I grew up in Merritt Island, Florida, which was a tiny little dot on a map on the east coast of Florida. It is actually easy to find on the map, because it kind of looks like a handle smack in the middle of the East coast of the Florida peninsula. It is really only an island because it is between the Indian and Banana Rivers. There are a lot of fascinating facts and places in and around my hometown, but none quite as well known as the Kennedy Space Center and Cape Canaveral Air Station launch facility. They are both about 5 miles from my house, as the crow flies. Growing up, I didn't know we lived anywhere that special. My father worked building rockets for the newly formed National Aeronautics and Space Administration, and it's various contractors. He worked building the rockets that first put men into orbit, and then on the much more powerful ones that would eventually put a man on the moon. But everyone's father I knew did that. I never really questioned my dad about what he did. It just seemed kind of boring, because everyone else's dad did the same exact thing. No big deal...
I also didn't think it was unusual to be woken at 4 in the morning by the rattling of my jaloussie windows, as a Saturn V rocket got it's groove on and lifted off from Pad 39A. Most days I'd just roll over and go back to sleep, not thinking another thing about it. My older brothers would often run outside and watch the sky be lit up all Halloween orange, with the glow of the massive Saturn V rocket engines lighting the purple pre-dawn sky. Engines our dad had helped build. But yeah...no big deal. However, they would also go back to sleep soon after lift off, and very rarely discuss it in the morning. This was just "normal" for us. Like I said..it was no big deal.
I was raised not to be boastful of ones blessings or of ones situation in life. My dad, though a larger than life character to me, was rather quiet and shy around others. He didn't ever talk about what he did, or how the work he and others did at Kennedy Space Center was so important and so fascinating. When everyone around you did the same thing, there really wasn't much to talk about, right? Plus much of it was highly classified, as NASA was terrified that the Soviets would beat us in the Space Race. I never realized that, even though thousands of people worked at then Kennedy Space Center, it was really a very, very small segment of the US population, and it was rather unusual to see rockets up close. It was only when I visited my cousins in Alabama one summer that I truly realized what a special upbringing I really had. I was probably about 10 years old. One of my cousins was actually jealous of the fact that I lived in the close proximity of rockets. And when she found out I was so 'meh' about the fact that I witnessed rocket launches every few months, or so, she was ready to slap the holy hell outta me. This was after Apollo 11, and the moon landing, so the country was all "Moon Fever" and anything about rockets or space was a huge deal. But not so much for kids raised on what was to become known as "The Space Coast" of Florida. We were raised on rockets. And we had no clue how cool that really was.
Fast forwarding to 19When the Space Shuttle Challenger blew up only seconds after lift off, I was sitting in the parking lot of Merritt Island High, in my convertible Mustang, with the top down, head leaned back, not really paying all that much attention to the launch behind my Bucci Rose shades. This was the launch that had the "Teacher in Space" on board, so all the schools in our county and around the country were encouraged to watch the launch. We were lucky in that we could actually go outside and watch it. But for me, and a lot of the kids in that parking lot that cold January morning, it was just another launch, and had been done dozens of times before, and it was just "no big deal". It was a wickedly cold day for Florida standards, and the mercury hadn't even made it past the 30 degree mark when NASA gave the "Go" for launch. My best friend, John Marose, was sitting next to me in the 'Stang, head also leaned back on the seat, shades on, and listening to the launch announcer on the radio. Marose was from Chicago, and was still enthralled with the idea of living on the Space Coast, and the idea of seeing a rocket go up. This was his first shuttle launch, so he was paying more attention than I was to the launch. So when the shuttle blew up only seconds after lift off, I jarred myself back into the moment, and REALLY looked up, only to see what was left of the Challenger falling from the sky. John asked me, "Is that normal?". I was dumbstruck...but finally managed to get out, "No, Marose...that isn't normal. THAT is most definitely NOT normal." We looked around at all the other kids and faculty gathered in the parking lot. Many of the women faculty openly crying, and the men trying keep a brave face for the kids. But we all knew. This was NOT normal. This event was NOT survivable for the astronauts on board. And when NASA says there's been a catastrophic anomaly...you know things have definitely strayed into the FUBAR zip code. Fouled Up Beyond All Recognition.
That day is seared into my brain...stuck onto my frontal lobe with super glue. I think it is for every person in that parking lot that day. It's one of those days that I will always remember where I was when it happened. Like 9/11...or for my mom's generation, the Kennedy asassination. It changed my thinking about every single launch that went up from Cape Canaveral. I appreciated how dangerous it was to dare to conquer space. Yeah...things went horribly wrong that day. But thinking back on the hundreds of rockets that have been launched from Cape Canaveral, I can count on one hand all of the "catastrophic events" that have occurred. And that is a pretty good record, in my book. That day changed how I felt about where I lived. I don't know...maybe I just grew up a little more that day. All I know is that I was proud to have been raised on rockets.
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