Recognize those action ‘sounds?’  Thanks to comic books, and chewing gum wrappers, most of us recognize those onomatopoeias.

It’s such a great sounding word itself. An onomatopoeia is a word that imitates or suggests the source of the sound that it describes.  There are so many that come in handy as we try to tell our stories yet sometimes we still have to invent our own way of spelling a sound. In the current world of technology and technological sounds, an entire set of new words has been created to describe the workings and failures of gadgets, not to mention ring tones. My own phone is set to make an ‘ooooahhhhhh-ooooahhhhh’ sound. I was forced to come up with that word myself. I had the phone set to sound like a squeaky gate at first but couldn’t come up with a spelling for the sound. In fact, squeaky is an onomatopoeia but doesn’t really describe the sound of that tone. Nothing quite worked. No wonder people are choosing to use bits of rock or pop tunes. Much easier to describe.

As I was doing a little research on onomatopoeias, I learned a few interesting facts, and uncovered some things I would have thought of myself, given enough time. What I could have figured out, is that the ‘sounds’ can change over time as a language develops or are slightly different in other cultures. There are some sounds, however, that we all recognize. World wide, for example, a crow makes a ‘caw-caw’ sound. Wikipedia says that in Tamil and Malayalam, the actual word for crow is ‘kaakaa.’ Makes sense to me. As a long time amateur birder, I have wondered at the bird sound descriptions in the Audobon and similar books. Some of the onomatopoeias they use to describe the songs and calls of birds leave me clueless. Who thought of those sounds anyway? Most don’t sound anything like the noise that comes out of the birds beaks to me.

The world of advertising has made use of unique sounds to promote products to us. I can think of Midas Muffler, Rice Krispies, Kerplumk, Folgers, Alka Seltzer, Jiffy Pop, and a former product, Fizzies, off the top of my head.

The pop art movement also made use of action words with Roy Lichtenstein’s ‘Wham’ as one of the most famous. The Batman TV series from the 1960s brought action words to the small screen and more recently they were back on the big screen with the Transformers.

Action words bring a bit of fun to our writing and may help elucidate the story for the reader. Song writers have had fun with action words too and I’ll close this out with part of a funny love song, Onomatopoeia, written and performed by Todd Rundgren. (FYI, this comes as a ring tone if you have an interest: http://www.sing365.com )

Onomatopoeia every time I see ya
My senses tell me hubba
And I just can’t disagree
I get a feeling in my heart that I can’t describe
It’s sort of lub, dub, lub, dub
A sound in my head that I can’t describe
It’s sort of zoom, zip, hiccup, drip
Ding, dong, crunch, crack, bark, meow, whinnie, quack

It’s hard to believe this, but it is true.

There has been one surprising positive result of the economic downturn that began in 2008. Art galleries, museums, and sculpture parks have been very busy since then, joining forces with one another and with other types of not for profit groups.  The major reason for this has been survival.  We all know about the economy and budget cuts and less funds going to the arts and public charities. And we have seen many not for profits shutter their doors or lay off half their staff and cut programs. But we have also seen more collaboration, more sharing of ideas, and more group efforts than ever before.

One idea I am currently working on with our local sculpture park is combining an art fair with a canned food drive. I thought there must be a way to be creative with the effort and perhaps build something with the collected cans to make it entertaining and an artistic expression. My suggestion was to bring in a sculptor to build something with the cans. Unfortunately, there was some polite eye rolling when I first made the suggestion because there was a view that all that could be built with cans would be castles, forts, simple structures. I had to find a way to share my vision of how we could serve the food pantry as well as stay within our artistic mission and also provide some entertainment.

How could I win over the board and help them share my vision? Of course, I turned to the internet for help. Surely someone else had thought of this and was doing it somewhere in the world. In fact they had, and find them, I did. You can find them too at: http://www.cannedart.org You may even be near one of their competition locations this year and may be able to stop by and see them in action.

If you remember Pop Art and Andy Warhol, you will most likely remember his iconic painting of a Campbell’s soup can. One of the competition entries in Canned Art is a picture of Andy Warhol made of, what else but, soup cans. It’s pretty amazing. There are also entries that look similar to Lego creations and some that look like ‘modern’ art sculptures. Very interesting and not at all like the simple forts or castles one would imagine.

