by Arley Cole
One of my favorite places on earth is the US Space and Rocket Center in Huntsville, Alabama. From the minute my eye catches that gigantic Saturn V rocket towering over the interstate, I am already halfway to Mars. Anytime I am in Huntsville it is so hard not to just stop and go in the gift shop at least – I love it that much.
When I was a young, geeky child, we went on a field trip to the Center and I fell in love. I had already been a space cadet of sorts, but the Space Center showed me real rocket motors and pieces of the actual moon. I could walk around a full sized simulator space capsule that was used by the astronauts who trained in it to orbit the earth.
From then on, I was a complete science fiction geek. When Star Wars and the first Star Trek movie came out (oh, I am dating myself now!!) the space travel I saw on the screen mirrored the actual instruments I’d seen at the Space Center. It spoke to my imagination in ways I hadn’t experienced before.
I even considered becoming an astronaut and wrote to NASA for books about Skylab, the orbiting space station from back in the day. They sent me a stack of books that were downright indecipherable, but oh, so cool. I also began my yearly Christmas quest for a real telescope, which I finally got last year. What can I say, real telescopes were slightly outside the family budget when I was growing up. However, Santa did come through with a really neat chemistry set that I used to make my room smell really bad on a regular basis.
Did I mention the fact as well that I am a girl? The story of Star Wars girl Katie Goldman really struck home with me because I spent all my years in a small, rural school system where everybody knew everybody’s mamaw (that’s deep South for grandmother). I know how it feels to be teased and ridiculed for being a science fiction geek.
So now I go out of my way to let my geek flag fly! I even have a Save the Saturn V car tag on my SUV!
This summer we made a family visit to my favorite place, the US Space and Rocket Center, and I came home with a red NASA fleece jacket, complete with three special commemorative pins, and a Space Shuttle necklace.
A few months later, I had my Space Shuttle necklace on when I went into a MacDonald’s and spotted a little boy dressed in a white astronaut jumpsuit, complete with NASA patch. I immediately went over and showed him my necklace. He was impressed. All I knew was that I had made contact with a fellow geek, even if we were decades apart in age.
So how about it? Are you a geek too? Let your geek flag fly!
Arley Cole is the author of The Blacksmith's Daughter, Euterpe's very first release.
2 comments:
Reading this post sent me looking for the story of Katie Goldman. It was both sad and inspiring. But I'm the same way as you, Arley, always have been. Do you get all the jokes in Big Bang Theory? Me, too! Yes, that's us, but as writers instead of scientists.
Fun post, Arley. My geek flag is - well, actually, I have many, but my favorite is searching for prehistoric shark teeth here in the wilds of Kansas. Yes, Kansas was underwater at some time (I'm thinking Noah knows something about it). I can spend an entire week-end frying my backside as I crawl through the rocks searching for tooth enamel.
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