Welcome Home,
Integrity!
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| Fireflies, Blue Springs State Park, Florida |
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| Timely Easter pic (no attribution) |
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| A "funny" shared by Mary Balogh |
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From Susan Coventry Susan reports that when her backyard flooded, all the deer moved to the front yard. |
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| A fabulous NYC photo from Ethan Carter |
Through the fifteen years of this blog, I have posted some of the information below, but to get a true overview of my long-time interest in what's "out there," it's necessary to be a bit redundant. Please forgive if you've seen it before.
I began to read SciFi sometime during my high school years, lapping up stories by those who would become the "greats" of the genre: Heinlein, Asimov, and Clarke. It never occurred to me that actual Space Exploration would begin in my lifetime. I still recall, my junior year in college, prowling the children's reading room of the Boston Public Library for the latest Heinlein "teen" SciFi! (I had just transferred from Brown to Boston University to attend Music School, which was directly behind the library—under the same roof.) I also recall being hugely disappointed that I could not attend Mensa meetings, which were held at Isaac Asimov's house in the Boston suburbs. (I had no transportation.)
I continued my SciFi reading, though not as copiously, through working as a music teacher, and a stint with the National Company of The Sound of Music. I was delighted when, after Russia shocked us by launching Sputnik, our government hastened to join what was called "the Space Race." I still vividly remember sitting in my hotel room in St. Louis, watching a launch on black and white TV. The unmanned rocket blew up on the pad. As had many before it, and, I believe, a few more after that.
Next in my life came marriage, and three children in rapid succession, keeping me way too busy to keep up with my reading or the doings at Cape Canaveral. Except—oh, wow!—it was actually happening. We were about to land astronauts on the moon. I remember sitting in my living room in Branford, CT, holding my breath, waiting for the Big Moment. Neil Armstrong's epic words that went down in history: "That's one step for man, a giant leap for mankind." I also recall being shocked by the objection to "man" being used in the traditional sense of "mankind," forcing what I considered an egregious amendment to Armstrong's words.
The Apollo missions were going strong—until Apollo 13 in 1970. That emergency had everyone who knew about the tightly news-controlled event biting their nails. The near catastrophe spawned two movies: Apollo 13 (starring Tom Hanks) and Hidden Figures, the story of the three female black mathematicians (who couldn't even use the whites-only bathroom near where they worked), whose calculations finally brought Apollo 13 safely home.
And then came Star Trek. Busy with three children and acting as editor and typesetter for our small educational publishing company, I missed the first couple of episodes and had to do "catch up." Never missed another episode after that. (As founder and head of Yale's Audio-Visual department, my husband was given one of the first RCA video recorders ever made. It was still working when we moved to Florida in 1982.)
One miserable rainy night in the years following the cancellation of Star Trek, my husband drove our two boys (Susie too young) and me from Branford (east of New Haven) to the University of New Haven (in West Haven). Why? Gene Roddenberry and his wife were there, attempting to raise money to continue the series in movie form. It was such a miserable night almost no one was there, but it gave us a great opportunity to not only listen to the creator of Star Trek, but to meet and talk with him. Wow! Clearly, Roddenberry's reception was more successful across the country than it was that miserable night in New Haven. The first movie debuted—do you recall "Veejer"? The Little Space Probe That Could. Yes, the movies that followed were better, but "Veejer" was not only real, it just kept chugging along until—in just the past year, I believe—it went so far we were no longer able to could track it. Shades of that first Star Trek movie. Star Trek was also forever memorialized by their "communicators" inspiring the designers of the cell phone. I doubt anyone could ask for a more spectacular tribute to a series that lasted only three years.
The most tragic moment of my years of space-watching—the explosion of Challenger. As was my custom, I watched the launch on TV, rushed out to the driveway of my home in Venice, FL, and was watching when the straight white trajectory became a V. I stared a moment, knowing that wasn't right. Rushed inside in time to hear the no-emotion voice from the Cape say, "It seems there has been an anomaly." (My hair stands on end just remembering the moment.)
And yet Humans must explore. It's part of what we are.
But not everyone agreed. The national budget, the push for Civil Rights, the need of so many Americans for the many things only the government could provide, etc., etc. Sadly, the space program was drastically curtailed, becoming a Space Station with good ol' reliable shuttles to move astronauts safely back and forth. Sigh.
No more dreams. No more exploration. Just millions of eyes trapped on earth, looking up at our minute portion of the Universe. Double Sigh.
I do, however, remember the moment the first rocket went up after Challenger. (About three years later, as I recall.) I was running a Costume shop in a small shopping center in Venice, and at the given moment, shop owners and customers all ran out into the parking lot, looking up, looking east. We cheered when we saw the steady vapor trail. At least the Space Program was no longer dead in the water.
But THIS WEEK. WOW! My nerves are still quivering from both launch and descent—that final fifteen minutes, including the balloon that looked like it wasn't going to inflate, truly hair-raising. But they made it, in a picture-book landing that checked all the boxes. Until—you have to laugh at this one—they couldn't get their Sat Phones to work!
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I've undoubtedly left out umpteen things I should have included, but it's time to quit. Hoping you enjoyed this peek through my eyes into events many of you do not remember.
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Featured Series, once again Blue Moon Rising
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| Book 2 |
Book 3 - The Bastard Prince
Book 4 - Royal Rebellion
Spin-off - The Crucible Kingdom
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For a link to Blair's website & editing info, click here.
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