I’m hoping later this year, at one of our sculpture park events, we will be able to have an artist on hand to construct some art with cans for the benefit of our food pantry. The idea of forming an alliance with some of our social service providers will take us one step further towards reaching more people in the community. Feeding the soul with art is a very worth while mission, but it goes down much better on a full stomach.

A sure sign of spring has arrived in the Midwest.

Yes, friends, it’s tornado season.  Not that any time of year can be ruled out, but when spring tries to confront winter and give birth to a warm, humid atmosphere, the birth pains often result in rough weather.

We spent about an hour of quality time with the cat in the basement yesterday evening.  Fortunately our basement is pseudo fixed up making the stay not too unpleasant.  The only unpleasant part, in fact, was the worry that when we opened the door to the upstairs, the house would be missing.  Since we moved to St Louis about 20 years ago, we’ve experienced 3 way too close tornadoes including a very bad one in 2012 on April 28th.  That particular tornado came about a week following the disastrous Joplin, MO tornado that struck on April 22nd, resulting in the deaths of 156 people. That tornado is referred to as the ‘Good Friday’ one because it fell on a Good Friday but I call it the Earth Day tornado.  Good Friday moves around from year to year on the calendar, but Earth Day maintains its date.  There were several stories on the local news in the past few weeks commemorating the anniversary of the Joplin tornado.  Well intentioned but they have the date wrong.  I wonder if the media people were afraid to be considered politically incorrect if they named a ‘bad’ manifestation of Mother Nature after Earth Day.

Back to the original story now.  I’ve always been one to pay attention to the warning sirens except for a few years ago when they were sounding too frequently.  St Louis County weather warners decided to sound the sirens if there was a tornado sighted in any surrounding county. There are nine counties bordering St Louis County and only 3 of them usually end up sending weather our way.  The prevailing winds here are west to east and tornadoes typically come from just south west of St Louis County.  Instead of sounding the alarm when a tornado was spotted south west or in the county itself, they were sounding for all directions.  In the spring and summer when weather is volatile, the alarms could be going every day.  People (not just me) stopped paying attention.

What I do trust more than the sirens to give me a warning to hit the basement, is our current cat. We’ve had cats in the past that had no sense of what to do in danger, especially during bad weather. For some reason, they usually wanted to dash outside and crouch under a bush. If they could sneak out through an open door, they would get by quickly and I had no way of catching them. Plus, although I am a huge lover of pets and all animals, I am not crazy enough to go out in hail or pouring rain when the clouds are starting to swirl overhead. Visions of Dorothy and the Wizard of Oz have haunted me since childhood.

Anyway, our current cat was a foundling like all the other pets we have owned. She has been a member of our family through two of the close calls we’ve had with tornadoes and she seems to have the perfect sense of what to do and where to go. At the first sign of a thunder storm, she will edge her way to the kitchen and sit close to the basement door. When the thunder gets close or the wind picks up enough to make some noise, she moves to the top step of the basement stairs and peeks around the corner. A little closer or louder, she moves to the 3rd step down from the top. When it gets real noisy, she goes all the way downstairs. Finally, if there really is a tornado within a mile or two, she goes to the back of the basement, under the stairs and screams. It’s a terrible sound, and that doesn’t even half describe it, but way more telling than the tornado sirens and a very efficient warning system for us. I love that cat.

I don’t look forward to tornado season but I truly love and welcome spring. It seems like we can’t enjoy the beauty of the rebirth of nature without going through some turbulence. So, bring it on. We’re ready. Siren is in place and all is well.

As a way of celebrating the 100 day point of our 365 day blog challenge, I thought I would see what some of the most notable events were 100 years ago during the year 1913.  I found these through several websites, including www.HistoryOrb.com

I’m just going to list a few of the events that piqued my interest.  There are, of course, many more that might interest you so please take a look when you have time.  Please note, I have left out most of the European Suffragette activity and the terrible Balkan Wars, not that they aren’t important.  I just wanted to keep the list a manageable size.

