The Mad Doctor

I went wan to see my doctor. He is not happy I had quit taking the medicine he had prescribed for me! He was loud and staring. “It was MY decision to make!” He shouted menacingly. “I wanted to see what it would do! - Now I can’t complete my analysis!” Staring - frowning - glowering. He clenched his fist and hit the table with it. He didn’t know I was recording all this.

He aroused my old auditor instincts from long, long ago, and I began to ask him questions. Like "Why can’t I contact you or your office? Why didn’t you get the letters I wrote you? Why can’t I contact anyone when I call your office" - I remind him of the 9 minute recording - "all I can do is leave a message - why is it that most of the time, no one calls me back? "

Then he shouted quickly at me: "Who did I talk to? When? What did I say? What did they say?" I open my log and begin to read that information to him. Then he interrupts me - he doesn’t want to hear that. I tell him about WebMD and he dismisses that application.

“If ANYbody has a reaction they write it up!” He shouts and looks superciliously down his nose at me and takes a deep breath.

I ask him “Why do they say ‘Serious Reaction! - Use Alternative’ for two different drug combinations I am taking?” No answer. I ask him "What does that mean? What does it REALLY mean?" No answer. I ask him "Where can I get an answer?" No answer. I produce the document from my file and read to him the Prescription Information sheet and its “Warning Before Using the Medicine” that says I need additional monitoring when taking it with certain other meds - "AND I AM TAKING 3 of them" - so what should I look for? “I couldn’t call your office - I did wait for the 10 minute recording about flu, then left a message for someone to call me - and I never got called. I wrote you two letters asking what did that Warning mean and what should I look out for, and you didn’t even GET them? Either one? Who receives the letters in your office? Where do they go after they are received?”

My doctor told me the warnings and additional monitoring was what HE was doing. That was for HIM. I didn’t need to know.

I told him about the previous problem I had when he prescribed for me a medicine that the druggist said wasn’t even made anymore, and I got a substitute, which does the “same thing” but when I got a reaction, and stopped by his office, his nurse told me I had to stop when I was getting a bad reaction to a med. "Now, I shouldn’t do that?" I point out again that it sure would help if I could get in contact with his office.

He wanted to know what the drug was that he prescribed that had been discontinued, and I told him I didn’t know because I couldn’t read what he had scrawled on the prescription. I added that maybe the pharmacist couldn’t either. Then I did suggested that he ought to be able to find that in his notes. He didn’t look.

I told him "Here are some questions I have been trying to ask you." and handed him a sheet of paper with several questions written on it.

He glanced at the sheet and shoved it back at me. "I don't have time for that!"

The last several meetings I had had with him were very quick. I timed the last one. He was in the room with me 3 minutes and 27 seconds.

My doctor scribbled a new prescription hastily onto his pad, ripped it off and shoved it at me. “Let’s see what THIS does.” He said in a loud voice, again staring at me, as the prescription floated to the floor.  Then he yanked the door open, walked out and slammed it hard.

I left a minute or two later.  The prescription remained where it had fallen, on the floor of the examination room.  

I never saw my doctor again.

Walking a Labyrinth in Hickory, NC

It was truly a Celebration, like drinking a fine wine of Life.

At first I was not really aware of where I was - not exactly - even just balancing was suddenly more trouble that it had been while walking to the labyrinth. I am aware of other people here, mostly going in different directions. How can we all be going to the same place? That doesn’t make sense.

There are interesting objects along our path, rocks and plants and earth. We enjoy that, take note and move on. We see new objects as we continue and suddenly become aware that we are now seeing mostly the same things - over again, but now from a different angle. Sometimes we see it in a new light from an different side than before.

We are aware of other people and sense we are all on a journey together. Sometimes we walk for a while with them, then pass them by quickly. We begin to get to know them, but since all we really see of them is just their bare feet, we really don’t know who they really are.

The revolutions of the labyrinth shorten, each cycle comes more quickly now. Passages which seemed to take such a long time, just a short while ago, now occur much more quickly and then still even quicker.

