Good Heavens or How it all began for me
Good Heavens or How it all began for meA Cosmic tale by Charley McLane
As a kid growing up in Fort Smith, Arkansas we were blessed with clear dark skies and a neighbor who didn’t mind our strangeness being conducted in their yard where the building contractor had bulldozed the elms and the oaks so as to speed construction of a duplex. My dad’s uncle had filled his mind with tales of mythology and the constellations. Later in WWII he had used this knowledge to refer to people and events along with a supposed time of writing to secretly convey where they were stationed across North Africa and into Italy. Sputnik went up and I forgot about 57 Chevy’s and turned my eyes skyward. My dad made charts of orbital times and visibility. Next thing I knew we had a globe with an orbital ring to aid viewing footprint plotting. We would lie on a sidewalk warmed from the day and while we waited for another orbit, my dad Clarke, would fill the time with knowledge passed down from the ancients. It was a great time, a kid, his dad and something out there.