February, 1913, the very famous New York Armory show first introduced the artists Picasso, Duchamp, and Matisse to the United States.  (Be there or be square was the invitation, I believe.)

February 25, the 16th Amendment was rattified, authorizing the collection of income tax.  (See, I said these were important events.)

March 4, Woodrow Wilson was inaugurated as the US 28th President.

Late March, Dayton, Ohio was almost destroyed when the Scioto, Miami, and Muskingum Rivers reached flood stage simultaneously, killing at least 400 people.

April, Swedish born engineer, Gideon Sundback of Hoboken, patents all-purpose zipper.  (We were all buttoned up before that.)

May 13, 1st four engine aircraft built and flown (Igor Sikorsky-Russia)

May 26, the Actors’ Equity Association was formed

June 4, Suffragette Emily Davison steped in front of King George V’s horse Anmer at the Epsom Derby, giving her life to advance women’s rights

June 16, South-African parliment forbids blacks owning land

July 10, Death Valley, CA hits 134 degrees F, which is the highest temperature recorded in the United States

August 13, Invention of stainless steel by Harry Brearley  (This one invention moved us from rusty to our current shiney state.)

September 10, the Lincoln Highway opened as the 1st paved coast to coast highway

October 3, Federal Income Tax was signed into law at 1%.  (Oh my, how we have grown!)

October 7, Henry Ford instituted the moving assembly line.  (We had the highway, now we needed the cars.)

October 10, Gamboa Dam in Panama was blown up allowing the Atlantic and Pacific waters to mix.

November 13, 1st modern elastic brassiere was patented by Mary Phelps Jacob.  (In one year we went from being just buttoned to being not only zipped but also supported.)

December 1, the 1st drive up gasoline station opened in Pittsburgh.  (May be this was connected to the opening of the Lincoln Highway.  Can’t go far without a tankful.)

December 11, the Mona Lisa, stolen from the Louvre in 1911, was recovered.  (Now we know what she is smiling about.)

December 16, Charlie Chaplin began his film career at Keystone for $150 a week.

December 21, the 1st crossword puzzle (with 32 clues) was printed in the NY World

It always amazes me how much can happen in a day, a month, a year. This list, from one year alone could launch a hundred blogs. I’ve enough ispiration here to start my next post, but I have something more important to do.

I am going out right now to make this day memorable.

What an interesting concept.  Synchronicity.  Carl Jung came up with the word in the 1920s, but the activity has probably been around since Adam and Eve.

This is something that used to happen to me all the time with certain of my clients.  I would be standing by my desk or in the hallway near my office and mention to someone that there may be something of interest I should share with one of my clients.  Or I might say, I wonder how George is doing this week?  And, what do you know?  The phone would ring and it would be George, or what ever client I was thinking of at the time.  This happened to me at least several times a week.  So much so that other people in my office started referring to me as a ‘spook.’ 

I used this in reverse too.  If there was someone I especially did not want to chat with or see, I would intentionally block them from my thoughts until I was ready to visit with them.  It almost always worked.

Now, there can be explanations for this beyond synchronicity.  It could just be timing.  I mean, if George usually talked with me every three weeks and it was in my mind that the three week period was coming up, perhaps the two things just fell together naturally.  I knew we should be talking because it was time.  So, of course, he would call on schedule.

But, I kind of don’t think so.  I like the meaning of synchronicity.  It some how delivers answers without the linkage of cause and effect.  It is sort of like coincidence, and yet, there is a meaning to it, a purpose.  George didn’t just call because he liked me.  His calls were typically because he needed an idea from me or he needed something done and wanted some direction on it.

Synchronicity used to also happen with me with family members and usually when something sad was about to happen. I, spur of the moment, grabbed the phone and called my sister in law. Yes, she was ill but in remission from her leukemia. I wasn’t thinking she was about to die. I just suddenly decided I wanted to say a quick hello and then let my husband spend some quality time on the phone with her. He was taken by surprise too as I didn’t tell him before I made the call. I just handed him the phone and he had a very sweet 1 hour plus phone conversation with his ‘baby’ sister. All three of us felt really good after that call. The next week the remission was over and she left us. It was a spontaneous action with a meaningful purpose. Synchronicity.

