A Meerkat's Bolthole

I was getting ready for class when I heard a noise that sounded like a cross between a low scream and a moan, coming from a corner suite in my dorm. I ran to see what was wrong, and caught the coverage of the explosion* on small television screen.

For years, I thought that would be the most horrific thing I would ever see.


Francis R. Scobee. Michael J. Smith. Judith A. Resnik. Ellison S. Onizuka. Ronald E. McNair. Gregory B. Jarvis. Sharon Christa McAuliffe.


Oh! I have slipped the surly bonds of earth
And danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings;
Sunward I've climbed, and joined the tumbling mirth
Of sun-split clouds - and done a hundred things
You have not dreamed of - wheeled and soared and swung
High in the sunlit silence. Hov'ring there
I've chased the shouting wind along, and flung
My eager craft through footless halls of air.
Up, up the long delirious, burning blue,
I've topped the windswept heights with easy grace
Where never lark, or even eagle flew -
And, while with silent lifting mind I've trod
The high untresspassed sanctity of space,
Put out my hand and touched the face of God.

-Pilot Officer Gillespie Magee, 412 squadron, RCAF
Killed 11 December 1941






*yeah I know it didn't technically explode. But that is the image in my mind, and I'm not a rocket scientist, okay?