Soapbox

July 7th, 1997

So I’ve got this kid…and he really wanted a model rocket to play with. The trouble was, since he is 37 years old, he felt kind of silly buying it for himself, so he bought it for our son.

I, quite frankly, was not entirely sure that the little kid would be quite as gung-ho on rockets as the big kid was, since he tends to be rather overly concerned about things being dangerous. I guess that learning archery and B-B target shooting at Cub Scout Camp has helped him get over that, though, because he seemed to like the idea just fine.

Yesterday he and his Dad covered the kitchen table with newspaper and put the model together. Then we all piled into the car and drove around looking for a suitable field for the maiden voyage. It was decided that the field behind a local elementary school would do fine, and the rocket was sucessfully launched.
The first two flights used little "B" engines, but for the third launch it was decided (by Dad, of course) to power-up to the "C" size. I took pictures of Stephen standing proudly beside his rocket on the launch tower, Stephen operating the ignition controls and the two kids holding the pieces of the rocket they had retrieved after they floated gently to earth.
Unfortunately I ran out of film before I could get a shot of us all standing under a tree at the edge of the field, pointing up 35 feet into the foliage where the parachute took the rocket after the third, full-power launch.
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