A sound we heard faintly at the beginning now becomes more important in our journey. That comes from the fountain which is at the center of the labyrinth. For a while it seemed we would never really get there - maybe eventually - but not that important now. And as we approach this magical center, we find we keep turning away from it, for - well, unexplained reasons - well, that’s how the pathway runs. When we do reach the center it seems surprisingly quickly.

Coming back out of the labyrinth, I wonder how I can possibly explain what it was like to people who have never walked one. Somehow, I will have to use parables.

Debra Kaufman and Helen Losse in Hickory, NC

A gala night of excellent readings took place at the Taste Full Beans Coffeehouse in Hickory on October 13, 2009.

After the open mic readers had completed their warmup presentations the audience settled in for the featured readings by two of the big performers in poetry in this part of the world.

Debra Kaufman read "The Princess with a Brass Heart", "To a Barbie", "Destiny and Johnny" and others from her new book "Moon Mirror Whiskey Wind". She presented in a lively style and the audience responded with laughs and nods of recognition to her readings. More can be found about Debra here: http://ncpoetlaureate.blogspot.com/2009/06/debra-kaufman-moon-mirror-whiskey-wind.html

Helen Losse concluded the night's performance by reading from her book "Better With Friends". More about the book can be found here: http://helenl.wordpress.com/. Her readings were more somber, dealing with matters of life and death and such issues affects the people who know and are related to the person undergoing critical medical services.
Helen Losse is the Poetry editor for the Dead Mule School of Southern Literature. More here: http://ncpoetlaureate.blogspot.com/2009/04/better-with-friends-by-helen-losse.html

Carolina Chocolate Drops in Morgantown, NC

Wow. Tonight, for a couple of hours, Morgantown, NC, became the temporary headquarters of the world of music as the Carolina Chocolate Drops lifted the town from its foundations so it could dance in the air with joy.

These guys are good, and they are a blast. If you haven't seen them, drop whatever else you have planned and end your pursuit of happiness by joining them in their next performance. To say they have rhythm is to compare them with ordinary groups. To call their music "toe-tapping" is to ignore the rest of your body that you will find yourself also tapping to their performance. They can speed up music until it becomes a brand new dimension. The photograph accompanying this post looks like a long-range photo made from a balcony under dim lighting conditions at slow-shutter speed. Wrong - it actually was made with a new scientific camera operating at 1/8,000 of a second - they are THAT fast!

The main reason for attending one of their performances though, is to get happy. The Carolina Chocolate Drops are obviously SO happy in the work they do that the joy flows into the audience where it is transmuted into more happy rhythm. The group played guitar, banjo, fiddle, psalter?, jug, harmonica, castinets, spoons, jew's harp, penny whistle?, drums, and even the amazing whatnot. They also sang, danced and performed some acrobatics.

The Piedmont - shed

Here is the Piedmont with its gravel drive,
the always-cut grass, the great old tree.
There’s a chicken yard and a dog kennel,
attatched to this neat old shed.
But the greatest icon of them all
is the pole with a basket, backboard and goal!
Sure, it’s battered and bent from many a shot
but it shows to every passer-by that the only
true color in our whole world
is the color that we call blue.

Pumpkin Toss

The sun is now touching the horizon at 7 p.m., and the nights are cool. Mornings are downright cold - down into the 40s! The early dew is heavy and will send shivers through your body. Then of course, you find it was all just a game as the sun gets on up and brings the thermometer up with it. But then comes 7 o'clock again and the sun is partly hid.

Grass grows green and great - it's bluegrass and fescue, mostly and they are cool weather grasses. Trees haven't turned yet, dogwoods are dragging, looking a little distracted, kind of like they're tired of leaves. First Christmas decorations have already been reported, the big busy boxes in the strip malls are looking a little distracted, kind of like they're tired of inventory.

Evening comes again now, and a chilly breeze turns the delivery of autumn color in front of a church here in Hickory into a Pumpkin Toss as the sun splashes sunsets high into the sky, high and bright like it's trying to get our attention and tell us something.

