As a kid in Columbus, Ohio, I was fascinated by anything to do with space. I don't remember John Glenn orbiting the Earth, but I have a vague recollection of the Gemini missions. And of course, I was transfixed with the Apollo moon landing program.
I can recall lying on the floor at our home, watching the black and white TV late into the night -- especially when the Eagle, the lunar lander, touched down on the surface of the Moon. Furthering my fascination, was that the first human to set foot on that lunar object was an Ohioan, Neal Armstrong.
So obsessed with all things space, one year my parents took us on a 3-week trip to southeast U.S., a mix of business for my dad and vacation for the family. Just before we were to take the northward swing toward home, our parents gave us a choice of last fun excursions. We were revisiting SWFL, relaxing for a couple of days. The choices: a brand new amusement park in Orlando that they didn't know much about, DisneyWorld, or over to Cape Canaveral and a tour of the space facility there.
Which do you think two young boys -- at the end of Apollo and the dawning of the Space Shuttle program -- chose?
Fast forward many years later, on two occasions I had the opportunity to shake John Glenn's hand. Less as U.S Senator, but more as one of my childhood heroes. A living legend, a fellow Ohioan, right in front of me, warm to the flesh.
With Sen. Glenn's passing, we are diminished. He is the last of the original Mercury 7 astronauts. When I heard a few days ago that he had been hospitalized at the James Cancer Center in Columbus, I had a sense of foreboding.
I wish peace to his bride, Annie, and to the entire extended Glenn family, to Ohioans on the loss of one of their heroes, and to Americans who marveled at the risks John Glenn and others of that first astronaut corps took, on the top of a rocket filled with explosive fuel, that had been constructed by the lowest bidder on a government contract.
Rest In Peace John Glenn.
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