It’s been an exciting day for spaceflight enthusiasts, almost like the one 24 years ago when my dad woke me at the crack of dawn to watch the first launch of space shuttle Columbia. That day so long ago was one of the rare bonding moments I shared with my father as I was growing up. Dad worked odd shifts at his job and I rarely saw him when I was very young; to this day, we don’t know much about each other and it’s difficult for us to talk, something we both regret. On the day of Columbia‘s first flight, Mom had told us not to wake her until T-minus thirty, so it was just us boys, sitting in front of the old console TV with the clunky manual knobs, suffering through interminable countdown delays while we waited for that gleaming white fantasy-machine to hurl itself skyward. I remember that Dad fixed me my very own cup of coffee that morning. It was more milk than coffee, and I’d had the sticky mixture before so it wasn’t any big coming-of-age ritual or anything, but it was a rare, precious experience to be dunking coconut-chocolate chip cookies and drinking coffee with my dad as we impatiently waited for something to occur.
Sep292004
