It’s hard, now, to imagine that next year will mark Columbia’s maiden voyage 25 years ago. Hard also recalling a beautiful, clear Sunday morning in February just two years ago, listening to the news of her final flight as we left Tallahassee for home.

Twenty-five years. CNN was barely a blip. So was cable. No laptops. No cell phone ring tones. No CDs. Last month’s long delayed launch of Discovery rekindled some dormant memories of the first time I viewed a shuttle launch. It had been a long dry spell, between the Apollo series shut down and the resumption of manned space flight in the form of the unimaginatively named shuttle in 1981, as though this shiny new flying brick was somehow brethren to a water taxi plying Jacksonville’s river walk.

I’d somehow managed to score a vehicle pass, which at the time took a little doing. Though not too much, apparently, as there were an estimated 1,000,000 plus fellow observers joining me on the causeway that day, but this only meant there were a lot more who might have been there but for paperwork.

My sons John and Chris, then 11 and 8, had so far grown up without experiencing firsthand what it felt like, looked like, smelled like, to witness a launch. We packed a couple of coolers, sorted out the 8-tracks, and pulled out of New Port Richey about 11 p.m. for the announced launch time set for the next morning. I figured we’d head east across SR 50, and at that time of night we’d be parked and snoozing by 2 a.m. easy.

Close Encounters: The Reality Show
By the time we started closing in on Orlando, I knew this was waaaay big. There was an immense glow lighting the eastern winter sky that night, white hot at the center and smoothing out in an even band as it spread across the horizon. It was immediately apparent this wasn’t just another car lot searchlight setup. Nope, this was huge, as in Apollo, only bigger.

We finally got on to the causeway around 4 a.m., stacked about eight deep on the north side with a clear view of the tower a few miles away. This was quite an event. Columbia had worked the first time a few months previously, but would it work twice in a row?

There’d been a couple of scrubs, so it was none to sure this launch would go off on schedule. As it happened, there were a couple more holds and then, just before noon, liftoff. A few minutes too early for the guy who’d been waiting in line all morning for his chance in the Port-O-Let, which led to some high drama as he stumbled out, clutching at his lowered pants and hollering at the launch gods to, “Wait a minute! Hold on! Wait a minute!”

Columbia passed in and out of cloud banks and within minutes was out of sight, while the rocket exhaust continued to linger long after the shuttle was in orbit. We were only a few vehicles from the roadbed, and decided to head for Cocoa Beach, some lunch, and Ron Jon’s rather than face the certain traffic jam on the 520.

Would You Mind Interupting Your Meal For A Total Stranger?
It took us until after two to make our way off the Cape and down to Fat Boys, where we’d wait out the worst of the traffic before heading home. I’d bought several Columbia souvenir posters and a couple of t-shirts as mementos. So it was that in a half empty bbq joint, Gene Cernan, the last man to walk on the moon as commander of Apollo 17 (above), was finishing up his pork special and jumbo sweet tea at the table next to ours.

Manners or no, I wasn’t going to let the opportunity evaporate. I retrieved two of the posters from the van, and over his objections that he needed to catch an Orlando flight, I pressed a Sharpie in his hand and pointed out the hopeful faces on my kids a few feet away, who of course had no appreciation for the historical bookmark they were witnessing.

The posters were signed, the ABC broadcast entourage departed, we finished our lunch, and this year just past I dug up those posters and passed them on to the kids.

It’s the right of every taxpayer, and maybe a little bit of every citizen’s duty, to view at least one launch. Over here on Florida’s west coast, it’s nearly as exhilarating when, on a day (or night) when clear skies permit, we watch from the back yard as another milestone in man’s journey to the stars unfolds.