Hello Friend,

Notice it's spelt Star Trak.

Many years ago, in Hamilton, Ontario there was a telescope shop called Star Trak, owned by a fellow
named John Rowlinson.

John was quite an enthusiastic guy, and just a little bit edgy.

In fact, I paid John a visit one day on his shop on Barton Street in Hamilton.

We had a conversation about the telescope business, and talked about doing
some business together.

 He imported some eyepieces from Japan and a few different telescopes, which were sort of like
a newtonian with a glass cover on the front, but not really a schmidt newtonian design.

They certainly were interesting though.

Now John was quite an interesting character and besides being an amateur astronomer, he knew
a thing about singing as well.

In fact, another job he did on the side, was host  Karaoake events.

Personally, I've never understood karoake.  Probably because I'm not a great singer by any stretch
of the imagination.

John also had another remarkable talent: He was an Elvis impersonator! (Yes, that Elvis....).

He was a real "hound dog".  "Jailhouse rock"-er maybe?  These weak imitations of jokes are "Now or Never".

I only found that out later on, after he quietly dissappeared from the telescope business some years ago.

I'm not sure what happened to John, but I believe he was originally from Western Canada, and perhaps
he moved back there, as someone that knew him said.

But one thing is for certain; if you met John, you'd likely not forget him anytime soon.

He certainly made the astronomy biz more interesting!

Clear Skies,

Ray Khan

PS My friend, Yitka Karlik, who lives in Hamilton, actually wrote a cute ditty about the Barton St.  in Hamilton.
      You can see it here:  http://youtu.be/PGmDpW307GM. It'll give you a flavour of what the street is like.