Poetry Alive in Hickory - September Edition

Lots of good stuff tonight, and as usual, the best part was the gathering together of poets to speak, think, feel and spread their wings for a trip to amazing places in the human psyche. It was generally an evening spent on the dark side of that psyche, but still brilliant in the light that was shown in places too often avoided.

Pat Riviere-Seel read from her book The Serial Killer's Daughter. Powerful, touching, pulling stories. Riveting in the revelations surrounding the execution of a plan that resulted in the accidental death of hopeless victims.

Molly Rice told stories beyond belief, of a world known to only a very few people - at least, I hope. It was a great science-fiction horror tale of trapped humans and their trapped children. Unintended victims of corporate textile mills, long-term pain and prescription drug overdoses. Stories of the unpaid costs that wound up as profits in the pockets of the elite but also to the spirit of humanity which endures and which could lead us to create a better world.



To see Jessie Carty's video of the reading: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U5tZDhePR6Y

Murray and Brock at Lenoir-Rhyne University

To Lenoir-Rhyne University tonight to see a Faculty Recital with Jack Murray playing woodwinds and Anna Brock, piano. Mr. Murray played piccolo, flute, oboe, clarinet, saxophone and alto saxophone.

Mr. Murray had played at the inauguration ball for George Bush in 2005, and he has also toured with a number of groups including the Temptations, Frankie Vail, Four Seasons, Natalie Cole, Ray Charles, Tony Bennett, Manhattan Transfer, Rosemary Clooney, Steve Allen, Johnny Mathis, Barry Manilow, Linda Ronstadt, and believe it or not - a number of others.

Anna Brock is a graduate of Oberlin College Conservator, studied vocal accompaniment in Stuttgart, Germany, and has performed with Charlotte Symphony and for Broadway touring productions. Currently she is a professor of music theory at Charlotte Latin School.

I thought the music was weird. Shows you which musical rock I'm hiding under. It was obviously a showcase of talent and virtuosity, that much was clear, even to me. Everyone was impressed at the number of instruments Mr. Murray played, and how easily he appeared to do that. I loved watching Ms. Brock's facial expressions during some of the more difficult portions. I tried to make a photograph of her but was working with a camcorder still-shot in dim light at 35X from about 200 feet. She obviously has has a soul for music that reaches deeply into the hearts of other people.

"Lost Highway" in Blowing Rock, NC

A play centering around the incredible Hank Williams. Presented at the Hayes Performing Arts Center in Blowing Rock, NC. We saw the Sunday edition yesterday. It was stunningly good.

Two great performers hypnotized the audience as the play revolved around them.

Tyson Jennette played “Tee-Tot”, and had everyone hanging on his words, gestures and even his grunts as he played the “heart” which “thumped” under Hank William’s career. He was the connection to earth, to dirt, to the mud of the swamp, the people whose souls cry out in despair over failure and even the loss of hope itself. Jennette's performance made the play fly and soar rather than just work.

Kim Cozort played the “Waitress”. But far more than that she played the hearts and souls of all the people who ever heard Hank Williams sing. She is the dreamer who scrubs the floors and and cleans up after others but can still be happy because Hank understands her and her problems, and he is there with her, and he can transmute her lonliness into dreams of joy. She waits on people and responds to the songs that Williams sings, resonating to them better than the guitar that he holds in his hands. She was as good as I have ever seen anyone perform.

Ben Hope played Hank. Rough job, tough job, nobody really wants to go head-to-head with Hank Williams. Hope did, and he did such a good job I actually asked him after the performance, who did the singing? He smiled and said “I did.” Well, I remember Hank, and I could tell the difference between Hank and Hope. Sometimes. Good job acting, playing guitar, and singing. Not easy, but he made it look like fun, and everybody was thrilled.

Stephan Anthony played "Hoss" and turned out to be one of the late blooming heroes in the play. In final essence he really played man’s conscience at its best. He showed that "Man" has the capability to rise to meet the needs produced by bad events. A being that few of us will ever really meet. And he did it well. Drew Perkins, “Loudmouth”, basically played himself which is far beyond the skill and ability of most musicians. He’s worked with Patsy Cline and Minnie Pearl, and been the musical director for a number of state performances. His role in the play was to play "music" itself, which "knew" what needed to be done and how it "should" be played and he provided the night sky against which the falling star of Hank Williams was seen.

