Romance by Katherine Pym

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My dad landed a job at NASA in Houston. We moved from Wisconsin in 1965 and I went to school with the astronauts' kids. The change in environment was extreme but also exhilarating. Everything was new. I went from a strict Roman Catholic high school to a Public high school. A lot of the kids were from elsewhere. They were street wise, and new student numbers dwarfed the original kids who were born in that part of Texas.

One friend I'd made was Teri. She had one of those bodies all women wished for, and the boys craved, but she already had a steady. One day after lunch, she waved me over to where some kids were. 'Kathy,' she pointed to cute guy with dark hair and beautiful eyes, 'this is Ricky. You two will go to the prom and we'll double.'

Did I say she was also bossy?

We went to the prom and that began a four year, almost exclusive, friendship. We went everywhere together, skipped school and explored places we shouldn't have. We went to college, shared a lab table during Biology class.

The Vietnam War was at its worst. Men died every day. One beautiful spring day, the sky amazingly blue, Rick stopped me as I ran up the stairs of a campus building, headed for class.

'Kathy, I've quit school.' He gazed up at me and shrugged.

Me at an Army Post (USO) during the Vietnam War

I knew he'd be drafted and sent to war. I'd never see him again, and if he survived, he'd be irrevocably changed. News said how horrible it was in Vietnam. The guys couldn't trust anyone, not women or small children, who might carry loaded bombs. Life meant nothing, there. If Rick survived the brutality, it would forever damage his gentle soul.

I couldn't say anything but, 'Okay,' and continued into the building.

Life moved forward. I met a guy and we were to be married. Before this, I drove to Rick's house to tell him goodbye. The army had drafted him twice but after tests revealed he'd broken his neck in a car accident, he was deemed unacceptable.

I said goodbye and we kissed. His taste and smell were the same. I wanted to melt into his arms but I'd made a commitment.

Years later, after two boys and a nasty divorce, I found myself in Houston again. I did not know if Rick was still around or not, and if he were, was he married? My son and daughter-in-law took me to his house, where a tiny old lady lived.

My daughter-in-law said, 'She's old. She's really old.' Pause. 'Old is good. Old is really good. Go see if she's his mother.'

I got out of the truck and low and behold, Rick's mother stood at the door. When I bounced onto the porch my son said, 'Is he married?' (Might as well get to chase.)

She shook her head. 'That didn't work out.'

She let us into her house, showed us pictures of her children, grandchildren and great grandchildren. The house was the same as all those years ago. Nothing had changed except she had a window air conditioner that pumped cool air. She gave me Rick's number which I called and left a message but later that night, when we turned off the television for bed, and he hadn't called, I figured he had another.

The next morning, around 8:30A, he called, excited. He told me of his life, that he now worked at NASA for the Space Shuttle. He was a physicist, a think tank. He measured the lack of air, calibrated the pool where the astronauts trained.

He was there when movies such as Armageddon and Apollo 13 were filmed, nudged elbows with the crews and ate lunch with them. He'd gone to Russia to calibrate spacesuits, while I worked at Boeing in Seattle and bought airplane parts.

We'd both been divorced about the same time, chose never to do so again, had sons, and both worked in the aeronautical industry. Once I returned to work after my visit in Houston, I found Rick's name in the Boeing directory. I was amazed. We hadn't seen each other for more than 30 years yet our lives had run in parallel. We thought the same and did much the same with perhaps, a dimensional path that kept us separated.

At Monterrey with Rick and our pup, Maya

Soon, we married and took up where we had left off. We explored places I didn't want to go alone, went into Canada, traveled down the seacoast to Cannon Beach Oregon, saw the redwoods in Northern California, explored Wyoming and New Mexico.

We went from being alone almost 24/7 to being together 24/7, yet the transition was amazingly smooth. Both our families accepted us with open arms, even our grown children.

I can say, now, life is really good.

NASA & Apollo 11 by Katherine Pym

The Eagle has landed

 In 1965, my dad started work at NASA in Houston. Of course, the area wasn’t Houston at the start of the space program, just a flat plain with a few trees loaded with Spanish moss. It was a backwater near Clear Lake almost on the Galveston County line. Most of the streets weren’t even paved.