There have been some fun times recently with past clients when I have had a sudden urge to call them and they just happen to be in need of my ideas. Timing was right; they said they were just about to call me. How wonderful to have this magical tie to friends/clients and family.

Whether it is synchronicity or coincidence, I don’t know or care. A rose by any other name, after all, will always smell like a rose.

(FYI Wonderful quote from Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet: “What’s in a name? That which we call a rose, By any other name would smell as sweet.” One of my favorite plays with great passages to memorize and enjoy. Not thrilled with the ending, but it made a lasting impression. Gertrude Stein also enjoyed this passage from Shakespeare as evidenced in probably her most quoted phrase, “Rose is a rose is a rose is a rose.” It was included as a part of her 1913 poem Sacred Emily, which appeared in the 1922 book Geography and Plays.)

Every year in October I get a very heavy sadness in my heart as I hear the last ‘thwack’ of a bat hitting a baseball and the ‘thwunk’ of a ball hitting an outfielder’s mitt for the last time of the season or the mitt of the catcher.  I am not a huge baseball fan but I see it as a sign of the changing of the seasons.  Yes, that October sound is the sound of summer finally closing the door and signaling the opening season of winter.

When I lived further north, I was a Cubs fan.  It was a part of living in the town I lived in and being a part of the family I belonged to.  After I moved to St  Louis, MO, I thought about it quite a while before jumping ship.  After all, the Cardinals were huge rivals to the Cubs and were pretty much hated in my former town and in my family.  Not to say that they weren’t a great ball team and their stats were consistently so much better than the Cubs.  I mean, where did the saying come from, “There’s always next year?”  It certainly wasn’t from the Cardinals!

Anyway, after I fully embraced the Cardinals in my new ‘home town,’ and had the blessing of my Father on that, I was swept away.  Not just with the current team, but with the history of the team and the legacy of some of its players.

Which brings me to the purpose of this post.  Stan Musial.  Stan ‘The Man.’  Stan, the guy you would like your kids to look up to.  Stan, the harmonica player, the hall of famer, record 24 time All Star player, recipient of the Navy Memorial’s Lone Sailor Award, and recipient of the Presidential Medal of Freedom Award.

He played from 1941-1963 with the St Louis Cardinals and the statistics he accrued are stunning. He compiled 3,630 hits (ranking fourth all-time and most in a career spent with only one team). With 1,815 hits at home and 1,815 on the road, he also is considered to be the most consistent hitter of his era. Stan compiled 475 home runs during his career, was named the National League’s Most Valuable Player three times, and won three World Series championship titles. Musial was a first-ballot inductee to the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1969.

The fans of St Louis revered him so much that they started a campaign to have him receive the Presidential Medal of Freedom Award. And receive it he did. And in very grand style. President Barack Obama said, in presenting the award to Stan, that he was, “an icon untarnished, a beloved pillar of the community, a gentleman you’d want your kids to emulate.”

On October 17, 2012, Musial made what would be his final appearance at Busch Stadium, riding in a golf cart around the warning track before Game 4 of the National League Championship Series. Musial stopped at both dugouts and greeted San Francisco Giants manager Bruce Bochy and Cardinals manager Mike Matheny. I don’t know if there was a dry eye in the stands but I can tell you, I shed more than a few tears.

Stan passed away this year. He died at age 92 of natural causes on January 19, 2013, at his home in Ladue, Missouri.

Cardinals current owner Bill DeWitt, Jr. released the following statement:

“We have lost the most beloved member of the Cardinals family. Stan Musial was the greatest player in Cardinals history and one of the best players in the history of baseball. The entire Cardinals organization extends its sincere condolences to Stan’s family, including his children Richard, Gerry, Janet and Jean, as well as his eleven grandchildren and twelve great grandchildren. We join fans everywhere in mourning the loss of our dear friend and reflect on how fortunate we all are to have known ‘Stan the Man'”

It was strange today, having an opening day without Stan. I believe he had been at every single Cardinal’s home opening day since 1946. Yes, we had the Clydesdales, and yes, we had thousands of fans and hundreds of media. But, it just wasn’t the same without Stan.

