Just Some Storytelling and Happy Easter Everyone!

Greetings and Salutations!
Just a short one tonight.
In addition to the Challenger Disaster and my slight connection via my fren in High School and his cousin and the absolute horror that he saw while being a Coastie Rescue diver on that mission… there’s another close connection I have.

In this case it’s from Little Country, my partner in crime for about 20+ years. Unfortunately due to circumstances and some other stuff I won’t go into unfortunately we’re no longer on speaking terms. Middle Country and I are still tight, but L.C.? Notsomucho.

An interesting fact or two to begin with. L.C. was born and raised in the Bayou in Louisiana. Half Cajun on his pappy’s side, when I first met him, at Christmastime First Wife and I went over to his rented house in Copperas Cove while we stationed at “The Hood”. His front lawn had, no shit, a pirogue with Santa in the cockpit, being pulled by 12 little wooden cutout Gators, all painted up with lights and the whole nine yards.

Middle Country is ALSO a ‘ragin’ Cajun’ from Louisiana… he’s a retire Command Sergeant Major who used to run the NCO academy for the Guard and Reserve back in the day…

No idea why, but two of my closest brothers in arms for the Afghanistan/Iraqi time, were both Cajuns…
Worked for me…
Fuckers know how to cook that’s for damned sure…

Yeah…
Anyone north of I-10 was a goddamned Yankee.
Me?
Despite my extreme Northern birth both Middle and Little took me for what I was, which according to Middle was “”Welllll Big Country, when he was born, it was like that ole looney tune cartoon with that drunk stork… a good ole Soth’ron boy got unfortunately dropped up off in the North, and some poor damned Yankee-baby was prolly dropped in the deep south… B.C. is just here reclaiming what –should– have been his birthright!”

I’ll have to agree.
Never did fit in up there, and down here?
I’m definitely home if’n you will.

So here’s the thing about L.C. His dad? Well to look at him, he’s a short, white haired, bowlegged, bum-looking ‘old dude’ who gives off a vibe of ‘too many years/too many beers’… Cigarette stain ‘stache… hard hands with a lot of callouses… a man who know and appreciated hard work.

Now… here’s the kicker.
NEVER judge a book by it’s cover.
The man had more doctoral degrees than I can even count, and knew Dr. Willy Ley… Yeah… that Dr. Ley… the guy who helped essentially (pardon the pun) the modern space age via his writing and research. He also worked with Werner Von Braun, and I’ve seen a pic of L.C. being held by him when he was (L.C.) a toddler around 1973+/- from back in the day…

Wild right?

I once sat down with Scottie and he blew me away. I mean the guy looks like a dude who’d be asking you for spare change on a subway right? Ball cap… torn up jeans that’re ripped all-to-Hell… the guy just ‘didn’t look the part’…

At L.C.’s wedding in Costa Rica I got quite a few stories about the various “Oh Shit” incidents that NASA had during the Space Shuttle program, as Scottie was one of their -go-to’ guys for problem solving. Like how he had to go on eBay to find pieces/parts to ‘upgrade’ the remaining shuttle fleet after the Columbia Disaster…

Seems that was actually S.O.P. as the means of printing a board, or I should say the equipment that the company who originally built the Space Shuttle(s), namely North American Rockwell had, after completing the ‘run’ of the build(s), had shut down and sold off the ‘stuff’ you needed to make replacement parts.

Scottie used to have to chase down pieces/parts to do upgrades and whatnot. He worked out of Stennis and Huntsville for the most part, trying to “…avoid that damned Florida pestilence!”

Guy is (was? not sure since I lost contact if he’s kicking) one of the more fascinating Hoomons I’ve ever met. An absolute case of not judging a boot by it’s cover for sure.

So otherwise, just a wee bit of a wander down memory lane.
I’m still trying to make sense of the “rescue” (which is most NOT making any sense) so we’ll see

I have that detector that’s positively screaming at me:

DEEP in the red..
And as I get more intel, and chew it over, we’ll talk.

So Happy Easter!
More Later
Big Country