Drango's home city of Envisage

Drango's Home

Drango by the Sea of Mists

Grandpa Dickens

Narda Nardles

Krag Lotek

Krag's Cabin on the
Isle of Sark

Drango and his family going to church back home on Aldebaran 4

I came to live with Bob on Earth on my birthday in 1994. That was my birthday gift from Seanachie the time traveling cat who brought me here. Because years are different on Aldebaran I'm not sure how old I am in Earth years, only that my birthday is on November 1st.

Grandpa Dickens came to live with Bob and me in September 1997 from Aldebaran 4. I had been encouraging my Grandpa to come to Earth since Daisy, my Grandma died.

Grandpa  and I have a very special relationship. When I was just a little dragon, grandpa and I did many things together. In fact grandpa was the one that named me Drango when I was born. His father was named Drango and he wanted his grandson to carry on the name.

Grandpa Dickens was an author in his younger days. He wrote a number of books and magazine articles. His books include "Oliver Bent", "Great Aspirations", and his famous "An Easter Carol" with Ebineezer Dragon. He doesn't do any writing now but he does join us in our shows sometimes.

My neighbor and best friend was Narda Nardles. We did everything together. We were best of friends. Several years ago, on my birthday November 1st,  Narda came to Earth to live with Bob and me. She often joins us in our shows.

A special friend is Krag Lotek, a Troll Dragon. Both are dragons but different races with Krag being a Troll Dragon. He lived on the Isle of Sark in the North Sea of Mists. Troll Dragons are larger than Dragons like me and they have lost their wings and tails many generations ago. The Isle of Sark is much colder than where I live.

Drango’s grandpa knew Krag when he was a young journalist He had visited Krag and they became friends. Krag lived alone and they kept in touch. When I was young my grandpa used to take me on vacation to stay with Krag at his cabin.  

We always told him he should come and live with us. One day Krag decided he would and went looking for us. He tracked us all the way to Earth and now lives with us.

My family and I regularly attended church back on Aldebaran 4. Now I make my church home with Bob and Linda at Fishers United Methodist Church in Fishers, Indiana, USA. I am active with the Children's Ministries at the church. Church is a very important part of my life. I always wear my WWJD bracelet. Thinking about it helps me to make good decisions.

Visit our church's Children's Ministry web site to see all of the great things we are doing. You can do some of the things we do even if you don't go to my church. Check it out!

Sky Map showing location of Alderaran. If you can see Orion, Aldebaran is up and to the right, almost in line with Orion's belt

Drango & Narda Waiting for the Aldebaran Shuttle

Multi-color Dragons

Aldebaran
From the Intergalactic Encyclopedia Volume 843.34
With notes by Bob Shimer, StoryVent

The diameters of most normal stars range from one tenth to ten times as much as the solar diameter. The larger, more massive ones are blue or white, and notably hotter than the Sun. Sirius, in the constellation Canis Major, and Vega, in Lyra, are examples of hot, massive normal stars that are fairly close to the Sun (8.6 light years and about 26 light years away, respectively). They are white, several times more massive than the Sun, and have surface temperatures about 10,000 degrees C. Other, more distant normal stars have temperatures up to about 40,000 degrees C. There are many normal red stars near the Sun, with temperatures of a few thousand degrees and masses much less than that of the Sun. None, however, is bright enough to be seen without a telescope. All of the bright red stars in the night sky are red giants and supergiants, counted among those we term abnormal stars. Examples are the supergiants Betelgeuse in Orion and Antares in Scorpius (each about 520 light years from Earth) and giant Aldebaran (68 light years) in Taurus. The Sun is slightly unusual in one respect: it has no companion star. Most stars seem to have companions, with which they orbit in binary, triple, or larger systems, and some stars are members of clusters, with from a few dozen to a few million members.

Betelgeuse, also called Alpha Orionis, is classified as an M2 supergiant while Aldebaran, also called Alpha Tauri, is a K5 giant star. They differ in luminosity by about 150 times with Aldebaran being the less luminous. However, Aldebaran is still about 200 times more luminous than the Sun making it the 14th brightest star in the sky (magnatude .9)! As for their physical sizes, Betelgeuse is about 1300 times the diameter of our Sun and would extend to the orbit of Mars, while Aldebaran is about 30 times larger than the Sun, and extends to nearly the orbit of Mercury.

Aldebaran 4 is an Earth like plane, the 4th planet of 12. From Earth it is in Haides near Orion (Above and to the right of the belt) It is a double star with the second having a magnatude 11. Locals call it "Little Boy" and it rotates at position 9. At position 11 & 12 are two very faint stars. Little Boy didn't make it into a gas giant because of its size and remained a small sun. The other two are almost gas giants but not quite. They look like bright stars from Aldebaran 4. Little Boy (A-9) is like a small very bright moon from Aldebaran 4. Aldebaran 4 has two moons of its own which appear similar to Earth's moon although one is somewhat smaller. While the orbit of Aldebaran 4 is relatively stable, the outer planets have rather eccentric orbits.

Bob's Notes: Since Dragons use a different number base than we do, Drango is not sure how to convert Aldebaran 4 years to earth years. All he can say is that a year on Aldebaran 4 is quite longer than an Earth year.

Not only are Drango and his friends from Aldebaran 4 but they also come from the far future. They grew up on Aldebaran 4 and were brought to earth by Seanachie the time traveling cat. Seanachie pledged them to absolute silence about how they were brought and the future of earth. What little we know follows:

The ancestors of Drango were the first to meet the explorers from earth. These explorers thought that Drango's ancestors looked like dragons. At the time they did not speak English but as time passed the Aldebaran natives learned English. The Aldebaran language was too difficult for humans to pronounce.

Since Drango's ancestors worked mainly with the earth explorers, they adopted the surname of Dragon. Others adopted surnames as close to the original as practical. Narda's family took the surname of Nardels for instance. Krag's ancestors took the surname of Lotek. This is a funny story. The early explorers who first met Krag's ancestors thought they were low tech because of their simple life style. They misunderstood what they meant and thought that they were being named Lotek. Later when they discovered what happened they kept the name.

The original explorers were all Christian so by Drango's time most of Aldebaran 4 were Christian. The message of Jesus resonated with the Dragons of Aldebaran who believe in love and peace and that everyone was of value.

Dragons, which are both Drango's family name and the name of the main natives of Aldebaran 4, come in a variety of colors. These colors are normally passed down through the males. Sometimes a marriage between two different families will result in a new color combination. This is always an exciting cause for celebration. The dragons are proud of their different color combinations.

Drango has often said how pretty the streets are with all the different color combinations of dragons. Every day is like a festival.