october-2010

044
“OK,
we’ve
got six
minutes,”
Mom says, and we grab our flashlights and slide
into our flip-flops. The three of us—Mom, my
sister, Anne, and I—walk briskly down our unlit
dirt road, where the pulsing creak of katydids in
the palms turns the darkness three-dimensional,
then round the corner heading east. The breeze
picks up, carrying a hint of saltiness. We reach
the bluff over the Indian River—which is really
a lagoon separating us from the vastness of the
Atlantic Ocean—and we wait.
Anne and I slap mosquitoes. I fidget with
the same bored anticipation I get watching the
school clock tick down to recess time.
Then, to the north, the horizon glows, piercing
the blackness. “There it goes!” Mom says. We
watch as a ball of fire rises from the edge of the
Earth, climbing steadily into the star-studded
sky. My heart pounds until the rocket boosters
drop away and the space shuttle becomes a
pinprick of light, falling in an eastward arc
around the globe. Within minutes, it’s gone from
sight, and we begin the walk back home.
“It’s already over Africa by now,” Dad says
upon our return. The idea seems so gloriously
improbable that I think if this could be true,
then nearly anything must be possible.
1 CAN’T R3M3MB3R how many of the 132
total space shuttle launches I’ve watched from
that bluff 60 miles south of Florida’s Kennedy
Space Center (which is itself 48 miles east of
Orlando). But seeing the liftoffs—and listening
for chest-thumping sonic booms when shuttles
came in for landings—were as much a part of
my childhood as seeing the Statue of Liberty
GO MAGAZINE OCTOBER 2010