Up and Away

It wasn't always easy to concentrate in school. Many of us would have preferred being outside all day having fun out in the fresh air. It would be especially difficult paying attention to Mrs. Schoener on this day in February in 1962. February 20th, to be exact. Snow had been falling since the 19th, not enough to close the school, but enough to make us hope for an early end to the day. I could feel Chestnut Hill calling me; the street was just right for a day of sledding and hot chocolate and snowball fights in the woods.
We struggled in the cloak room, pulling off stubborn galoshes and soaking wet coats; our socks still damp in our shoes. We sat staring out at the falling snow, each of us praying for a blizzard.
Something else had our attention as well. A rocket stood waiting on the launch pad at Cape Canaveral, with an astronaut inside, yes a real live American space man and not a chimpanzee, either.
John Glenn was his name, and he had been waiting a long time for his ride above the earth. The mission had been postponed several times due to fuel leaks and bad weather and other problems. Many of our rockets had failed to take off, and some had exploded, so John Glenn had to wait until things got worked out. There was always the chance that something could go wrong, so NASA was doing its best to make sure everything was OK.
I sat at my desk wondering all sorts of things. What was it like to sit in that tiny capsule, and how did you go to the bathroom after all? Did the astronauts really drink Tang, and did they hate it just as much as I did? What was being weightless like? I bet it was a lot like when I flew in my dreams, just floating along without a care in the world, watching the planet sail by. What did they eat and just what did one do while sitting in a space capsule all alone?
I don't remember if they brought a TV into the classroom or not, it always felt like TV was something school refused to recognize; that the real world didn't exist somehow and teachers never watched TV, or at least they didn't admit to it.
So John Glenn sat waiting and he'd have to wait a little more, because one of the bolts on the hatch was defective so it would have to be replaced.
I sat waiting, hoping for a miracle, wishing that the snow would fall so hard that we'd be let go early so I could launch myself down an icy street on a wooden rocket with blades of steel.
Around 10 o'clock the news was spread throughout the school: John Glenn blasted off and made it into outer space, and he'd orbit the earth, no fifteen minute up and down practice ride this time. We did it! An American in space! Going around and around the world just like the Russians. Maybe I can get to see the splashdown when I get home from school.
We don't get to go home early, and we don't get to see John Glenn land in the sea, not live, anyway. I'll have to see it on the news.
But on the way home I get to thinking.
A man was in space today, an American after all.
High above all the troubles and the worries, looking down from the stars.
An American!
Maybe President Kennedy is right and we'll be going to the moon.
Watch out Russia.
Yeah, we're not monkeying around any more.