Taking Off (25 page)

CHAPTER 59

T
ommy, Lea, and I walked around the long 1967 station wagon that was the Fruitmobile. We were at a road show of art cars, which were all parked on the narrow residential street in front of The Orange Show. Dad was late, of course.

“It is
so
hot,” said Lea, fanning herself with her hands.

“It’s Texas and it’s June,” I said. “Anyway, look at the Fruitmobile, Lea. It only cost $800 to transform it.”

“Lots of plastic oranges and apples.”

“And bananas and pineapples and grapes. So much bright color!”

“Everyone is here to see these cars?” she asked, looking around. “There are hundreds and hundreds of Houstonians here.”

The crowd was huge, with lots of kids running around or attending one of the art-bike workshops. A television station had sent out a crew, as did National Public Radio.

“When did Dad say he was coming?” I asked Tommy. “You talked to him last night, right?”

“He will definitely be here with the Beatmobile,” Tommy said, his fingers intertwined with mine. “No way he’d miss this.”

I nodded, still worried. Dad had been a little down since Mom’s wedding. She and Donald were on a two-week honeymoon in Hawaii.

I felt Tommy squeeze my hand. “He’ll be here,” he said, giving me a kiss. I smiled into his eyes.

“How are you two ever going to be apart,” asked Lea, “when Annie goes to college? You’re never going to make it as a couple, you know,” she added in her blunt way. “Relationships don’t survive distance.”

“We won’t be apart for long,” I told her. “Tommy’s applying to colleges close to the ones I’m applying to.”

Lea gave us a crooked smile. “How ’bout that?”

Tommy wrapped me in a hug and kissed the top of my head.

Just then, I saw the Beatmobile coming down the street. “He made it!” I said. Heads began turning in the direction of the approaching car as the faces of Allen Ginsberg and Jack Kerouac got closer. These art cars were the rock stars of this show.

I shaded my eyes. “Is that …?”

“I think it is,” said Tommy.

I laughed. “I can’t believe it.”

“What?” Lea asked.

“The Love Bus,” I said excitedly. “Do you see it? It’s right behind the Beatmobile.”

“The Love Bus?” asked Lea.

I looked at Tommy. “Did Dad tell you Bonnie and Clyde were coming?”

“He might have.”

“You kept a secret from me?”

“I did,” he said, smiling.

“Bonne and Clyde?” asked Lea.

“You’ll like them, Lea,” I said, smiling. “Nice, nice people.”

“Not the Bonnie and Clyde I was thinking of,” she said. “You know, Annie, I hate to say I told you so.”

“Then don’t. Come on,” I said, pulling her by the sleeve toward the Beatmobile and the Love Bus, which were now parked a little ways down the street.

“Do you think they brought the dogs?” Tommy asked.

“Probably,” I said, laughing. A crowd of people had already started to form around the newly arrived art cars. I couldn’t see if Bonnie and Clyde had gotten out yet.

“But I have to say it, Annie,” Lea continued, like she’d never stopped talking. “I told you college was the right place for you.”

“It might be.”

“You’re going to love it.”

“I’m not sure,” I said, “but I can’t wait to find out.”

Those were Christa’s words. It was what she’d told Lea that night at dinner. How could that have happened only eight months ago?

“Are you coming, Annie?” Tommy asked as he and Lea started to make their way to Dad and the Beatmobile.

“Yeah, in a minute,” I said, waving him on.

If I hadn’t gone that night to meet Christa, I wasn’t sure I’d be here with Tommy at the Orange Show today or going off to college next year. That night I’d seen something in her that I’d wanted for myself.

It was living from your heart to your fingertips, through your soul to your toes, letting
your
spirit—no one else’s—push you out and up, and through and over, and away and maybe even back again.

I didn’t know why that came so easily for Christa and was such a struggle for me.

But there’s poetry in the struggle.

“Reach for it … push yourself as far as you can.”

—Christa McAuliffe

AUTHOR’S NOTE

Christa McAuliffe

On July 19, 1985, ten teachers stood by Vice President George H. W. Bush as he announced NASA’s selection for the new Teacher in Space Project. The winner, who had been chosen from eleven thousand applicants, was Christa McAuliffe, a thirty-six-year-old social studies teacher from Concord, New Hampshire.

