I was at my home office in Amarillo, Texas that cold Panhandle morning. I had let my employees off that day, it had been a slow week, and business had been down. Plus, as I told my wife Lauretta that morning, that I had a nagging ill feeling, and needed some time alone.
I was worried about a friend of mine. In high school he and I had built a model of a Saturn 5 Estes rocket model. We launched it in a church parking lot in front of my grandmothers house ( where I used to live a few years growing up just a few miles from my office) at 4612 Buffalo Trail, and it arked over to the west (yes, I know, we were irresponsible 15/16 year olds but with a zeal for rocketry that over ruled common sense).
We could see it descend and I drove my car (1966 Chev Impala, I had a hardship license and was older than my friend) and found the remains. It had impacted on the roof of a two story house. As we collected the remnants of our model, the wife of the house, came out and berated us as being 'irresponsible" (which we were) and that we would never amount to anything.
Back to the after the "event".
The City of Amarillo decided to rename the Airport from the "Amarillo International Airport" to the "Rick Husband International Airport".
The whole family and friends were there to commemorate the event, to honor the local boy who was the Commander of the Space Shuttle mission who lost his life in the pursuit of the career he loved.
At the presentation stage at the airport, this little old lady approached me ( I had been asked by the family and Ricks wife Helen to be there), looked up at me, and said "Mr Gordzelik, years ago I told you and Astronaut Husband when you were kids that you would never amount to anything. I was wrong. I am so sorry for your loss". She was the woman whose house Rick and I had impacted with our model.
What could I do? I stepped off that stage and hugged her as hard as she hugged me.
Several years later, I was doing workshops at Texas Tech University in the Engineering dept teaching rocketry to high school teachers. There was pictures of Rick in the halls on various missions in space. I had my high school annual there, where Rick had signed "Pat, I'll send you pictures from space. 1972."
Pat G