Snow Day
I could see the snow falling from the window of my bedroom, before I even stepped out of bed. Ashy tree limbs were already being weighed down by this first snow of the season.
“Seymour, Stamford, Stratford, Trumbull…” I snapped off the radio on my night table, as the announcer confirmed my most fervent wish: snow day! I pulled the covers gleefully to my chin as I considered how to spend my free day. I could finish Sweet Valley High #12 and start #13, or challenge my sister to a Go Fish card tournament. I would make macaroni and cheese on the stove and baby hot dogs in the toaster. Our mess-averse mother would be going to work, so what she didn’t know wouldn’t hurt her. Snow days held delicious possibilities for a fourteen year old.
After a morning of watching The Sound of Music for the hundredth time, I made lunch for Amy and myself, boiling the tiny macaroni from the blue box, cutting butter and measuring out milk, and finally sprinkling in that utterly orange packet of powder . We ladeled big ceramic bowls of the steaming fluorescent concoction for ourselves, and carefully brought our food to the family room to eat in front of the television—a forbidden delight. We settled into the deep brown velvet couch –our mother really didn’t like dirt--and Amy went back to the kitchen to make us hot chocolate. I flipped through all thirteen channels before deciding on As the World Turns. I was fairly bored by soap operas, but fascinated by the actress’ makeup. Their faces looked like palettes to me: blank slates on which artists could color, shade, line, gloss and brush. The effect was dramatic and reminded me of the charcoal drawings we did in art class.
Amy came back with two mugs, clanking them down noisily on the large tinted-glass coffee table, spilling some of the sweet brown liquid. I made a note to clean it up later, as we settled back with our perfect snow-day lunch, discussing our afternoon sledding plans.
As the world turned on our TV, our regularly scheduled program was interrupted by the exciting news of a rocket launch from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. The Space Shuttle Challenger was notable because there was a “civilian” on board the spacecraft—a teacher from North Carolina. While I couldn’t relate to astronauts, a teacher was different. I had a feeling that I wanted to be a teacher someday, and the prospect of one in space fascinated me. Christa McAuliffe. Her name already felt legendary to me. In the pictures, her eyes looked kind and I bet she was the kind of teacher who made school fun for her students. Along with her were six other astronauts, who would accompany her into space, all donning bright orange spacesuits with the NASA logo emblazoned across the front. I watched video footage from minutes earlier, as the Seven walked down the runway toward the Challenger, holding their helmets at their sides. They were all smiling, looking calm and composed. I imagined that their unruffled demeanor belied a bubbling excitement underneath. I leaned forward and put my bowl down on the coffee table to watch history unfold, live, as NASA launched the spacecraft for the world to see.
“Tee minus 10,9,8,7,6…we have main engine start…4, 3, 2, 1, lift-off! Lift off of the 25th space shuttle mission and it has cleared the tower.” The announcer’s voice rose on the second “lift off” and I could hear the exhilaration in his voice. I watched as the shuttle launched powerfully into the clear blue sky, a nimble dolphin leaping from the water, rotating slowly, at once heavy and graceful. I remember feeling amazed at how this profoundly dense machine could move so delicately, so purposefully towards the heavens. I was mesmerized. I kept imagining how Christa the schoolteacher felt, looking out the shuttle window, watching the earth become smaller and smaller.
Then, 73 seconds later, the graceful arc turned into a hellish dive, right in front of my eyes. The spectacular scene became at once horrific, as the beautiful flying machine exploded into debris, dust, and fire; a mass of cloud spewing two snaky white plumes on either side. I didn’t know what was happening. Amy looked to me for an explanation, her blue eyes wide with alarm and confusion.
“What happened? Are the astronauts going to die?”
At the time, I actually imagined that they might not. The sophisticated spacecraft had to have an eject button that could catapult the astronauts to safety. I imagined that later that night, they would be found, maybe hurt and tangled up in a parachute in the middle of the woods somewhere, but alive. That hope was quickly dashed by the newscasters. The six astronauts and one “civilian” were dead. I didn’t understand why the newscasters kept making that distinction between astronaut and civilian; to me, seven people had just been killed. Just 73 seconds earlier, seven families who had been gazing upwards with pride and triumph were now watching the sky in despair and anguish. From my living room, I felt their devastation.
I was supposed to be in school that cold day in January, watching a film about eastern aboriginal tribes or learning algebra or making charcoal drawings. Instead I had a snow day and I watched a soap opera that got interrupted by a tragedy.