Aw, the beauty of the voice of Doris Day.

Doris had a birthday this past week.  She was either 89, according to her publicist’s records, or she was 91, according to court records.  Which ever age she was, she has had a very full and fantastic life, starting out as a singer with the likes of The Les Brown Band, on to radio shows with Bob Hope and Frank Sinatra, then movies, then TV, and even in 2011, back to music.

When I heard about her birthday, I was kind of unsure about whether or not she was still alive.  Glad to know she is.  I looked her up to see if she is still active and was shocked to find out she had released a new album in 2011 in France with some old music and some new.  I haven’t heard it yet but plan to.  I am a sucker for big band music, like the style of the 40s and early 50s and the current big band sound of groups like Big Bad VooDoo Daddy. 

Most people that remember Doris Day, remember her movies and think of her as the quintessential ‘girl next door.’  She had a beautiful, yet squeaky clean, look.  Her early longing to be a dancer always showed in her trim, curvy figure.  Many girls in the 1950s and 1960s tried to copy that look.  But then, ‘squeaky clean’ fell out of favor.  I had a literature teacher in that transition period between the wholesome years and the hippie years that hated Doris Day.  She used  every opportunity to say how fake and trivial the Doris Day persona was.  Particularly she was focused on Doris’ white shirts.  The teacher (a very bitter old maid if I may be allowed to use that expression, as un-pc as it is) would find ways to fit that white shirt in to discussions on the ‘important’ literature about the haves and the have nots.  It is something that made a huge impression on me.  Not necessarily in a good way.

I have to take a slight detour here to say something about squeaky clean and white shirts.  In the depression years (no, not the recent ones–the 1930s) times were really bad.  Soup lines, unemployment, people dropping from hunger in the streets.  What was a popular past time?  Going to movies.  People liked to go and watch images of rich people on the screen.  The people they watched were, for the most part, in real life pretty well off. Yes, people during bad times, and even in good times, like to watch people that are better off than they are. We want to be Madonna, or Lady Gaga, or Kim Kardashian. This is human nature, I am convinced. We look at a big house or a fabulous trip to Europe and we would like to own it or do it. I don’t think this is a bad thing. Sometimes wanting the unreachable is what makes us try harder and work harder. I don’t think having money makes someone else poor. I don’t think someone with good looks makes other people ugly. It is just human and it is in our nature to want the best and be the best. Even with those who want to serve the poor this longing to be the best takes over. Don’t social servers want to be like Mother Theresa or to make a mark like Nelson Mandela? And people with a political bent want to be like a Kennedy or a Reagan. Doris’ beauty and her white shirt didn’t take a thing from me. I thought she was entertaining.

Doris Day has strong loyalties to friends and to animal welfare. In July, 1985, her show, Doris Day and Friends, featured her long time friend Rock Hudson. No one had publicly seen Rock Hudson for quite a while and people were stunned to see him, gaunt, pale, and frail. Doris knew this ahead of time because she had always been a friend to him and knew him as a close friend and understood what his medical problems were. They had a very good interview, talking about the many movies they made together and reminiscing. A short while later it was revealed to the public that Rock had AIDS. He died in October, 1985 at age 60. That one movie star death brought the AIDS problem into the public light and created an open discussion about HIV as well as bringing in millions of dollars of research money with then President Reagan making a commitment from government to put a priority on finding a cure for HIV. Through all of that, Doris Day remained a devoted friend to Rock Hudson and with her encouragement, millions of dollars more were raised to help find a cure.

Another friend of Doris Day was Cleveland Amory. Before I began this writing, I knew about Doris’ love for animals–cats and dogs–and I knew about Cleveland Amory’s love for cats and his goal to rescue Grand Canyon wild burros. What I didn’t know about was their mutual love of horses. Amory founded Black Beauty Ranch in 1979 as a place where, in his own words, the animals were, “there to be protected, not there to be looked at.” In 2009, Doris Day provided funds to help the Humane Society relocate 100 mustangs from a failed horse rescue mission in Nebraska. In 2011, the Doris Day Horse Rescue and Adoption center was opened at Amory’s Black Beauty Ranch in Murchison, TX.

