The rector of our parish left 3 months ago to become the new Bishop of Tennessee. Today the interim rector started. It turns out that he was the priest in my childhood church in Cocoa, Florida. He taught my confirmation class. All day these very old childhood memories have been bubbling up. It is a very odd sensation.

No, he didn't completely remember me or my sister, but he did remember my mother. She is and was an odd character and is not easily forgotten. He also remembered my grandmother who attended the same church for several years after we had moved from Florida to Louisiana.

My father was in the aerospace industry and tested rocket engines. We lived in Florida from 1968-1977 while Dad worked on the Mercury, Gemini, Apollo, Apollo/COHO3, and Skylab programs. My elementary school was on the Indian River. We used to get out of class and go to the school playground to watch announced launches, both manned and unmanned. We especially liked the spy satellite launches because they were unannounced and when we heard the noise of the launch we would all run out of class to watch, completely interrupting the teaching that was occurring. I have seen several launches from the 3 mile limit, which is as close as spectators are allowed to be. I remember watching Apollo XVII from our front porch. It was a night launch that had been delayed several times. We had left the place where we were going to watch it and gone home. The launch lit up the sky like dawn and even now I remember how beautiful it was.

One of my most painful childhood memories is Apollo XIII. It was horrible. All of the kids with parents at the Cape, (and that was most of us), knew that something terrible was going on. I still remember my father coming home from work and saying that the space program was over. He had a pessimistic side to his personality. Now, when I watch the movie I weep when the parachutes and space capsule emerge through the clouds, home safe. The irony of his pessimism is that many, many of my friends' dads lost their jobs when the deep cuts occurred in the space program a few years after Apollo XIII. Dad was able to keep his job, but with a pay cut. We ate a great deal of macaroni and cheese that year, and Christmas was lean.

It wasn't until I was in my 20's that I realized not everyone had watched rocket launches from their front porch. I have not seen a shuttle launch, but I am told they are not as spectacular. The Saturn V boosters gave a good show. We always watched until the separation of the first and second stage engines because my father's company made the second stage engines and we wanted to see them fire.

We moved back to Louisiana because my father worked on shuttle engine testing at Stennis Space Center in Mississippi until his retirement. I know now on which stands the engines are being tested by whether or not I can feel the vibrations in my kitchen. My kids can't always feel it, I guess that sensing that rumble is something organic in me from all of the launches I watched, heard and felt as a child.