HUGE light dawns!

A situation came up yesterday that would turn out to be a tremendous inconvenience AND a mega illumination.  

Tuesday is one of my favorite days of the week.  I get to do each meal with a dear-to-my-heart grannie client.  It's the only time we get to do lunch together, a time together that gets more & more precious as the days get shorter & shorter - we both love our pre-lunch rambles.  But it does make it a very full day.

Yesterday, another client's family asked if I could take him to & from the dentist THAT afternoon.  Could have wangled in the full request if I'd known about it the day before, but not as my schedule stood at that moment.  But I could wedge in a pick-up.  The time was available.  The fact it recalibrated my afternoon from easily do-able to stressed didn't register on my time management radar.

Realizing that in the wee small hours of this morning, it was a shock discovering that something I thought had been addressed 25+ years ago is still a powerful influence.  I lack a sense of time, of the sane use of it, an awareness of its value & power.  Without a basic concept of time as it personally relates to you, there is no viable envisioning it.  Without that, you're one cooked goose.

A huge light has dawned, but how to partner with time, to work with it to make the difference in my own life & others - that needs to be looked square in the eye, recognized & embraced with my head heart spirit.

Our vegetarian journey - a reader's request!

Wow - a reader requested I share the MurphArt journey into a the wilds of vegetarianism.  Happy to comply!

 

Still hard to believe - Mim memory

In spite of Jim Harkin's assurances, Mim & I doubted that the three jets roaring down the beach, dipping their wings to us in the post-dawn of launch day could have been THE astronauts - until one of us found this article.  Then it all made sense & we FINALLY - 45 years after the experience - accepted it as having actually happened!

Excerpt:  If the Apollo 11 crew had been amiable strangers, then the men of Apollo 12 were best buddies, even before their NASA days. Chaikin tells the story of a friendship cultivated with Jim Rathmann, a car dealer in Cocoa Beach, whose contacts within General Motors allowed him to get them three matching gold Corvettes, the license plates of which were emblazoned with their respective crew positions: CDR for Conrad, CMP for Gordon, and LMP for Bean. 

 

Another anecdote is that Conrad—a long-time collector of baseball caps—tried to get a huge blue-and-white one that would fit over the helmet of his space suit; he then intended to bounce in front of the television camera on the lunar surface to give his audience a chuckle. Unfortunately, he could not think of a way of sneaking it aboard the spacecraft.

The humor also did not detract from the respect in which Conrad, Gordon, and Bean were held as one of the sharpest crews in the simulator. Their naval backgrounds had already led them to choose the name “Yankee Clipper” for the command and service modules and “Intrepid” for the lunar module, from a selection of names submitted by workers at North American and Grumman respectively. The Yankee Clipper name, in fact, had been submitted by George Glacken, a senior flight test engineer at North American; he felt that such ships of old had “majestically sailed the high seas with pride and prestige for a new America.” Intrepid came from Grumman planner Robert Lambert, who felt that it denoted “this nation’s resolute determination for continued exploration of space, stressing our astronauts’ fortitude and endurance of hardship in man’s continuing experiences for enlarging his Universe.”

 Apollo 12 crewmen (from left) Dick Gordon, Pete Conrad & Al Bean listen to instructions, 

ahead of a water egress training exercise in the Gulf of Mexico. Photo Credit: NASA

The over-indulgence of the Navy theme, however, may have proven a little too much for the Apollo 12 backup crew—Dave Scott, Al Worden, and Jim Irwin—who all happened to be Air Force officers

"We have lift-off" - Mim memory

Neither of us had been to a rocket launch before, so Mim & I had no idea that what we experienced seeing Apollo 12 take off to the moon was unusual.  It would take watching Apollo 14's launch, over a year later, to appreciate what we'd heard & felt.

There's no describing the experience of hearing "We have ignition... and lift off" AS it happened, as the flames came rushing out from the base of the slim, white rocket, and the ship seemed to almost pause before starting its ascent.  The sight of that rocket - three men in the space capsule at its apex...  there are no words.

We saw the flames as the rocket soared up into the sky, felt the earth trembled, hear the roar.  That roar - because so much of the Cape & Titusville were overcast with cloud cover, the sound just reverberated between ground & cloud, a richer deeper roar than we'd ever hear again.

The rocket soared upwards, toward the clouds, entered the dark gray;  we watched it disappear, the sight of the flame entering & closed over by gray, turned into a ball of diffused orange arching down range. We heard two large bangs, which we assumed was part of the launch.  The rocket broke out of then slipped back into the cloud cover.  

We were awed.  It still leaves me in awe.  

A hushed crowd filed back to cars, headed back to the main road, back to home.  We headed south, back to Harkins.

The first words Jim said when he saw us later were, "Gosh, I'm so sorry you came so far for such a disappointing launch."  We both looked at him like he was nuts.  How could what we'd experienced be called disappointing?

"Heck," he explained, "You normally see a real launch - you just saw a big orange ball.  And you never saw the first stage rocket separate."

