Our dear friends from New Hampshire had their final summer family getaway (kids go back to school in New Hampshire after Labor Day) this past week,  as they visited our Nation’s capitol.  Carrie, my dear wife,  got a text message about all their visiting of the major highlights one looks to explore when one is in Washington, DC.

One of the places they visited was Arlington National Cemetery.

I have visited Arlington National Cemetery a couple of times.  It is one the most sobering places on the planet, if you were to ask me.

The Tomb of the Unknown Soldier and the Changing of the Guard are significant moments on hallowed of hallowed ground.

Arlington is also the place where John F. Kennedy is buried and you can see the “Eternal Flame” at his grave site.  JFK was about space exploration, wasn’t he?

All the history of Arlington can’t begin to be touched with what little space and time we have here.  I can, however, convey here that I was once moved beyond the words I will try to type as I complete this post on speaktherights.com.

It was the 2nd day of April, 1997.  I was co-co-leader of a school trip to Washington.  I was in charge of a group of four parents that were in charge of four or five students.  I was in a supervisory role.  When not supervising, I was site-seeing and had a great deal of time to do so.

I remember it like it was yesterday.  The cherry blossoms were in full bloom.  It was a lovely clear, sunny day.  Later that night, I would observe the flourishing tale of Comet Hale-Bopp floating above the Jefferson Memorial looking like it belonged there .  In the afternoon I witnessed the changing of the guard at the tomb of the unknown soldier.  It was so still I think  I heard sounds I have not heard before or since.

When I left the tomb, I walked down a side of a small hill it seems….and happened upon something I was not prepared for.  It was the marker that paid tribute to some astronauts.  I was face to marker with the Space Shuttle Challenger Memorial.  It was as if I ran into my part of my past head-on.

I was a high school senior strutting down the hallway that January 28, 1986 day.  In a few months I would be a high school graduate.  I was met in the hallway by my buddy, Virgil Ragland.  Virg knew I paid closer attention to the space program than most.  He knew I had not heard.  His look was bothersome.  He then told me that the Space Shuttle Challenger had blown up 73 seconds into its attempted flight.  I was done for the day.

That was a tough time for a country not used to watching the news and seeing wars being full of US troops and air planes.

I wrote the following words some time after the Challenger disaster, as I was reflecting on the effect the tragedy had:

“Spirits, if not broken, were certainly bent.”

This many years later, I don’t have a phrase that can add to that.  When I think about it, it still makes me very sad.  That would be a start of a senior high school semester that would see more heartache as graduation loomed, including car accidents and the death of a classmate three days before graduation.

As  I was sitting at my desk at the school where I worked in 2001,   I was reading a story about the Space Shuttle Challenger’s fifteenth anniversary; the article made some points about what could have helped.  That’s hindsight for you.  So often too much too little too late…but now we know.

After reading that article, I came home and got my guitar out.  I wrote the following song:

The Sky Looks Much Smaller Now

The whole world can change in a minute and thirteen seconds                                                  The sky’ll never be the same… since that glare in the heavens                                                     We all watched on TV…I couldn’t cry so I screamed…

Hey you up there…can you hear me now?                                                                                       Hey you you’ve challenged everything                                                                                                 Hey you up there…can you hear me now                                                                                           And the sky looks…                                                                                                                               Yeah the sky looks…                                                                                                                             The sky looks….much smaller now

I was senior in high school another man of steel just like all my friends                                         Until the day it happened…felt like the beginning of the end                                                              We all watched on TV… I couldn’t cry but I screamed….

Hey you up there…can you hear me now?                                                                                       Hey you you’ve challenged everything                                                                                                 Hey you up there…can you hear me now                                                                                           And the sky looks…                                                                                                                               Yeah the sky looks…                                                                                                                             The sky looks….much smaller now

If we believe all we have heard, the space shuttle era is over as far as NASA is concerned.

I wish this country still had a stated goal larger than the planet we are spinning on.

Somberly speaking the rights.

Danny Johnson