Well, I just shook hands and chatted with a three-star
general—Tom Stafford. He flew two Apollo missions and two Gemini missions. Clay
Boyce introduced me as the author who is writing his biography. He was a very
pleasant man and soft spoken. Prior to flying the space missions (and possibly
afterwards, I don’t know) he was a fighter pilot, then a test pilot. I asked
him, “Which was the scariest, the test-pilot?”
This made him smile. Such silly questions. “They both were
both interesting. As a test pilot, we flew the plane to assess its
capabilities.”
I guess it’s less scary if no one is shooting at you.
Clay explained, “The first flight was the most dangerous…
that was to assess whether or not it could safely fly.”
“The test pilot came next. We determined what it was capable
of,” General Stafford added.
I took a seat on Clay’s armrest of his easy chair and
listened as they chatted about ablative engines and thrust chambers. I kept a semi-fascinated
expression pasted to my face, as I wondered what the heck they were talking
about. I’ve become used to these over-my-head conversations over the last two
years of writing about Clay, but usually I interrupt for clarification. His
history is very interesting to me because I get to document his entire life. As
I excused myself I heard the general ask Clay what he thought that bubble was
that had formed on the nozzle of the Soyuz engine. Clay eagerly jumped into the
analytical discussion.
The simple task of moving from one hotel to another (downtown)
turned into a fiasco of driving in circles. Apparently they’ve changed the
freeway system and how the ramps are configured. I lost track of how many times
Clay said, “This doesn’t look anything like it used to!” We finally managed to
get on a surface street. I’m sorry if you are one of the people who designed the
highway system in Houston, but they’re horrible.
But it was all better when we arrived at the Hyatt Regency
downtown. That’s an impressive hotel. Giant. The elevators have glass windows,
so going to the 28th floor was like being on an amusement park ride.
Clay got an upgrade to a fancy suite almost as big as my house.
Joe and I went
for a walk in the subterranean passageways winding through the downtown area. That
was super cool. They even have stores down there and a food court. The only
glitch in our transition to downtown is Clay left his iphone at the last hotel.
At 5:30 Joe and I descended to the lobby. We’d transformed
ourselves from our usual scruffy look to fancy-pants. Joe looked stunning in
his tux and I felt quite elegant in my purple velvet dress. Clay arrived
fashionably late in his tux and we checked into the 33rd annual RNASA
Gala. This is the who’s-who in the space industry.
We followed the crowd
(over 500 people) down to the lobby to continue the party. That’s when Joe lost
his credit card. I found it on the floor after half an hour of panic. I crawled
into bed around midnight like an exhausted toddler. Today we still couldn’t
locate Clay’s phone and he was struggling to keep a positive attitude… so I
started teasing him about it… I’ve read somewhere that helps. My punishment for
harassing an octogenarian was to forget my fanny pack and my passport at
security-checkpoint. I recovered it, thank goodness.
We lounged around the AA Admirals
Club for several hours and headed over to our gate. That’s when I can happily
say we concluded our adventure on a happy note. The first hotel called me to
tell me they found Clay’s phone.
Now all we have to do is land in Sacramento and get our limousine
ride home. What a memorable trip! Something to remember forever. I only wish my
dad was alive, so I could tell him all about it!
No comments:
Post a Comment