(Ed. Note: On Feb. 20, 1962, Astronaut John H. Glenn Jr. became
the first American to orbit the Earth in his Friendship 7 space
capsule. Glenn circled the Earth three times; the flight lasted four
hours and 55 minutes. Forty-six years later, Dick Gregg recalls what
that moment meant to him and how Glenn is still America’s hero.)
However you measure a man, he was larger than life. John
Glenn first came to my teenage attention as a standout among his
spacesuited peers on the black and white cover of Life Magazine.
He was, to me, the last classic and authentic hero. Just a kid, long
ago, I was thumbing the glossy publication at our farm on Galveston
Bay. I recall the magazine and exactly where I was sitting in an old
white porch swing to this day. That man was impressive. I watched
his historic solo flight on the TV in the student lounge at University
of Texas Law School. The constant games of 42 and hearts came to a
standstill like the hearts of all Americans. We were proud again after
the Russian Sputnik had rattled our cages.
I remember walking near Bates Hall at UT when the news of
the Russian satellite triumph caught us all by surprise, just like the
assassination of JFK did later over by Littlefield Fountain and later
still when the rifle shots of Charles Whitman from the Texas tower
jarred our senses as I was finishing my last year of law school. My
wife was in range but inside at her desk as secretary to the Dean of
Student Life. I had gone home for a sandwich, so I saw it on the news.
John Glenn’s flight was an uplifting moment of pride for us all during
a time of worry about the future of our society.
I moved to this area in 1965 and started a family. There were splash
down parties at all the local hotels (Nassau Bay Hotel and Holiday
Inn and King’s Inn). Everyone was young and almost everyone had
moved here from somewhere else, far away from the influence and
supervision of familiar swaddling and moderating cultures and home
town establishments, far from mothers and grandmothers, teachers
and preachers. From out of the west came the thundering hoof
beats of the damnedest public keg party any of us had ever seen.
We were wide-eyed huddled masses out on the town. Animal House
was child’s play. Splish-splash, we had our dancing shoes on. Many a
marriage came unhinged. Many a cocktail was consumed. It was the
’60s and no one had yet faced mortality. We collectively planned to
live forever.
Many of the first astronauts lived in Timber Cove subdivision in
Taylor Lake Village. John Glenn lived there. So did Jim Lovell and
they were high profile but accessible and very nice men. Perhaps we
took them for granted, but they were revered. They still are. Most
of them, John and Annie included, stayed hitched as good role models
should do, while America changed horses from fault to no
fault divorce, from Ozzy and Harriet to Ike and Tina Turner. Karen
Carpenter turned out to be anorexic, but John Glenn stayed true to
form and shipshape.
We came of age and rose to maturity as they aged with remarkable
stability before our eyes. Like Sam Houston, Chief of the Cherokees,
President of the Republic of Texas and finally as U.S. Senator, John
Glenn went on to the United States Senate from a colorful heroic
beginning to a fitting national end. There were always symbols of
their past around in photos but there was never any doubt about
whether the man or the costume was controlling the image (one
wore a feathered headdress costume and the other wore a spacesuit).
Either of them could step out of costume and still be a super hero
at will. The borders of the books and magazines simply could not
contain them – nothing could. John Glenn distinguished himself in
all that he did. At a time when we may pre-purchase a trip before
long in a spaceship, he is the one with whom we all would ride the
Milky Way.
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