Jim couldn't get it through his head that we were both drop-jawed with awe by what we'd seen.  It never dawned on either of us to feel anything but utter wonder.  

"Well," his wife chimed in, "Seems to me that you gals have got to come down to see what Jim's talking about!"

Mim looked at me, I looked at Mim & we both knew.  Another road trip was in our future.

But nothing - not seeing Apollo 14 take off without a hitch, watching Apollo 15 with Mom & Brooke, experiencing Apollo 17's night launch - diminished what we saw heard felt on that cloud-covered morning.  Awe & wonder, as three Americans sped on their way to the moon.   

UNstumped - Mim tribute

 

It's been clear that I've been stumped over how to get the edges rounded on the video tribute for Mim.  Our niece, Karen, is putting the bits & pieces together, but a crucial piece was missing & I knew not what it was.

Mim was never particularly thrilled with most photos of herself, so compiling a collage didn't seem like a route waiting to be taken.  Tried garnering from friends words, quotes that brought her to mind - that fell flat.  Not meant to be.  Something was missing, something that would bring it all together, that was authentically MIM.

Last night, the light dawned.  Her artwork.  Karen can put together something to open & close the tribute with the wonderful line drawing that the few folks permitted to see raved about.  Mim on paper.  

Sometimes, you just have to let something play out.  Don't place limits where none are needed, let the wonderful have a chance to breathe & emerge. 

 

"T-minus... - Mim memory

Mim & I had bid our parents farewell, nipped past Philadelphia Wilmington Baltimore, skirted past D.C., spent our first night "south of Richmond," slogged through what felt like the interminable Carolinas, swapped Georgia march monster stories, felt a thrill seeing "Welcome to Florida!" amid a grove of palm trees, wandered around super old St. Augustine, drove down Daytona Beach, walked a post-dawn shoreline, heard the roar of three fighter jets, met a fellow Pennsylvanian who befriended & fed us & showed us the road to a great vantage point for seeing the launch, had been parked for hours with a fabulous view of the Apollo 12 - we had done ALL of that, but none of it really registerd until we heard the "voice of Mission Control" say, "We have T-minus 10 minutes & counting."

When we heard that on the radios playing all around us, all eyes turned toward the launch pad.  People spoke quietly to each other, but the frisbees were put down, dogs went back on leashes, children were called to parents, couples held hands or drapped an arm around the other.  

Not exactly our view - add at least a mile!

As the minutes were counted off, the excitement rose.  

I don't remember who first noticed the dark grey clouds massing to the north of the launch pad.  None of us knew a cool, misty rain was falling at the launch site.  Down range, there were some clouds overhead, but patches of blue sky, too.  The possibility they might delay the launch for weather never occurred to us - not on the long drive down, not even now.

And the count kept winding down.  When it hit 5 minutes, people were pacing with excitement, but everything & everyone went silent when it hit "T-minus one minute & counting..."  All faces were trained on the slim white rocket, that looked almost surreal against the grey clouds behind & above it.

"T-minus 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1...  We have ignition... we have lift off."

 

BOR ~ ING!! - Mim memory

Friday, November 14, 196- hands down, the most boring AND exhilarating morning of my life.  

Mim & I were soaring when Jim Harkins waved us off to a side road that gave a WOW vantage point for seeing the launch. The rocket, well over a mile away, was SO tall & the stretches of grassland between us & it SO flat, it almost felt like we were among the honored guests in the viewing bleachers at the Kennedy Space Center.

EXCITEMENT!  We parked our van next to about ten other vehicles, climbed out, checked out our environs - and realized that we hadn't thought to bring a) lawn chairs for sitting, b) food or drink, other than what Mrs. Harkins had packed for us, c) toilet paper, d) extra batteries for the transistor radio, or e) anything to READ over the wait.

We sat in the hot van, watching guys playing with frisbees, older couples settled in comfy chairs reading, kids frolicking with their dogs.  That got old real fast.  There wasn't a decent radio station to be found on the radio & they all seemed to be repeating the same particularly irksome ad for a local car dealership over & over & over.

To break the boredom, I'd climb up to stand on the roof of the van to watch the rocket through Dad's binoculars.

Did I mention that my lower left leg was in a full cast, thanks to a broken ankle?  

Or that I made the climb up & down several times while time ticked by?

If only i could find the photo Mim took of me, atop the van, cast on foot, binoculars in hand, no ladder in sight.

Somehow, I managed to hoist myself up on the steps of the front passenger side & use the open window to heave myself up...  Nah, after that there is NO memory of how I managed it.  Other than propelled by sheer, unremitting boredom.

That is, until everyone's radio, by now all tuned to the same channel, said, "We have T-minus 10 minutes & counting."  Our hearts zoomed & everyone's eyes turned to the rocket.

Did I mention that storm clouds were moving in swiftly from the north, threatening to engulf the Cape in grey cloud cover?