Time Keeps on Slipping...
Listening to the radio this morning, they were talking about the impending shuttle launch. A friend of mine actually works for NASA, or some related agency that’s involved in the launch, so I knew it was coming. What I hadn’t realized was that it’s been two and a half years since the Columbia disaster.
I guess every American my age and older pretty much remembers where they were when the Challenger exploded; most of us saw it live on TV. I was still in grade school at the time, in Northern California, and we were all glued to the TV in horror and disbelief. Still, I was young and it was far removed.
Columbia was different. I had been a Houston-area resident for over a decade, I had until recently lived in the NASA/Clear Lake area. Heck, my middle daughter was born at St. John’s, right across the street from the entrance to Johnson Space Center. So Columbia hit a lot closer to home. One of the crew members belonged to another ward of my church, and I later read, with tears in my eyes, how his son had been on a Boy Scout camping trip when it happened. The day it happened was odd. I usually sleep with the TV on (DVDs these days, but still…) and it was a Saturday morning so I was drifting in and out of sleep. I remember the weekend edition of the Today show was playing and I heard, through my half-asleep haze, that the shuttle should soon be visible coming in for its landing. As the minutes ticked by with no further report, I woke up fully, dread already settling deep in me. Off schedule is NOT a good thing in these cases. NASA has a tendency to be pretty precise. And then, something that looked like a huge jet of smoke in the air. I knew then that something was horribly, terribly wrong. I called my mom and stepdad immediately; it was probably aobut 6:30 a.m. in California and I don’t know why I felt I needed to be the one to tell them to turn on the TV, but I did. (Maybe it has something to do with Dead or Alive, which I guess I will post about soon too.) Either way, I called them and we watched together as the media finally acknowledged what we all saw. Columbia burning up on re-entry. Things were a little crazy around here for quite a while afterward. I just can’t believe so much time has passed, but then again, the swift passage of time has been on my mind a lot lately.
I guess every American my age and older pretty much remembers where they were when the Challenger exploded; most of us saw it live on TV. I was still in grade school at the time, in Northern California, and we were all glued to the TV in horror and disbelief. Still, I was young and it was far removed.
Columbia was different. I had been a Houston-area resident for over a decade, I had until recently lived in the NASA/Clear Lake area. Heck, my middle daughter was born at St. John’s, right across the street from the entrance to Johnson Space Center. So Columbia hit a lot closer to home. One of the crew members belonged to another ward of my church, and I later read, with tears in my eyes, how his son had been on a Boy Scout camping trip when it happened. The day it happened was odd. I usually sleep with the TV on (DVDs these days, but still…) and it was a Saturday morning so I was drifting in and out of sleep. I remember the weekend edition of the Today show was playing and I heard, through my half-asleep haze, that the shuttle should soon be visible coming in for its landing. As the minutes ticked by with no further report, I woke up fully, dread already settling deep in me. Off schedule is NOT a good thing in these cases. NASA has a tendency to be pretty precise. And then, something that looked like a huge jet of smoke in the air. I knew then that something was horribly, terribly wrong. I called my mom and stepdad immediately; it was probably aobut 6:30 a.m. in California and I don’t know why I felt I needed to be the one to tell them to turn on the TV, but I did. (Maybe it has something to do with Dead or Alive, which I guess I will post about soon too.) Either way, I called them and we watched together as the media finally acknowledged what we all saw. Columbia burning up on re-entry. Things were a little crazy around here for quite a while afterward. I just can’t believe so much time has passed, but then again, the swift passage of time has been on my mind a lot lately.
posted by SaraSmile | 9:36 AM
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