Remembering John Glenn

John Glenn died today at the age of 95.  I'm happy that he lived to such a good age. I honestly hadn't thought much about John Glenn over the last few years but there was a time when he was quite an influence in our lives. I never knew him personally you understand but for four years, while our children were in elementary school, we lived near New Concord, Ohio, the home of John Glenn. If we had stayed longer in Ohio (if my husband had stayed longer at his job with NCR) our children would have attended John Glenn High School. As it was, New Concord, a lovely college town, was very proud of their native son, and rightly so. Astronauts and space exploration were big topics of conversation in the kid's classrooms and elsewhere.  It was from a friend there that I first learned about Space Camp in Huntsville, AL.  From the first week that my son attended Space Camp we were all hooked on the Space Camp experience. Our son and his sister attended the camp for several years.  Then each of them went on to spend time as a counselor there. My son now teaches at the Air Force education program for 5th graders called Star Base where the students spend an intensive week studying science with a heavy emphasis on things space related while my daughter serves in the Air National Guard. When I think about this I realize that John Glenn and his fellow early astronauts really were a big influence in our family and I'm glad they were. It's good to realize that my children had such fine heroes.