1996: Challenger

Ten years ago today the space shuttle Challenger exploded. I was a first-year seminary student in the midst of Biblical Hebrew class when it happened. I remember watching the network coverage of the aftermath of the accident all afternoon long, taking a break only long enough to eat dinner before returning to my room and the TV. I ended up watching the coverage until past midnight, turning off the TV only after ABC's Nightline program on which Ted Koppel and Isaac Asimov (I think; him or Ray Bradbury) expounded upon the meaning of the tragedy. It was only after I turned off the TV that I realized that I had been "hearing" music in the back of my mind all day long but hadn't paid any attention to it. Now, with the TV silent, I finally paid attention to the tune in my head...and the hair on the back of my neck stood on end as I recognized just what song my mind had quietly pulled up with which to deal with the tragedy:

    Early in the morning sunlight
    Soaring on the wings of dawn
    Here I'll live and die with my wings in the sky
    And I won't come down no more

    Higher than the birds I'm flying
    Crimson skies of ice and fire
    Borne on wings of steel, I have so much to feel
    And I won't come down no more

    Sail on, sail on
    I will rise each day to meet the dawn
    So high, so high
    I've climbed the mountains of the sky
    Without my wings, you know I'd surely die
    I found my freedom flying high
    I've climbed the mountains of the sky

    Floating on a cloud of amber
    Searching for the rainbow's end
    Earth so far below me; I'm here alone
    And I won't come down no more

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