Today I had the privilege of assisting my daughter's teacher take the class to a concert by the Boise Philharmonic Orchestra. As an educational event it only lasted about one hour and was geared toward ages 8 and 9. Of course I was delighted to attend! I have no idea how much my enthusiasm transferred...
The Maestro came out, and said that they would be talking about planets, starting with some of Handel's "Water Music," which fit in nicely with the speaker. Planets? sure, that means they would be playing selections from Holst. Probably the ones that sound most like Star Wars music (Mercury, Mars, Jupiter - John Williams made the music sound familiar to the audience), since some of the kids would have seen the movie. Speaker? for an orchestral concert?
Mr. Maestro said he didn't know that much about planets. I start thinking about Physicists and Astronauts. Mr. Maestro said perhaps we should ask someone who's actually _been_ in space. My heart leapt, blood coursing, goo started dripping from my eyes for lack of any better way to express the excitement.
Barbara Morgan (just google) stepped onto stage! Yahoo! What a great role model! A woman, teacher, used to teach on a res, chosen to be an astronaut, an Idahoan, giving instruction, and working with someone entirely outside of her field! Yahoo!
And, personally... I was agog. I saw a real, live astronaut walk onto the stage.
It started when I first learned about space. Leapfrogged when we watched Neil Armstrong walk on the moon in the middle of the night. This is why so many of us became scientists and engineers. Apollo 13, another reason to be in science. It was a time when a lot of us grew up believing that we could actually do anything. And we did -- we went to the moon, we built the space shuttle.
I watched the first space shuttle go up with my brother, and the two of us walked with our heads in the stars for a while after that. Is there anything cooler? how could anyone not want to be an astronaut? to go into space?
More recently, John Glenn went for another ride... renewing my hopes that somehow I would be able to hitch a ride on something big, no matter how old I became.
I went to the Johnson Space Center some random number of years ago -- the wall was a shrine to me. The photos and names of every crew that has gone up is there.
Ah. Well. That's what heroes do for us. They are bigger than life, they carry us into the realm of possibility, into the stuff of dreams and make those dreams real.
Yes, back on Earth there was a large team of people making it happen. Did I mention Apollo 13? They are all heroes.
Somewhere along the line we realize that heroes are "only" human. Which, after all, should be the greatest encouragement that we've ever heard: You and I, you see, are "only" human too! We can be heroes. We can bring others into the realm of possibility, into the stuff of dreams, and we can make those dreams real.
Go forth, my dear hero, and make a dream become real.