A few of the famous songs written and sung by Hank Williams were featured in the program and they were presented in a memorable manner. Once again, the reality sinks in that this great performer did all his work and was dead and gone before his 30th birthday.

Photography of the performance and settings was prohibited.

Morning Cool

Walking through the early dew,
bare toes in Tevas showering
with night-wrung water
lying cool in morning shadows.
Great blue sky arcing wide,
streaked like watercolor flowing,
long white cirrus feathers reaching
as if Morning might be stretching,
and inviting you to come and dance
while both of you
still have your cool.


© John Womack, 2009, All rights reserved.

Sky Mice

A deadly new form of flying mice have struck the piedmont recently. Sunday evening they attacked Hickory, NC, making off with several citizens. Here is an actual photograph of one of the abductions. A large number of armed inhabitants of the city fired their handguns at the beast, but of course, without effect. By Monday afternoon, no inhabitants had been reported missing, so now authorities are turning their inquiry toward investigating if perhaps the mice were dropping aliens into the city. All citizens have been instructed to stay indoors if clouds appear, to conduct searches for family members and friends and to report any aliens they may encounter. The United States Air Force was contacted by the Hickory mayor about the sky mice attack but the Air Force has not yet responded.

© John Womack, 2009, All rights reserved

Goodbye Solo in Hickory, NC

A character-actor framework with two real knockouts, an old guy named Red West and newcomer Souéymane Sy Savané. Remember that last name! (and see ANY other movies featuring him) There were also three or four good support roles in a cab driver called Mamadou (Mamadou Lam) and Alex (Diana Franco Galindo). J. Malaak Juuk had as brief a role as one can get but played it startlingly well as the motel janitor. Other supporting roles were professionally played

Writer is Bahareh Azimi who is listed as a water engineer, architect, interior designer and songwriter who also co-authored a previous movie. Probably the movie’s weakest point is its story and screenplay. How the connection of the two stars ever started in the beginning of the movie was simply ignored. No revelation for the reason subsequently surfaced as the movie progressed. The audience has to just ignore that and wait for the good acting to take hold. Too bad - with a good "hook" at the beginning, this movie could have been be a real seat-clencher. It's still worth it. West hit home run after home run all night long and Savané will amaze you - this guy is a former flight attendant and fashion model, but look out world!

Lots of good revelation of character, no real character development. The main story has to be the concept of family, and about countries that have strong families and those that really have none.

This movie was brought to Hickory, NC, by Alan Jackson and his Footcandle Film Society. For more information see http://www.footcandle.org/

Half Blood Prince

I saw the first Harry Potter movie, back near the beginning of time, and had not gone there again. Now, one of my grand daughters got me to take her to see the “Half-Blood Prince”, a movie she had seen before, and I was anxious to catch up where I left off.

It was fun. But you got to go with the flow. You have to play YOUR part in the movie, too. You have to know the background, just like a person who is “street smart”, you have to be “Potter smart”. Otherwise the writing is a drag. And I mean it - it just drags the viewer from one point of action on down the road to the next point. The acting is a form of vocal miming and the actors seem to be caricatures of the characters they supposedly represent. If there is any development of character in the movie - well - it looks like Poor ole Harry is becoming a case of arrested development. He NEEDS to move on. I clearly missed the magical power of actors really acting since these guys basically just struck statuesque poses to communicate a vague understanding that certain concepts were beginning to emerge and develop in their brains. A little like watching a ballet in 1/640 time. They made Jack Benny look like the Keystone Cops. Then - of course, there were the jet-motorcycle-witches broom-hockey games in the sky. Wow.

