned out so pleasantly that we might do it three days after Christmas in 2013.

Happy New Year!

Christmas is just around the corner and the hustle and bustle is getting  more intense.

Last week our in-house communications hit a snag, so this past Sunday, the whole family – Jane, Taylor, Shannon, James, Jenny and I – were all running about from Raleigh to Atlanta correcting and hand delivering some very important shipments to local Whole Foods stores.

The reception and support we got from the Whole Foods folks was just the Christmas Cheer we needed.

Many thanks, guys.

So, in that same spirit, here’s wishing you all a Happy Holiday and many thanks for giving us a great year.

As Jane and I are getting well into middle age, we are beginning to require some maintenance to keep up with our kids.  It was Jane’s turn the other day, and we made our trip to the women’s medical maintenance shop because it had been determined that she needed, for lack of a better description, an oil change.

We arrived early in the morning and Jane was sent in to get her pre-exam and pep talk. I was left to fend for myself in the waiting room.  I don’t ever miss an opportunity to annoy folks, and here was a captive audience.

I chose a seat close to a group who seemed to be a family.  They were an in-lawed two-parter from West Jefferson and Burlington, N.C., waiting for their 30-something daughter and son to present their first grandchild.  The proceedings had been going on for several hours and plenty more to go, from all accounts.

I horned right in.  These folks weren’t going anywhere soon.  I started with the usual, “Where ya’ll from?” and got the ball rolling. Topics ranged from a new monument in West Jefferson to my ferocious Carolina dog and the fence it took to keep her from eating the neighbors.

The talk got around to my favorite subject: “What do ya’ll do?”  Finally — my chance to talk about soap.

“You make Charlie’s Soap? And, you’re Charlie?!”

“Yep,” I said, feigning embarrassment.

“Well, I’ll be,” exclaimed the maternal grandmother-to-be.  “That stuff is great.”

“Thank you ma’am,” I returned.

About that time, the grandmother-to-be on the other side of this budding family got up to check on the expectant mother.  She was gone for a while and returned with no news aside from the prospect of a long wait.  Her daughter had insisted they go to lunch and apologized for taking so long.

The mother told her everything was fine and they were being entertained by Charlie.

Her daughter asked who was this Charlie, and when her mother told her Charlie of Charlie’s Soap, the mother-to-be exclaimed that she loved that stuff and had even made up a song about it and began to sing it right there in the delivery room.

After a good laugh from all of us, my audience obediently left for lunch.

Jane finally returned from her pre-exam.  “Sorry you had to wait,” she said, “There’s nobody here for you to talk to.”

“No problem,” I said.  “I was just thinking of you.”

It’s been a while since I turned my attention to this exercise.

To tell you the truth, I’ve been tending and greening my own little green acre.

My tomatoes are coming in at record pace.  Last year I got zilch.

This year, after plowing in a substantial amount of Mayodan’s street pickup compost, I’m hitting pay dirt.  They keep this stuff for several years before giving it away.   Along with the usual grass clippings, recliners and road kill, I’m sure Jimmy Hoffa is in there somewhere.

Though my hands-on farming and nurturing produced a nice crop of tomatoes, the real producers this year are two plants of grape cherry tomatoes that came with the Mayodan compost.   I have been harvesting dozens of these little things every week from the first plant to show itself in the compost I spread in my garden. I’m just now getting new tomatoes from the second plant still in the compost pile left by the town.

I already harvested my potatoes and  wormy cabbage, and I plowed under some more compost.  Now I’m getting  squash.  In late August, I’ll be replanting  cabbage hoping to fool the worms of spring. I’ll also put in lots of mixed greens.  Might be kinda fun being green.  I’m just starting with my thumbs.

My boys, on the other hand, are greening up Sutherland Products.  If their efforts were all for show, I’d have none of it. But their automation schemes are evolving to enhance our erstwhile manual labor efforts with push-button electro-servo air-operated devices that allow much better quality control and more productivity.  The next step is to train our computers to push the buttons.   They have  remodeled our lab facilities to run more efficiently under better controlled conditions.  All of this will substantially lower our carbon footprint.

I know other so-called green companies make these efforts too, but planting trees on our roof for a photo op is a bit much.  I suggested to the boys that we could really go green by adding broccoli to the formulas, but they just rolled their eyes at that perfectly good suggestion.

What?

Things are looking up for Charlie’s Soap. Some of the big chains are calling us about our products.

You guys must be telling your friends about us, and a good number of you are  asking your local grocery store managers to carry our laundry detergent and  other cleaners.

That has got to be the best advertising … ever.

To all: Thank you, thank you, thank you. Thanks for your encouragement to  stay the course and not let the latest fads and phobias lower the quality  and value you have learned to expect from us.

Your support means everything to me.

 – Charlie