Jim Harkins - Mim memory

Two young females sacked out on a mattress in the back of a car, lightly slumbering on a early Florida morning, agitated man, banging on the window, yelling, "Hey, you in the van with the Pennsylvania license plate!"  Quite the scenario!

Thrown into a panic by the frightening situation, each of us wondering how we'd break it to Mom & Dad that someone called the cops on us for trespassing, everything seems set in slow motion - Mim moving over to the van door, opening it to the presumed fury of the shouting man.

"Where are you from?" he grilled us.

Mim was about to pull out her driver's license & a sorry explanation for why we were parked at the end of a road, looking out over the beach, when he continued - "I'm from Pittsburgh!  Where in Pennsylvania are YOU from?"

Mim looked at me, looked back at the now grinning guy, and said, "Philadelphia."

"Well, I'll be darned!" was his far from furious reply.  "Who would have thought I'd be asking two of my fellow Pennsylvanians to breakfast!"  

That was how we met Jim Harkins, a technician at the Cape & the manager of the small apartment complex across from where we'd parked.

He insisted we come into breakfast - his wife, also from PA, was equally delighted to meet us.  They fed us, told us great tales about the astronauts about to take off to the moon, clued us into the best place to park to watch the launch. 

Jim wasn't at all surprised by our tale of the three jets.  They weren't a figament of sleep-deprived imaginations, but the three astronauts - back then, they were all fighter pilots - taking a last spin before getting ready for launch.  WOW!

Two relieved PA parents got a call that morning from daughters who were being plied with eggs & bacon, toast & Florida orange juice.  Jim got on the line to assure them their girls were doing just fine.

 

Jim couldn't wait to get to Space Center & tell everyone about the lunatic girls he'd met who'd driven all the way down from Pennsylvania just to watch one of the rockets take off, who were heading home right after launch.

Well, not RIGHT after.  Jim & his wife pointed out the roads would be a little nutty after the launch - why not head back to their place for an early bbq supper before heading back north?  Worked for us!

Finally, we made our farewells.  Mrs. Harkins made sure we left with a supply of nibblings for the wait for take-off, Jim made sure Mim had directions to the best place to see the launch, we made one last visit to the much-appreciated bathroom, and off we went, following Jim as he headed to work at the Kennedy Space Center.  We kept close to him until we were waved off to the side road across from the Cape, with a great place of the rocket.  

How surreal - we were totally jazzed - two gals who'd made the trek from winter weather to summer sun, who'd happened on the best place to park our van, who were well fed by new friends & set on the right track to watch a rocket take off to the moon.  

Life was oh so very good!

Dawn's early light - Mim memory

After what felt like the longest night of all time - spiced with edgy nerves because neither of us had thought to bring something to cover the van windows - the dawn slowly started creeping up across the far horizon of ocean.  

Mim suggested we walk the beach.  So, I secured a big green trash bag around my cast (broke a foot two weeks before the trip) & off we went.  

It was super cool, just the two of us on the long shoreline, the sun making its daily debut.  To this day, can remember the calm, the hush.

Hushed, that is, until we heard the roar of jet engines far to our north & looked up to see three planes, side by side, coming straight toward us.  As they passed directly over us, they tipped their wings in unison, then roared down the beach & finally out of sight.

Mim looked at me, I looked at Mim - had we REALLY experienced it, or was it some sort of sleep-deprived hallucination?
 
The sun was now well above the horizon.  Still dazed by what we'd seen, Mim suggested heading back to the car & trying to bag some more shut eye before figuring out a) where to have breakfast & b) where to watch the launch.

Strange but true, we managed to fall asleep, in spite of the light streaming in the windows.  Both of us were sacked out when we were jarred awake by a loud banging on the window.  We looked up to see a very agitated man, yelling at us, "Hey, you in the van with the Pennsylvania license plate!"

YIKES!!!

 

Everything I learned about dreams daring doing, I learned from Walt.

This is a particularly perilous moment for me, a time of changing perspectives & fresh opportunities that leave me exhilarated & shaken with the new, the unexpected, the unconsciously bidden.

Someone who's helping me move through it, up to the next level of play is Walter Elias Disney.  My current personal & professional challenges are rooted in my entrepreneurial spirit - and Walt Disney was THE entrepreneur par excellance. 

"The way to get started is to quit talking and begin doing." 