I was a young NASA engineer working at the Johnson Space Center in Houston when Christa was selected as the first, and only, teachernaut. Although I had the privilege to be involved in the payload training of two of the
Challenger
astronauts, Judith Resnik and Ellison Onizuka, I never met Christa. We were at the same college-campus-like space center for four months working in buildings across the pond from one another, but our paths didn’t cross. Almost twenty-five years later, as I did research for this novel, I realized what an opportunity I had missed. Christa McAuliffe was one of those remarkable people whose life and spirit inspires the rest of us.

Sharon Christa Corrigan was the first child of Ed and Grace, a young couple living in Boston in 1948. She was walking at ten months and talking in complete sentences at one year old. Seeking adventure early on, she rode her tricycle down a busy street toward the city of Boston. She was discovered among the stopped cars after the family dog’s barks alerted Ed and Grace to Christa’s daring escapade.

The Corrigan family grew in size as Christa grew up. Over the years, she tended to her younger siblings, dreamed of flying to the moon, sung her way through high school musicals, wore the first strapless gown ever seen at a dance at her high school, and fell in love with a guy with a motorbike.

And then she married the guy with the motorbike. But not before she’d graduated from college with a Bachelor of Arts in education and history. Her wedding to Steven McAuliffe was on August 23, 1970. It poured rain that day, but the sun came out for the ceremony.

During her career, Christa mostly taught social studies and English to seventh and eighth graders. She loved being a teacher. Her mother would write later that Christa asked “but two things of her students—that they be themselves and that they do their very best.” In 1982, Christa accepted a position at Concord High School to teach American history, law, and economics.

Christa was especially interested in the social history of common people and designed a course for her high school students called The American Woman. Sources for the course included diaries, travel accounts, and personal letters, because Christa felt that these firsthand accounts revealed rich history not found in the memorization of dates and places. It’s not such a surprise that she wanted to fly on the space shuttle, not as an astronaut, but as a teacher who would return and share her experience with the nation’s students.

Christa and her husband, Steve, were living a contented life in Concord when the Teacher in Space program was announced in August 1984. Their two children, Scott and Caroline, were born in 1976 and 1979. Steve was working as a lawyer at a prominent firm in Concord while Christa continued teaching.

One night, Christa and Steve heard President Reagan announcing on the radio that NASA intended to put a private citizen into space, and that first citizen was to be a teacher. Although Christa knew she wanted to apply, she didn’t turn in her application until February 1, the very last possible day to submit one. Three months later, a list of the 114 state nominees was released to the press. Christa McAuliffe was one of the two teacher nominees from New Hampshire.

Of those 114 teachers, only ten would be selected as finalists. In one of her taped interviews as a nominee, Christa was asked her philosophy of living. She said she wanted “to get as much out of life as possible.” She also told her interviewer: “I think the reason I went into teaching was because I wanted to make an impact on other people and to have that impact on myself.” On June 28, Christa was told she was one of the ten finalists.

The selection process moved quickly. A little over a week later, Christa and the other finalists were at the Johnson Space Center undergoing extensive medical and psychological examinations. One test Christa was nervous about was one for claustrophobia. She was zippered into a three-foot-diameter nylon ball and not told how long she’d be left in the dark. Christa thought she’d be yelling to get out, but actually found the experience to be somewhat peaceful. Fifteen minutes later, she was released. Christa was also subjected to a treadmill test, X-rays, blood tests, dental exams, and even a ride on the KC-135, a NASA plane used to produce seconds of weightlessness. After their time in Houston, the finalists traveled to Marshall Space Flight Center in Alabama and to Washington DC for three more days of interviews.

On July 19, 1985, Christa McAuliffe was announced as the nation’s Teacher in Space.

AUTHOR MEMORIES OF
INSPIRATIONAL TEACHERS

I’ll never forget Mrs. Beall, my first-grade teacher. She was the first person to tell me that she thought I’d grow up to be a writer. She probably said that to everyone in my class, but when she said it to me, I was suddenly surrounded by a huge and overwhelming sense of Yes.
—Kathi Appelt

My second-grade teacher, Mrs. Dunwoody, let my friends Heather and Naomi and me stay in at recess to write books on arithmetic paper, which we illustrated, folded, and stapled. I was charmed by the blue rinse in Mrs. Dunwoody’s white hair, imagining her leaning back into the hairdresser’s hands and choosing the color of the sky.
—Jeannine Atkins

