Have You Heard the Buzz?

I have a new book to tell you about. It’s been a while since I’ve read a book that I’ve gotten excited over just by reading the title.

The book is by Buzz Aldrin, the astronaut, and is called, No Dream is Too High: Life Lessons From a Man Who Walked on the Moon.

As I said, the title alone intrigued me enough to buy the book. The title, No Dream is Too High, speaks to me because it’s something I not only believe in, but try to live by.

For those of you who, like me, are older than Stonehenge, you know that Buzz Aldrin was among the original astronauts picked by NASA. Unlike Neil Armstrong and others who were former test pilots and therefor the preferred candidates for NASA, Buzz Aldrin was a fighter pilot, having shot down MiGs in Korea. Once in the space program, Aldrin piloted Gemini 12 and set a world record for spacewalking. Tethered to the spacecraft, he floated in space for five and a half hours while traveling 17,500 miles an hour. In 1969, Buzz Aldrin, Neil Armstrong, and Mike Collins flew Apollo 11 to the moon. First Neil, then Buzz, took the now historic first steps on the surface of the moon.

I love reliving and delving further into that exciting time in our history, but I also appreciate the tone of the book. Each chapter is a life lesson Buzz has learned. Here are some of his thirteen chapter titles: The sky is not the limit . . . there are footprints on the Moon!/ Keep your mind open to possibilities/  Maintain your spirit of adventure/ Laugh . . . a lot!/ Keep a young mind-set at every age/ Help others go beyond where you have gone. And then there’s one chapter called Failure is Always an Option. In this chapter, his theory is if you haven’t failed, you haven’t tried something new. If you don’t fail, you don’t learn and grow.

What have you failed at?

I went skydiving at age sixty and landed face down in the dirt with the instructor laying on my back. Embarrassing? Oh, you bet. Did it take the thrill off the experience? Not the slightest bit.

I flew in a hot air balloon alongside the Rockies and the pilot crash landed our gondola basket into a hillside. Not exactly a text book landing. I would go again in a heartbeat.

I went snorkeling at Cabo San Lucas, panicked, and had to get back in the boat. A few years later, I snorkeled in Hawaii and was glad I hadn’t given up on the whole idea.

You could paper my office with rejection slips I’ve received from submitting articles and books over the years. Does that stop me from writing and submitting? Ha! Not on your life.

How high do you dream? Do you want something badly enough to let yourself fail?

I highly suggest you buy No Dream is Too High by Buzz Aldrin. It includes pictures and a terrific insight into the life of one of our country’s heroes. Read, among other tidbits, how he prepared himself for space walking, how he got moon dust on his knees, and the cute story of how he got the name Buzz.

Quote of the Day: That’s one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind.  Neil Armstrong

 

 

 

 

Do I Stay or Do I Go?

A big wind blew through North Carolina this week. Weather in North Carolina is taken very seriously. It makes me think the forecasters are all former San Diegans and now that there’s actual weather to report, they pull out all the stops. Starting Tuesday night, the weather reporters began predicting tornadoes for Wednesday. My daughter Cyndi called and suggested I pack an overnight bag and go down to her house Wednesday to ride out the storm so I wouldn’t be home alone when my house was blown off its foundation and sent swirling to Oz.

I thought about it Tuesday night. I thought about it more Wednesday morning. A weather girl on the radio said this was the most severe tornado alert she had heard in her eighteen years of forecasting.  I weighed the benefits of leaving versus the benefits of staying. Tornadoes weren’t the only weather patterns predicted; we were also warned to expect thunderstorms, hail, and rain. I understood Cyndi wanting me safe with her instead of up here by myself where she'd worry about me. Two years ago when we had a tornado warning, Fred was with me and we sat the storm out in the bathroom. Cyndi and I stayed on the phone with each other. Nothing happened then, and I wanted to assume nothing would happen this time.

Cyndi's House

But what if? One minute I decided to stay and watch over my valuables and go to Oz with my house; the next minute I thought it best to drive an hour south and batten down the hatches with Cyndi and her family, hoping like crazy that it’s not HER house that ends up in Oz. If I go, do I take my valuables with me? My car wouldn’t hold all the items I treasure that I don’t want to see blown into the next county.

So do I stay in Garner and worry about Cyndi, or go to Lillington and worry about my house? I opted to go. I packed a bag, left my valuables behind, and drove through the rain and wind to Cyndi’s house. As I pulled into her driveway, the sun came out giving us a balmy seventy degree day.

I got to Cyndi’s at noon and we all sat glued to the television. There was nothing on except the weather. We saw radar map after radar map after radar map showing areas of lightning, areas of hail, areas of tornadoes, areas of wind shear. Weather took over the station until well into the night. Forget Jeopardy, there’s weather outside!

We did get some rain squalls and could hear the wind howling once in a while, but nothing that resembled a tornado. I brought something to read but by late afternoon the lights flickered and the power went out. By the time Cyndi got oil in all her hurricane lamps, the power came back on. We watched the forecasters track the tornado as it headed toward Garner and Raleigh. All I could do was sit there, pray, and wonder what was happening with my home. I emailed my neighbor and, thankfully, she wrote back that my house was still intact.  
 

Yesterday morning I drove back home to find everything just as I left it. The bird feeder was still hanging and the plastic benches were still sitting on my porches. I, along with my belongings, survived to see another day and to wait for the next weather hiccup. 

Now I have a question for you. We use terms like last week and last year, last month, and even last hour. But then we say “yesterday” instead of last day. What the heck does yester mean?

 Quote of the Day: The answer, my friend, is blowin’ in the wind. Bob Dylan