Last night, I decided to arise at 4 A.M, to observe a predicted meteor shower from the patio behind my house. I tried to coax my wife into joining me, but she said, “If you wake me up with this nonsense, I will kill you!”
So, at 4:00, I crept quietly out of bed, and headed to the kitchen to warm up a cup of coffee to take outside. The air temperature was about 14 degrees F. and I pulled my parka tightly around my neck. I wondered briefly if I should also put on my tinfoil hat in case one of those pesky UFOs’ tried to sneak into the atmosphere amid the blazing streaks in the nighttime sky. Upon reflection, I decided that I was relatively safe, ensconced in my mountain hideaway, so I went outside and sat down in a chair to observe this spectacular display. When I was a boy, Salt Lake City had a total of 200,000 citizens, and you could look up at the sky and see a blazing canopy of stars. My father spent much time teaching me the constellations that we could see, and the legends behind each one. Today, Salt Lake Valley has a population of over one million, and the stars to the west of my home are washed out by the glowing lights stretched from horizon to hiorizon. However, to the east, though rimmed by mountain crags, I could see the sky in all of its splendor, and after an hour of careful watching with craned neck, I counted a grand total of FOUR sizable meteors streaking by briefly as they hit the atmosphere at 40,000 miles per hour; hardly worth the effort.
But the freezing air and hot coffee warming my hands was an enjoyable contrast. As I squinted at the nighttime sky, my mind drifted to thoughts of the ISS space station, and I wondered if the astronauts were in any danger from the debris. Suddenly, I was envious of their ability to observe the meter shower through the big bay windows of the module that was attached to the station. What a view it must be to see them from above hitting the atmosphere! This reminded me of my time in the Air Force, when some missions required my presence on a B-52 flying near 60,000 feet altitude. In full daylight, at that height, you could look down at the earth and see the earth much as an astronaut does, but as you raised your eyes above the glowing ground and clouds far below, the blue slit of atmosphere at the horizon faded into a purple haze and then further up, to the blackness of nighttime and twinkling stars. The vision took my breath away with its beauty, and is one of my most cherished memories.