My geometry teacher’s name was Dick Purdy, and he was known for being particularly T-O-U-G-H. I was known for being particularly bad at math, and, as a junior in a sophomore math class, I was dreading it! But for some reason, Mr. Purdy believed in me. He never went easy on me, but he took me under his wing, told me I should be a math teacher when I grew up, and even offered me a summer job working for him at the local swimming pool. I got my first math A ever in that class, and I worked hard for it. Turns out, he was wrong. I would have made a horrible math teacher. But it was nice to believe that maybe I could be one, even if for only one year.
—Jennifer Brown

In class, my high school English teacher, Joann Clanton, was tough and demanding. I’m still not sure she felt I was a very good writer. But I always felt like she believed I could
become
one.
—Kristy Dempsey

To Dave Christie, my high school yearbook advisor, for giving me the monumental responsibility of copy editor, knowing (even when I wasn’t sure) that I would rise to the occasion. You taught me to believe in myself!
—Kimberly Derting

Mrs. Weber was my third-grade teacher. As part of a history unit, she taught us to make soap, stitch our own samplers (mine hangs on my office wall), and spin on a wheel. But her biggest impact on me was when she sent a poem I wrote to the town paper (without telling me), and they published it—my first publication, and the first time I knew I wanted to be a writer.
—Janet Fox

My seventh-grade English teacher, Richard Perkins, was one of the first people who made me think I might be a writer. I’ve tried to track him down, but without success. If I could find him, I would thank him for believing in me.
—April Henry

The teachers that were the most inspirational to me were the ones who saw my light and believed in my ability to succeed. Their belief in me always made me try my hardest to live up to their vision.
—Cheryl Renée Herbsman

When you asked for a memory of an inspirational teacher, I had no trouble remembering Mrs. Stockton, my third-grade teacher at Columbia Elementary in El Monte, California. She was the one who read
Mr. Popper’s Penguins
to our class, taught us to square dance, and how to make candles so all of us would have Christmas presents for our moms. She was the one who always listened, who was always fair, who taught me about caring and kindness.
—C. Lee McKenzie

There have been many teachers who’ve pulled me up over the years, but one in particular stands out. She knew I was drowning on so many levels, and she spent extra time with me—often clearing an afternoon’s appointments. She encouraged my writing, sought additional resources to help me find my path, and once even took photos that she said would be my author photos. She helped me gain my footing again and actually see what possibilities lay out there for me—possibilities I couldn’t see myself because of all the clouds.
—Neesha Meminger

Most of my teachers were happy to let me fail quietly—at least I wasn’t causing trouble. But my freshman/sophomore English teacher, Mrs. Redman, engaged me when I was disengaged and taught me the way I needed to be taught. She made a lover of words out of me—and I made the love of words my life. Everything I am as a writer and a reader started with her.
—Saundra Mitchell

My calculus teacher Mrs. Byrnes took the time to encourage me and also found me a job as a math tutor at college. I was impressed that a woman, and one who seemed elderly to me, was so gifted in calculus. This was at a time when math was considered to be a strength of boys, not girls. Because of Mrs. Byrnes, I considered being a math teacher and eventually became an engineer.
—Jenny Moss

Mr. McMahon, my high school sociology teacher, surprised our class on the day before graduation with a beautiful send-off, complete with music, flowers, and some much-needed words of encouragement. His simple farewell gesture steadied the uncertainty in my heart and was just a small example of who he was—the teacher who cared for us as his own, who dared us to speak and live with honesty and passion, who broke the rules to help when we needed it most. I will never forget him.
—Sarah Ockler

My most memorable teacher was my second-grade teacher, Mrs. Norma Bernsohn. She instilled me with curiosity, academic tenacity, and independence. Plus she encouraged me to write my very first one-act play—a dull little affair about Pilgrims (with authentic Pilgrim names like Julie and Marcia) landing at Plymouth Rock—and then let me perform it for the class with my friends!
—Joy Preble

My second-grade teacher, Ms. Schneider, believed in making each child feel special. I still have the framed picture she took of me, with these words printed on the picture frame mat: “Small caterpillar. Infinite soul of wisdom. Your wings are waiting.” Teachers like her helped me to believe anything is possible.
—Lisa Schroeder

I’m forever grateful for my hip fifth-grade teacher, Miss Storch, who not only read aloud to our class every day, but in so doing introduced me to
The Phantom Tollbooth,
easily the single most influential book in my life and my writing career.
—Joni Sensel