I feel like I am 17 again. There was an exchange student from Spain visiting our small NH town that year, and he was known for being a bit of a prankster. So when Bernardo came to our classroom door and said “The Space Shuttle exploded!” we all laughed him off, even the teacher, who knew Christa McAuliffe from those statewide conferences that were held once in a while. Mr. Roy said, “Wait a minute” and left the classroom, apparently to find a TV. When he returned, he had tears in his eyes and told us that it was true. It was the first time I had ever seen a man cry, and it really made the news more real to see such emotion from a teacher. They are usually pretty unemotional in the classroom, just to keep things in control, but he lost control there for a minute.
I was working on my blog this morning, changing the templates and things when my husband brought up cnn.com and told me what he read. My first reaction was to laugh, because he is also quite a joker. I wen’t to google news to see what happened, and the Washington Post story was 5 hours old and didn’t mention anything. The most current link was from a newspaper in Pakistan. I guess because of the Israeli on board.
You wouldn’t know if from my blog, but I am a big fan of NASA, I dream of going to Mars. Well, maybe not me, but perhaps my kids or grandkids could be part of the first colonies. I hope that the kids I hope to have will be as interested in space exploration so I can make lots of trips to the Aerospace Museum in Balboa Park, or the Museum of Science in Boston, and the Air and Space Museum in Washington DC.
I am so sad today. I hate explosions.