February already ! The first of the daffodils appearing on the banks of the drainage ditch outside The Rickety Old Farmhouse. To say January went by at a fast clip would be an understatement.
A missed anniversary. One of those ' Can it be so long ago ? days. In a desk drawer I find a bronze medallion given to me on January 28th 1986. A thirty year old Angus was in Pittsburgh meeting the management of Rockwell, the folks who built the Space shuttle. Their offices in the brutalist , iron clad, US steel building. Ten minutes into the meeting someone switches on the tv to watch the shuttle launch. It was the day the Challenger exploded on takeoff . Polite conversation gives way to shocked silence. The Chairman sprints out of the door followed seconds later by the CFO. Within a minute everyone had gone leaving yours truly alone watching the news story unfolding. The surprise is that I can remember every detail of the meeting down to the shape and colour of the board room table. Strange to recall this forgotten event with such clarity even though it was 35 years ago. I wish I could remember what I'm supposed to order from the click and collect later today with as much precision !
I stayed in the William Penn hotel downtown. One of those grand old style hotels that somehow suggested an earlier era of top hats and a clientele that had just stepped off the overnight train from exotic places like Scranton or Albany. Both the bedside tables in my room had long marks on them where someone had put down cigarettes and let them burn themselves out. There were three full length cigarette marks on each of the tables . The marks were all quarter of an inch apart and angled at 30 degrees. To this day I cannot work out the circumstances under which this could have happened. An absent minded chain smoker with a compulsion for neatness ? A nervous arsonist ?
It seems that these mittens are going to be produced commercially such is the interest in them :https://twitter.com/chelsealeite/status/1352017967450611712?
5 comments:
Bertie is admiring Sophie's 30 mph furs, while Gail is pondering on what she was doing on 28th January 1986.
Hari OM
An enthusiast of all things aerospace, I eagerly awaited reports of the launch; was in my wee flat in Galashiels studying for my computing degree (SCOT/Heriot Watt). I sat there, on my own, yet feeling connected to all the aerospace community at the horror which was witnessed. It is interesting, is it not, how such events sear the memory, but there is no explaining how the butter ended up in the oven.
I have seen many patterns on offer for the mittens - no need to buy when you can make them yourself. YAM xx
I too remember that moment with precision...the day we lost our very own New Hampshire school teacher Christa McAuliffe and six other souls on the Challenger. We were so proud she had been chosen and then beyond stunned to watch the disaster unfold on live TV. I can't remember if I managed to put on socks yesterday, but can recollect precisely what I was wearing 35 years ago (and so many other miniscule things) as we turned on the office television to cheer them all on at liftoff. It is indeed strange and facilitating how details of such events can be forever locked in one's memories and then a small trigger, such as finding a lovely little medallion, can bring it all back.
I was just thinking the other day about your daffs growing in the verge and recalling the day the tourists strolled over from the church and picked every blossom.
No tourists this year. In fact the village is deserted !
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