Go at throttle up

We had just returned from a trip to Denver visiting my grandparents, and while there, my family and I had gone to the Museum of Nature & Science. It was my 12th birthday and, being something of a geeky kid, I was excited that the Space Shuttle was supposed to launch that day, after a few delays. Adding to my excitement, I saw my first IMAX movie: "The Dream is Alive" with incredible (at the time) footage of space shuttle launches, missions, and trainings. NASA was in full propaganda mode, and I was eating it up. The first ordinary citizen was on the launchpad, we'd be watching the live telecasts from the shuttle at school, if anyone asked I was going to be an astronaut when I grew up.

Naturally I was disappointed when further delays prevented the launch from taking place on my actual birthday, but my giddy anticipation of watching the take-off could not be squelched, and was probably heightened by the prospect of taking time out of schoolwork to watch during class.

And so it happened that exactly twenty years ago today, PE class let out a little early for the big event. We were headed back to my sixth grade classroom when snotty little Troy Bane came running down the hall exclaiming, "It blew up! The shuttle blew up!" Of course that was impossible and Troy was a liar and a fifth-grader and there was a hint of glee in his voice.

Looking back from today's perspective, my memories of that day are gut-wrenchingly familiar. Sitting glued to the television screen, being pummeled again and again by images and replays and new footage from different vantage points, the confusion and chaos gradually giving way to sober reporters and their solemn reports, shared grief and horror tainted with a little voyeuristic guilt ... and years later, being able to swap where-were-you-when stories of our collective witnessing with just about anyone.

Twenty years is an eon in an instant and we're hurtling forward whether we like it or not and it's a wonderful world though it could come crashing down around us at any moment because technology is an amazing and frightening thing that can bond us together or send us to space or rend us apart or blow us to bits and who could blame me for occasionally wanting to curl up and cry though I hardly ever do but instead sometimes I go outside and take a deep breath of fresh air and smile at strangers and soak in the crazy beauty of it all. But I'll probably never be an astronaut.