Although my former literature teacher maligned Doris Day, simply because she was just too ‘squeaky clean,’ I am happy to say Doris has totally proved herself to be much more than ‘just’ a singer, radio star, movie star, and TV star. She has been proved to be a loyal friend, an advocate for AIDS research, and a constant advocate, saver, and friend to all types of animals.

So, Doris, I just want to say I have taken a Sentimental Journal, not just of your life, but of mine and I will say, yes, ‘the future’s not mine to say,’ but you have given us a great start to a better future.

We will do our best and leave it with, ‘que sera, sera, what will be will be.”

Yesterday, April 5th, was ‘No Complaint Day.’  I took the pledge to try to make it through the day with no complaints and, although I faced many temptations, I honored my pledge.

Now, may I please unburden myself?

My car was hit by a sneak, hit and vanish, driver, and I use that word loosely, in the grocery store parking lot.  I don’t know how parking is where you live, but here people can’t seem to just do head in parking.  They have to pull completely through a space, then head the wrong way down the aisle to exit.  At first that driving habit seemed to be restricted to the elderly and I kind of understood it.  After all, it’s hard to turn your neck enough to see to back out and perhaps your vision isn’t what it was at 40 or your medications have taken away some of your flexibility and judgment.  But, now it is executed by all ages, usually to get through a parking lot quicker or with more ease. 

Anyway, it appears that someone, in pulling straight through an angled spot, scraped the front passenger side of my car and headlight.  Nice big gouge and scape with a big chunk of paint missing.  Needless to say, I was chagrined but managed not to say a word, until right this very minute.  I did try to look on the bright side and was glad my headlight was not broken.  Also, their car most likely has more damage than mine.

When I got home from work, the yard was full of garbage.  Yes, it was garbage pick up day and sure enough, the extra bags, paper cups, heaven only knows what, and other objects from other people’s trash, were there waiting for me to pick up.  Because my house is at a curve in the road, not a ‘quiet cul de sac,’ but a curve, it is the collecting point for all the trash and leaves of the neighborhood to gather.  And, of course, it won’t just blow away on it’s own.  I picked some of it up, without a complaint until this very minute, and left some of it.  I know it will be there, waiting for me later this morning.

Falling on a Friday, ‘No Complaint Day’ was pretty well timed.  After all, most of us like Fridays better than the other work days and for most of us, they are usually pretty good days.  Friday is the harbinger of the weekend and good times to come.  Not too much can happen to upset us because we know we have two full days of fun and rest in front of us.  Well, of course, there is housework, errands, laundry, visiting relatives, etc., but still there is usually enough time to squeeze in some moments of pure enjoyment.

I thank you for letting me unload the complaints of yesterday. I’m not sure how long I could keep up not complaining. Maybe every other day would work out, or maybe just having a ‘no complaint’ Friday would be good each week. That would be something I could live with and maybe I will give it a try.

But now, it is 5 a.m. Saturday here in St Louis and, for right this very moment, I have no more complaints.

This is going to be a big challenge for me.  It’s April 5th, ‘No Complaints Day.’

Not sure if I am up to it.  Although I try to avoid out right complaints, I have a wide streak of sarcasm in me that is usually hard to control.  A quote from my mother, “Sarcasm is the lowest form of humour.”  It may be low, but I have it honed to a fine craft, it’s all mine and I’m proud of it.

Now snarkiness I truly dislike.  It is a sneaky way of slapping someone down and there’s way too much of it on social media.  There is a hit and run approach to snarky comments and people usually use them when they can’t get caught or called out for it.  I think of snarky comments as cowardly although some folks may think they are being quite clever.  Please note:  This does not count as a complaint!  I am simply pointing out my thoughts about snark.

There really isn’t any way to control the complaints the mind develops.  You know what I mean.  You’re shopping somewhere and you see someone dressed in totally unacceptable attire  for the situation.  You would never say anything out loud but your mind is whirling with rude comments.  I would like to use No Complaint Day to quiet that part of my mind but I know it is not possible.  At least I can work on controlling the words coming from my mouth and the writing/keyboarding coming from my hands.