In my opinion, the photography is awful. The movie is dark and the photography is dark, and it takes refuge in that fact. To be fair, there are several amazing vistas shown, but the movie concentrates on strange artifacts which apparently represent devices that these semi-mystic-savages use for unexplained purposes. There are a lot of astonishing visual effects that are clearly the highlight of the show. Instead of “music”, the movie had “sound” which varied in intensity and sometimes made the walls of the theater vibrate. It tried to tell you when to pay attention and when you didn’t really have to. And, of course just when you really don't have to pay attention, something big goes off. The lighting was flirty and interesting. But any pretense at storytelling has long ago been abandoned in lieu of pretending to tell a story that can never become a story because it must not ever end. Because then, the money ends, and it generates a LOT of that!

Overall it was like watching an old baseball player, still on his happy pills, still hitting home runs because he gets hit higher than the balls will ever go - never mind that he can’t play the game any more, people still come to cheer because he might hit another one out.

And - by the way - and this bothered me a little bit in the first movie - where are the computers?

Folkmoot 2009 - International Day

Folkmoot! Interntional Day! What more needs to be said? What more CAN be said? If you haven't been there you have a gift of great value awaiting you. You will have to wait another year to open it though because it is packing its charms today, and the people who have come to Waynesville from the corners of the earth prepare to return to their respective corners.

Folkmoot is a two-week long international celebration of food, costume, traditions, music and dance. Participants come from various counties and perform in the mountains of WNC. The last Saturday is designated International Day and the main street of Waynesville is turned into a pedestrian mall with performances all day long on both ends of the street. In between performances, visitors stroll through kiosks and the shops of Waynesville, eating, shopping and meeting the international performers who are also walking the street as anxious to meet Americans as we are to meet and talk with them. It is one of the great happenings of the year in this part of the world. In 2009, the participants have come from Greece, Israel, Mexico, Romania, Togo, Serbia, Spain and the Netherlands.

The Streets of Waynesville

Easy to overlook in the glare of nearby Asheville, Waynesville has its own charm and its own talents. There are writers here and photographers also, and those other people who conjure magik out of paintbrushes onto canvas, paper and whatnots. The old mountain crafts are alive and well in Waynesville and available for purchase on Folkmoot's International Day. This is the day to be here and it is the place to buy all those wonderful Christmas and birthday gifts that you will proudly present at appropriate times later in the year.

Not all the great artists of Waynesville work with brush, camera or pencil, some of them make their art in the presentation of their shops. Here's one with the loveliest accommodation for passers-by that I have ever seen. And I use that term in the broadest sense of its metaphysical implications. You CAN'T walk by here without sitting down - it's right on the sidewalk, and you feel like you've finally come home when you do!

Other places in Waynesville prepare their art on plates that they present before you as you clasp your hands in joy and raise your eyebrows high over your pursed lips. On International Day in Waynesville, there is SO much to choose from that NObody can do it right. There are vendors beyond comprehension who are providing ethnic food from many kiosks. I always intend to eat a lot of food there, but I usually bomb out in Nick and Nate's where I gravitate to their pizza buffet and a GREAT glass of Alleycat Ale. If you are lucky, you may have to wait for a table. If that happens, go down toward the buffet line, on the right, and you will see ALL of the roasted, salted peanuts ever cooked in the entire world. The first one or two may not taste very good, but if you go beyond that, the waiters may have to drag you away to your table, kicking and screaming when it comes ready. (That has happened to me several times,)

And there is permanent art here too. Sly foxes watch as you walk past them on the sidewalks. There is a great alligator made out of - nuts and bolts. There are whimsical things that seem to float in some eternal breeze, and of course, who could miss these guys?

Faces of Folkmoot

The real story is in the faces of people. This is where the real stories are told. It's another language. Not easy to learn. Not if you are over about twelve years of age, so you may have to regress a bit. People will tell you a lot of made-up stories, but it is their faces that tell the real story. Here is a brief look at some really interesting stories that cry out for the great artists and writers to come before them and interpret what they are desperately trying to tell us.

And one more thing. Some of us are bashful, and wilt before beautiful women from faraway places, and would never know how to photograph the prettiest faces in the world. How can you learn how to make fabulous photographs like these on this page? EASY. Come to Waynesville next year and see some of the greatest sights on the planet!

Any men? Yeah, there are some men around during the presentations and I make some of their pictures too, but I really don't know very much about them.