My dad said the site was constructed like a college campus. If the space program failed, it would rise from the ashes as an accredited university.

I don’t know the politics behind the selection of the site for NASA (Some say the land was owned by Lady Bird Johnson & her husband was vice president at the time.) but it transformed the area into a bustling group of suburbs where everyone was smart, even the children—brain wise and street wise. I learned a lot when there. My parents would be shocked.

My family is not Texan. We are from Milwaukee. The most south I’d ever been was St. Louis. While still in grade school, a friend informed me she and her family were going to Texas on vacation. I stood on the playground and envisioned a flat landscape with steer skulls and Saguaro cacti all the way to the Gulf of Mexico. When she returned from her vacation, I asked her how it was. She said, “It was hot and the tops of my feet got sunburned. I didn’t see any water or lakes, but everyone has a boat in their driveway." She couldn't have been near Houston where there is a lot of water.

When the airplane door opened at Hobby Airport, the heat and humidity rushed in, taking my breath away. Once in the car, the top and trunk loaded with our luggage, all the windows opened because we didn’t have air conditioning, we headed to our new home in Clear Lake City. While driving down the freeway lined with palm trees, I knew my life would never be the same. I was in a new land and had entered a new culture.

Back in Wisconsin I had watched John Glenn’s earth orbits but that was nothing compared to meeting the astronauts in the grocery store or lunching in the school cafeteria with their kids.

The LEM on the moon's surface

My dad was an electrical engineer who worked on a couple of panels (Nos 16 & 32, I think) in the Lunar Excursion Module (LEM). It was the unit that released from the Service Module and landed on the moon. It’s the same unit where the Apollo 13 astronauts took refuge after the explosion that compromised their Service Module.

At the time of Apollo 11, the toggle switches in the LEM were not protected by metal bracings. When Buzz Aldrin and Neil Armstrong were fitted into their spacesuits ready to drop down to the lunar surface, one of their backpacks swiped along some panels and knocked off several toggle switches. Some of them came off my dad’s panels.

Toggle Switch

While everyone sat before their TV’s glued to the drama of the lunar landing, my dad got a phone call to come in immediately to the space center. Sitting around a table, the engineers and scientists conferred on what to do. Those toggles were important for the LEM to reignite and take the guys off the moon. 

Several looked at my dad. The astronauts had pencils up there because they had to follow the instructions, make notes in the procedures. They needed pencils to calculate numbers for processes. My dad said, “Have them insert a pencil tip into the hole and use it as the toggle.”

Problem solved. It was after this, though, that metal braces were installed on each side of the toggle switches.

Up until the space program, no one really knew what our world looked like from space. I mean, have you ever seen those 1950's Sci-Fi B-movies? Producers and directors had no idea. They never consulted aeronautical scientists, either.

Apollo 11

After the Command Module splashdown in the Pacific, the astronauts were shuttled off to a quarantine chamber. For everyone else it was time to party. After tense days and nights, people of all ages, the news media, and anyone else who could, descended onto an area only a few square miles. NASA Boulevard was gridlocked, everyone cheering, honking their horns. Every motel and hotel was packed. Alcohol flowed freely. No one checked ID. Minors got all they could drink. In one hotel, women threw their room keys into the pool. Men dived in and whichever key they got, they also got that woman.

There was a newsmen duo who appeared on NBC every week night at 5:30 PM. Apparently they enjoyed the splashdown parties to the fullest. Within a year, they were both retired. Now, I am not suggesting the splashdown parties brought this on, but I found it peculiar they were gone from the news scene so quickly.

As everyone rode high on the success of Apollo 11; 12 proceeded forward and was also successful, but by 13 fanfare had waned. We were deeper into the Vietnam War, and a tired President Johnson refused to run for another term. People looked elsewhere for excitement. I was in high school and had a boyfriend. Life moved on. 

Here are some links for better viewing, but more than like copyrighted. Check this one out. And this one.  

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