Day 42 of the Oh No, Not Again Road Trip of Violently Earthbound Aspirations
Houston, TX
We had half a mind to drive north this morning, out of Houston, past Nacogdoches and into Dallas, but we decided to stick around another day and have the afternoon to ourselves for once. Frankly, I'm glad we did I don't need to be in the middle of another national tragedy. Being in Houston is bad enough. The headlines here were pulling out the rarely-used 150-pt. font screaming "SHUTTLE DISASTER"; Columbia took off from here last month, and pieces were found not far from the city. Turns out the most important piece was left on the runway during takeoff, but we'll see. Meanwhile, it's eerie – the Coke machine next to our "extended stay" motel door has an old picture of Columbia taking off. Between the floods, Enron and today, I imagine this part of Texas is feeling snakebit.
My brother Steve called me and told me the news. The second he began to speak, I knew what the day would be like. Unfortunately for this shuttle's crew, I think most of the country is still in a state of trauma fatigue, making it hard to work up more than the usual tautologies about the lack of a rational universe, and how psychologically crappy it has been to be an American lately.
I think I was the last to know about the first shuttle disaster in 1986. I was dinky little 17-year-old freshman at UNC, and I'd really overslept. While walking to Medieval American History class with Kendall Crosswell, I asked why all the flags were at half-mast, and she told me to stop making sick jokes. "No," I said, "really, what happened?" That ordeal stopped the country in its tracks for a month, but I doubt this event will have such staying power. Sept. 11 has pretty much sanded off the raw edges of everyone's nervous system, making anything short of a visit by Jesus into another day on the trauma treadmill.
Tessa asked me if I ever wanted to be an astronaut. I told her I wanted to be an astronomer. The shuttle Columbia fixed the Hubble telescope, giving us access to pictures of the distant galaxy that would have turned Galileo white. For this, and the fascinations of little fledgling dorks everywhere, we'd like to say thank you, and hope that you remember nothing of the explosion, only peaceful sky blue and white.
Posted by at February 1, 2003 08:06 PM