(Remember - all these pictures will enlarge if clicked on.)

Apollo - The Great Mistake

40 years is a long time even in biblical terms, but it seems even longer since Apollo 11 made its journey to Tranquility. Many of us who were already in the missile business at that time felt that it was a mistake to go to the moon before we were ready, but even we had no ideal that it would turn out to be as bad as it did.

The great alternative of course was to build space stations. Not just one but several. One basic pattern called for six. Four of them would be spaced evenly around the earth more or less equatorially and two others in a general polar orbit, one north, one south. Another plan called for placing a collection of stations together in one area of the sky to be used as a storage/repair/construction/command location. From these staging stations, journeys to the moon and elsewhere in the solar system would be much easier since they would be free of the heavy lift required to escape the earth’s gravity and also free of the earth’s weather. A true Space Command would become an integral part of the United States Air Force available for both defense and humanitarian missions, and accidents like those which destroyed the Columbia could have been easily avoided.

How much money would this have cost? Not that much - considering what we did spend elsewhere. The total cost of the Apollo space program itself is commonly given as $25 billion, adjusted to 2005 dollars this would approximate $135 billion. Meanwhile, the American war against Vietnam cost $686 billion in 2008 dollars, and the American war against Iraq has cost over $900 billion in 2008 dollars. We could have several permanent stations on the moon and explored Mars for those outlays alone. And of course, the money spent on the space stations would have had positive results for our national economy, education system, military defense and opportunities for international leadership and cooperation.

But when Project Apollo reached the end of its road with number 17, the ships and rockets were taken apart, the facilities were stripped down, the engineers and scientists let go to get a “real” job, and that incredible capacity for space flight was blown into the void. Now, 40 years later, we’re still trying to build one space station. And we currently have no space ships left to even reach that one station. Russia, China, India are moving on. America is fighting needless wars and celebrating footprints in the dust.

To the Moon

When I entered the Air Force missile program back in 1962, the biggest ICBM we had was the Atlas D. It had a thrust of 150,000 pounds and when it lifted off it shook the entire earth. It was awesome. When I first visited Vandenberg AFB in California in 1963, the Titan I had arrived. It generated 300,000 pounds of thrust and people there said “it doesn’t ‘lift off’, it just sits there and pushes the earth away”. The Apollo 11 moon rocket had 25 times THAT much power at 7,640,000 pounds of thrust.

Apollo's very name seemed strange - Apollo -Why would the god of the sun be selected to visit the earth’s moon? And the orbit of the moon, turned out to be a rough, bouncing ride, surprising everyone.

Then there was the sight of a human being walking on the moon. He kicked dust and it flew. Wow . What a sight! Only gods are supposed to do or see things like that!

Finally, when they came back. I wondered why no one on any of the TV networks played excerpts from the largo of the second movement of Dvorak’s Symphony #9, but no one did. So that’s really why I tried to write this poem.

TO THE MOON

With a stunning explosion of thunder and fire
The swooning Earth is shoved away;
Apollo now stands alone in space,
And reaches to grasp the moon.

Three quiet days through a strange new world,
Across a sea with no bottom; through a sky with no light;
Man’s hand holds the tiller’s helm tight,
But Apollo leads the way.

A rendezvous with destiny in deep dark space.
As the God of the Sun becomes a moon of the Moon.
Then Apollo lofts Eagle to carry Earth’s child
From bouncing orbit to Tranquility.

Oh Moon look! See thy dust fly high -
Kicked far and wide by dancing man!
The pulse thou stirred in ancient seas
Now comes to thee to stir thine own.

Then Eagle flies with a mighty leap
And returns to perch on Apollo’s glove.
with a prize so great that Eagle is freed -
and Apollo and man take moon dust home.

Going Home, Going home! Yes, we’re going Home!
At least, we are returning to where we left;
But home can never be the same -
As before Apollo left.

© John Womack, 2006. All rights reserved.

Moon Landing

Forty years ago I was sitting in front of a little black and white TV set in North Dakota watching the impossible happen. Of course I had my camera and these are the pictures I got. Pictures are grainy? Well, my camera was a lot better than our TV was then. We could only pick up two TV stations, fortunately we could see the moon landing.

