High Flight
Oh, I have slipped the surly bonds of earth,
And danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings;
Sunward I’ve climbed and joined the tumbling mirth
of sun-split clouds – and done a hundred things
You have not dreamed of – wheeled and soared
and swung high in the sunlit silence. Hovering there
I’ve chased the shouting wind along
and flung my eager craft through footless halls of air.
Up, up the long delirious burning blue
I’ve topped the wind-swept heights with easy grace,
where never lark, or even eagle, flew;
and, while with silent, lifting mind I’ve trod
the high untrespassed sanctity of space,
put out my hand and touched the face of God.
– John Gillespie Magee
It is July 20, 1969. I am 8 years old, (the same age my second grandson is now.) The whole family is gathered around the TV. On screen, the image is grainy black & white.
Static.
Men talking in monotone voices.
Boring.
Then I hear these words.
“Houston, Tranquility Base here. The Eagle has landed.”
The first words spoken by man from the moon. And I hear them with my own ears.
I remember them all:
Apollo 11, 12, 13, (the one where they almost died.)
14, 15, 16, 17
All of them.
That goofy moon rover. The splashdowns. The space station. The space shuttle.
We could do anything.
And then…
It is January 28, 1986. Utter horror.
Challenger.
We watch gape-jawed as that plume of smoke spirals into the sky.
We watch, over and over and over again.
And we imagine, “those poor astronauts…” Miles high, tumbling to their doom.
We are a nation numb with shock.
What happened?
Then, the investigation.
Dr. Feynmann at the big table with all those experts. He drops the O-ring into the ice water.
So simple.
So preventable.
If Kennedy’s assassination was America’s “end of innocence”, then Challenger was my own.
Sure, I was 24 when it happened. But in many ways, I was very naive.
That’s when I awakened from my slumber, when the whole world mourned our lost heroes.
Our heroes now are makeup painted actors on a silver screen.
Not real men and real women, bleeding and tumbling to their deaths from high in the clouds.
Seems we mostly don’t believe in real heroes anymore.
Is that what “manhood” is all about? That moment when we lose our belief in heroes?
I think not.
Manhood begins to happen when you decide it’s time to be your own hero.
Be your own hero.
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