I’m starting out alright so far this morning. Well, it is only 5 a.m. and I am the only one awake in the house so I guess I have an early advantage. But, I did slice a finger cutting up a melon for lunches and didn’t even leak out a tiny four letter word. It’s not a bad cut and I heal well so no problem. I am dreading the morning commute though and will most likely take the side roads to avoid any potential complaint situations. My appointment schedule is light for the day, the weather looks lovely, all is good in my world.

I’ll let you know tomorrow if I made it through the day with no complaints. It’s a good challenge and I’m thinking if I can make it one day, maybe I can make it two days. Sort of like the high hopes people have when they start a diet. On day 5 I might ‘cheat’ and really gripe about something. I mean, you can’t keep complaints bottled up forever.

Or can you?

From childhood to adulthood, I have been a sucker for space.  I grew up looking at fireworks and stars, then satellites, then shuttles, then space stations and through all of that,  meteor showers. 

I could go into great detail about the various launches I have seen or the wondrous meteor showers I have observed but I would be better off limiting it to a few things.  First, a nice quote from Carl Sagan who opened the doors of space observation to many an unsuspecting person:

“Somewhere, something incredible is waiting to be known.”

Don’t you just love that?  He had a way of opening his eyes and letting us see through them.

 Anyway, back to my main subject.  My first real satellite gazing happened when I was a child, living in Florida in the early 1960s.  In those days we had so many interesting things going on–Civil Rights Movement, Cuban Missile Crisis, Space Development at Cape Canaveral.  And I was a young girl trying to figure out who I was and why I was way taller than the other girls but not as developed (if you know what I mean).  So much to think about and yet standing in the backyard with my family at night watching Echo or Echo II sail silently through our velvety black southern skies captured my imagination.  What could it all lead to?  Would we end up living in outer space?  Would they even let women go to outer space?

I had a good friend in 7th grade, another girl, that had her focus set on the space program.  Claudia was her name.  I remember her so well because she was smart and she was determined to be a part of the space program.  To this day I don’t know if she achieved her goal.  (Claudia, please check in here.)

On January 28, 1986, I had just finished reading Carl Sagan’s novel, Contact. It was an interesting sci-fi story with a bit of a hopeful stream running through it. Our nation was just branching into a new, exciting avenue of education by sending a teacher into space on a shuttle mission. The launch had been postponed due to bad weather at the Florida launch site and was rescheduled to take place on the morning of January 28th if all was well. Everything seemed to check out alright. About the time of take off, I was at work and was standing near our Wall Street reporter, a machine that printed out news from Wall Street on a moment to moment basis. Glancing down at the yellow roll of paper in the machine, I saw it start streaming out at break neck speed. I couldn’t believe what I read. The shuttle Challenger had exploded after take off and all aboard were believed dead. I was devastated. I headed to the restroom and cried for about a half hour, then headed home. I had to see the news reports on television to truly believe this horrible thing had happened. The rest of that day and most of the evening I stayed glued to the TV, feeling a mix of sorrow, horror, and hopelessness. To this day I don’t know why it had such an impact on me.

My hope came back for space missions with the launch of the International Space Station on November 20, 1998. Coming at the end of a century, it seemed like an appropriate way to wrap up one phase of space discovery and head into the new millennium with a new mission. I still enjoy hearing about what’s happening ‘up there’ and am glad it is still accomplishing goals in scientific discovery. Our local weather man occasionally announces when we in St Louis can watch it pass overhead. Several times this year my husband and I have stood outside in the wee hours of the morning, in the freezing cold, watching the station move through our sky. I am not the same person I was when I stood as a child with my parents and watched Echo, but I still feel the same sense of excitement and wonder seeing that bright spot of light cross the horizon.

(FYI: The musical recording Telstar, by the Tornados, was released in 1962 and reached the top of the US Billboard Hot 100 in December 1962. The composer, Joe Meek, did not receive any royalties for the tune because of a plagiarism law suit filed by French composter Jean Ledrut. Three weeks after the suicide of Joe Meek in 1967, the law suit was settled in Joe’s favor.)