It is all different now. Back then - on July 20, 1969 - NOBODY knew what was going to happen in the next five minutes. All the way there, everybody knew that it might end up with them making a low pass at the moon and coming back home. The were going to TRY to land, but they didn’t know what was going to happen. NObody knew. During the descent of the Lunar Module to the Moon’s surface, we all knew the astronauts might have to abort and return.


Now at 1,000 feet above the surface of the moon and about a minute of descent fuel remaining we know we are committed. We're obviously going down. Will we land or crash? At this point nobody knows. . . stay tuned.



The module has landed. For a long time it seems quiet. Nobody in the entire world is breathing



It worked! The module actually did land on the moon! And they are alive! And talking! Wow. What had seemed virtually impossible now quickly becomes more normal.


We can hear the communications between crew and ground control, and we are updated with overlays. Man has now been on the moon for 9 minutes and 9 seconds.






Later Buzz Aldrin comes on to the moon surface.









Planting the Flag.

Requiem for Apollo

When Kennedy made his audacious commitment to put a man on the moon and bring him back safely home on May 25, 1961, I was preparing to enter the missile part of the Air Force, into what we were already beginning to call the “Space Program”.

I was stationed at Langley AFB, VA, which was the headquarters of the agency still called NACA, the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics, the forerunner of NASA which had already been renamed in 1958, but most of the signs had still not been changed.

Some of the initial “astronauts” were already on Langley in the early 1960s, and were slowly becoming reasonably well known, although there was a considerable air of uncertainty back then - were they actually going to fly in space or not? Nobody really knew for sure. It would probably happen sometime, but maybe not for many, many years. Sputnik had already made its trip, and Gagarin had flown his orbit in April of 61, though so this air of uncertainty was balanced by the strange feeling that there were great forces already in process that ultimately could not be controlled.

The Mercury astronauts had a different mission than the rest of us but they spent as much time away from Langley as we flight crew members. From time to time we met them and would encounter them on the base. Once I remember letting my wife out of the car on a rainy afternoon at the Officer’s Club and she walked under a canopy to the main door, where it was opened for her by John Glenn, Buzz Aldrin, Neil Armstrong, and Alan Sheppard. They exchanged a word or two, waved at me, and she entered. Big deal? Not nearly as big as it seems today.

I met Gus Grissom on several occasions, once at the BX while buying a birthday card for my sister-in-law. I got a card with a picture of the moon and a statement about it. I asked Gus if he would also sign it, and he did so with great enjoyment.

After Kennedy’s commitment though, everything began to change. Everything. NASA was now crushed under the flow of money falling into and upon its projects. More and more work was transferred from Langley and Wallops Island to Canaveral, a spot picked out for NASA the year the Civil War ended, by one of their first "pioneers", Jules Verne.

Then Kennedy was assassinated. Right after that I was assigned to the Titan II missile program. Space was now the coming attraction for both military and commercial activities, and I was getting in on the ground floor. There was only one little cloud in my sky and it was far, far away, off in one of the most beautiful places on any planet, Vietnam. It was still officially at peace, but the French had been defeated in the re-imposition of their colonial rule after W.W.II, and now we were nosing around there with "advisors". The deaths of Earthquake McGoon and, nineteen days later, Robert Capa in Vietnam were ominous warnings that it could really turn out to be very, very bad. Both Apollo and Vietnam would continue to grow, eventually competing for the same dollar.

There is no way to prove that Vietnam spending had any effect upon the Apollo program or any follow-on space related projects, but there was a continual competition for money. A new unease with the American government developed because of problems with both the war and the civil rights movements and that remains with us today. One of the stories totally lost in all of this competition for money and talent was the American Space Program. Vietnam came first, Civil Rights also came first. Then came Apollo. Once man walked on the moon, the importance of the space program ended. Any hope for a continuing American presence in space would have to be deferred for many, many years. America was engrossed in short-term objectives, another war it couldn’t escape from, and long neglected obligations here at home.