Dad's birthday+

This day would have been my dad’s 90th birthday. He’s been gone for a while now. And today I find a new reason to celebrate February 8: My wife and I witnessed our first live space shuttle launch -- the pyrotechnics of STS-130 Endeavour -- in the dark wee hours of early this morning. As you can see from the attending photo, it was an enlightening experience.

I truly love to watch space shuttle launches. Up to now those I’ve witnessed were first televised on the news networks, but now broadcast in all the minute detail on NASA television. Oh, such a time it is. Live coverage starts hours before liftoff with footage of astronauts donning pumpkin flight suits and then watching the breath of hydrogen and oxygen boil off of the recently filled external fuel tank.

I understand now that T minus 3 hours, T minus 20 minutes, and T minus 9 minutes are normal holds built into the countdown when final tasks are caught up and a phalanx of engineers and managers give final approval to set fire to rockets that launch real human beings 200+ miles above the Earth’s surface. It’s a ride unequaled in human experience.

As it turns out, the launch of STS-130 was “the last night space shuttle launch in the history of the world,” according to one proud engineer who was in the firing room when the candles were lit. He had tried to get us VIP passes to get us up-close and personal for the launch, but he just couldn’t. We didn’t get our ask in until late.

Still, when Steve the Engineer finally phoned today -- after his business of safely delivering colleagues to space was completed -- he was prepared to get us a special tour at the Kennedy Space Center later this week. As great as that sounded, Cindy Lou and I had just minutes prior cancelled our last night here at the Hampton Inn so we could finally start our way back to snowbound Ohio. I thanked Steve much for his consideration and hoped he could work some magic for us this summer when we hope to return with grandkids for the penultimate space shuttle launch on July 29. He said he’d try. Getting behind-the-scenes for a new experience will be mighty special with grandkids.

I don’t know that my dad cared a lot for the space shuttle. I know he was mighty proud to have served in the Army Air Corps in The Good War where he learned to cook for many. I know he displayed the colors on our homestead on national holidays when I was a kid. I know he cried every time he heard taps. I have this feeling that he would have really loved to have been standing with me watching one of the most amazing things the United States of America has ever wrought soar into space to join colleagues already at work in low-Earth orbit. It is good that I can link the two forever on February 8. Good, indeed.

Today’s elder idea: Old Guys Rule: High mileage / Low maintenance

the message on my new hat purchased at the Cocoa Beach Surf Company