Monday, September 12, 2005

Challenges

Armadillo Creek Public Schools consisted of an elementary, which ran from kindergarten up through sixth grade, and a high school, which was seventh on up to twelfth grade. Junior High was seventh through ninth grades, and Senior High was the upper three grades. The high school, Junior and Senior, was all housed in the same building, with the exception of any agriculture and shop classes, which had their own building.

Johnny Miller was in his ninth grade English class on the morning of January, 28th, 1986. Pencils were scraping, stories being told, lessons being taught. The teacher told a story of being at home, alone, just out in the pool, playing with herself, (and at this point, the classroom erupted into fits of giggling as dirty-minded ninth graders purposely misinterpreted her memories). The rest of the story was unremarkable, and at a few minutes till eleven, there was a soft tap on the door, and the English teacher was called out, into the hallway, by the high school principal.

When she came back in, she was pale, trembling, and had to find a seat to steady herself, before she addressed the class. “The space shuttle…. is gone.” Although Johnny’s class had not watched the liftoff, they all knew it was time for a historic flight, and the first school teacher ever was being taken into space, as part of the "Teacher in Space" program, aboard the Space Shuttle Challenger. Christa McAuliffe’s name would be forever etched into Johnny Miller’s memory.

In the hours and days following, Johnny would hear many hours of continuing coverage, watch the footage as the space shuttle lifted up, almost out of sight, and then, two, then three plumes of smoke drifted apart in the sky. At first, there was hope that survivors would be located in the Atlantic, somehow, but soon, that hope was given up.

Johnny Miller was happy, living in a small town. He had never really dreamed of being an astronaut, although the notion was a good one, and he rather thought he’d enjoy it. This event had a sobering impact upon his classmates, for a day or two. The hallways were abuzz with talk of the explosion, and what it might mean to them, someday.

But, following so closely upon his own father’s death, by only about two and a half months, it must have had a lasting impact upon his future personality, making the older Johnny Miller a more sober one, less eager to laugh at nonsense, or to play silly video games. He was at a point in his life, where the odd jobs he had always somehow found – well, they were putting some food on the table, now. He would still spend some, here and there, upon himself.

But the events of the past few months, along with the fact that he was growing physically, would transform Johnny Miller from the innocent youngster of his childhood, into a more sober person, who identified much more quickly with older people, instead of those his own age.

By the time he was in the eleventh or twelfth grades, he was working after school, and on weekends, and didn’t stop too often to just “have fun”. He would miss his high school prom, not having a girl friend and not really feeling like going “stag”. He would continue to do well, academically, in school, although probably not up to his potential, and when his high school class eventually graduated, he was fifth out of forty-three students.

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