Walt always tried to learn from mistakes, to keep his eye on the horizon, working his way toward it. 

Would that all of us had the great good fortune to have a big brother like Roy Disney.  Mickey would never have delighted us if Walt's creativity hadn't been beautifully balanced by his canny, kind & generous older brother.  

“My job all along was to help Walt do the things he wanted to do. He did the dreaming. I did the building.”  Roy Disney

An example of Walt's lack of business smarts - rights to Oswald the Lucky Rabbit, his first successful cartoon creation, were registered in his distributor's name, leaving him with no claim.  That only happened once.  

Until the past few weeks, I hadn't a clue about how vitally important CURIOSITY has been in my life.  The core genius of Walt Disney is found in his curiosity.  Wait - Walt would disagree...

“Somehow I can't believe that there are any heights that can't be scaled by a man who knows the secrets of making dreams come true. This special secret, it seems to me, can be summarized in four Cs. They are curiosity, confidence, courage, and constancy, and the greatest of all is confidence."

Curiosity drove my ability to move past family crises, what looked like professional set backs, personal dilemmas.  In each case, curiosity about each situation helped me step back, if just a smidgen, to get a better view.  

Mom once pointed to my belief in the possible as the quality she most admired in me - it's rooted in my curiosity.

Now, I've moved into uncharted waters.  And that requires something that's been lacking in my life.  Confidence.  

Walt's spot-on that the greatest of the four Cs - curiosity, confidence, courage & constancy - is confidence.  I'm upbeat & optimistic, with a lot of bluster & bravado.  That's a far cry from confidence.  

My curiosity could be compared to one of the Saturn 5 rockets Mim & I saw climb up to beyond the skies.  It's the vehicle caring the payload, glistening & gleaming on the launch pad.  

 

Without confidence fueling it, that's where it stays. It takes sufficient confidence to ignite my courage & constancy, all three to propel my curiosity into a successfully completed mission.

 

It's a scary grand place to be, with startling twists & turns, unexpected consequences & startling new paths.  Exhilarating, yet demanding that I give it my all or just don't bother.  Will be thinking a lot about Walt & Roy, looking to their example, putting my heart into making my own dreams come true.   

"Always remember that this whole thing 

was started with a dream and a mouse."

 Well, a mouse, a dream, two brothers & the 4 Cs.  

Coastin' on down - Mim memory

Compounding our joy at being in FLORIDA (I'd never been farther south than Baltimore!) was the realization that we'd FINALLY gotten past the looooong drive through the Carolinas & Georgia, what felt like an endless stretch of bor-ing interstate.

We were in Florida, driving down its famous coast. Family back home were slogging through November ick while we were in the aptly named Sunshine State, cruisin' through some mega famous towns.  

 

Mim being Mim made sure we checked out the sights in St. Augustine (oldest city in North America), that we drove the van down Daytona Beach.  

If DisneyWorld had been opened, am sure she would have darted over the Beeline Highway for a quick zip around the Magic Kingdom.  Alas, Mickey wouldn't call Florida home for another two years.  

It was almost as if we were delaying our arrival in Titusville, across from the Cape.  Delicious waiting.

 

 

But arrive we finally did.  And for the first time, I discovered something pretty darn amazing - Mim hadn't a clue where we should go once we arrived.  She'd expected that there would be signs - none.  She'd assumed the folks who lived there could tell us the best spots - ha!  

We headed to a nearby convenience store to ask best viewing spots for the next day's launch.  The girl behind the counter told us, "Gee, I never saw a rocket launch.  Hey, does anyone in here know where these folks can park to watch tomorrow's launch?"  

Not a soul answered.

Mim assessed our situation, drove to a nearby Taco Bell (Wow!  Mexican food!), got us burritos, described - as we were eating them - that they bore NO resemblance to what she'd had with the Ripley out in California, drove around & we talked about what to do next.

There was the ocean, there we were - down range from the launch site.  So, Mim drove to where a road ended at the beach & parked the van.  To the right of us was a small apartment complex, to the left was tall beach grass. It was late afternoon by now, night was beginning to fall, so we settled down on the mattress in the back of the van, in the dark (didn't think to bring flashlights) & waited for the sun to rise on Launch Day.  

It was the start of possibly the longest, most boring night of my life - stark contrast to what lay ahead the next day!