Rocket Man

When I was around 12 years old I built my first "rocket". I constructed it from 2 steel pop cans and duct tape. Alcohol was the fuel and a tennis ball was the "rocket". I worked in tandem with  my neighbor from across the street. He showed me how to cut the pop cans and tape them together. We had no adult supervision.  Needless to say, I could have put an eye out or worse with this tennis ball cannon. Thankfully, no one got hurt.

Many years later during my teaching years, I attended a mini space camp. These seminars were designed to help science teachers integrate the merits of the US space program into their classroom curriculum. They included tons of teacher resources including building model rockets. I built and launched several rockets including a shuttle replica.

When I mentioned to my father how I liked the rocket building, he told me that he had built a few rockets when he was a young man in West Virginia. That was as far as the conversation went. Why my dad didn't decide to divulge his rocket laden history at that moment, puzzles me to this day. However, Dad seldom discussed his childhood and I was aware that his youth was no picnic. So I didn't ask too many questions.

Nearly twenty years later, my father informs me about a book  called Rocket Boys.  Rocket Boys tells the story of my father's high school friends and their quest to build and understand rockets. They overcame a world of obstacles to win a national science fair. The book's author, Homer Hickam, went on to work for NASA. My father went on to major in Chemistry and become an engineer.

For my dad, Rocket Boys was a chance to reconnect with his friends from high school and to become a bit of a celebrity. In his semi-retired state, he toured about with other Rocket Boys speaking at science and engineering fairs for young people and entertaining with his tales at model rocketry clubs all over the country. He even visited the movie set of  "October Sky," which is based on the book, and met the actor who played the character based on him.

 For me,  Rocket Boys was a window into my father's youth and my family's heritage. He never talked about the rockets or the science fair. He did encourage my interests in science. Sometimes he was helpful with schoolwork, but mostly he wasn't. He didn't know about my taped up pop cans, or the time I synthesized contact explosives in the college lab, or about the time I tossed a rather large chunk of sodium metal into a bucket of water just to see it go boom. I never told him about the time I blew large soap bubbles and filled them with natural gas from the hoses we used to connect Bunsen burners and casually lit them on fire. (Amazing, but not recommended!) There was something in us both that made us want to blow stuff up!!

Thankfully my desire to explode things has waned with the maturity which brings mortality into focus. Not so dear dad, who still lights up a cig next to his oxygen tank.

He's still building the rockets in his head, trying to design a better nozzle, finding just the right style and size of motor, and concocting the best fuel. He collects the motors and other rocket stuff. He's documenting his work in a manual for the next generation of people who want to blow things up.

Our relationship hasn't always been a cake walk. And I wish I had known about the rockets as a kid........maybe we could have bonded over some rocket launching. When I visited him a few weeks ago, of course, we talked rockets. I flipped through the manuals with genuine interest. He bestowed upon me some of his rocketry souvenir shirts and a few beer worthy stories.  I longed to blow something up with this rocket man (other than the oxygen tank) but it was cold and raining. So we just stayed in and talked about it. And it was all good!

Peace! lw