Challenger

I've spent a large part of today watching Netflix's new documentary on the Space Shuttle Challenger.  Whether I was just a product of my era and would have been a space/NASA fangirl anyway, or whether my Aquarius-ness played a part, too, I don't know, but space and NASA have long been loves of mine.  

That day, I was at work at U of Alabama, listening to the launch on the radio in my office, about to go to class.  I went into the room and told the students, and several of them came back to my office to listen.  When some of them went to find TVs, left with me was Frankie Buffington.  He was in ROTC, and that day was one of the ones where cadets wore their uniforms all day.  He sat down and folded his hat and his books onto his lap. We just sat, dumbfounded.  He was a quiet guy anyway, but he was utterly soundless.  And teary.  I'll always associate him with that day.