[ChuckDickerson]

I was born July 20, 1969, the day Neil and Buzz landed on the moon. Neil has always been my hero. I am truly saddened by the loss of such a great man. I had always hoped to meet him one day. I wasn’t sure what I wanted to say to him exactly that he hadn’t heard thousands of times before from thousands of other people, yet I still just wanted to shake his hand and tell him what an inspiration he has been to me all my life. I will never get that chance now, but I suppose, humble as he was, he already knew what an inspiration he was to all of us. I think the famous poem “High Flight” by John Gillespie Magee, Jr. is appropriate:


“Oh! I have slipped the surly bonds of Earth
And danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings;
Sunward I've climbed, and joined the tumbling mirth
Of sun-split clouds, — and done a hundred things
You have not dreamed of — wheeled and soared and swung
High in the sunlit silence. Hov'ring there,
I've chased the shouting wind along, and flung
My eager craft through footless halls of air. . . .
Up, up the long, delirious burning blue
I've topped the wind-swept heights with easy grace
Where never lark, or ever eagle flew —
And, while with silent, lifting mind I've trod
The high untrespassed sanctity of space,
Put out my hand, and touched the face of God.”



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