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A really cool night in 1964


Ol Smoke

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Today you guys don't think anything about space stuff, because it has been with you since you were born.

But for me, space was the coolest thing ever.  We watched on TV one day, when the USA sent up the

Telstar communication satellite.  This thing was the size of a refrigerator and could relay telephone signals

from one side of the US to the other.  Later on it was linked to other sats that could relay voice messages

around the globe.  Before Telstar, everything was land line.  Big cables laying on the ocean floor connecting

Europe to America.  This was big stuff.  Bigger than smart phones to you guys.

 

Well one day my family was driving back home from Klamath Falls, Oregon to Bly.  We had just come off of this

ridge and started down into the valley, when my dad said, "Look at that light up in the sky".  We were all trying to

see but could not make out anything but stars.  So dad pulled over on the side of the road and we all got out.

We were looking up in the blackness of space, when I saw a bright dot of light flying across the sky.  I yelled out

"There it is!"  When everyone had found it, we just stood there in amazement that that dot of light was a satelite

named Telstar.  It forever changed my life.  Now I knew we could go into space, like the books I read, and travel

to distant planets, and see really neat things.  For the next month or two I played everyday like I was an astronaut

walking in space and on other planets.  I dreamed of being out there almost every night, and telling myself that

someday...I was going up.  It never happened of course, but I will never forget that night.  Me, standing on the

hood of the car, my dad holding me and pointing toward the stars, and saying, "Don't ever forget this son".

I never have dad, and I never will.

 

God, I miss those simple days gone by.

 

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