•   The latest space shuttle launch is on channel nine. I turn the volume up so I can just barely feel the buffeting of the fiery, indigo and crimson flames beneath my feet. The space shuttle has not yet taken flight; NASA’s audio technicians haven’t even started the infamous countdown. I see a light cloud of smoke enveloping itself in the flickering flames and imagine the billowy contour of cotton trailing behind the engines.

               As the space shuttle is about to launch, you can see small bits of sediment and gravel bouncing about; it is as though the gravel is dancing to celebrate the shuttle’s departure.  At the right angle, and the right positioning of the sun, the layer of the silica, ceramic tiles can nearly make you a blind man. The most enthralling part of the space shuttle launch centers around the antagonizing seconds of the countdown: “3…2…1…” If you don’t know what to look for in the few milliseconds after the countdown, the shuttle launch will seem like an ambiguous moment in your memory, which might as well not been had.

              When you anticipate “the launch,” of a space shuttle, your eyes must be focused on the ground below, as you can see the asphalt and the earth vibrate side to side. Otherwise, the image of the shuttle levitating from ground to space will be lost in an illusion of smoke and sand, as will your first sight of the space shuttle. It’s difficult to do this at first, when you look back up, to face the space shuttle, you may look to soon or too late: lose the space shuttle in its contrail or its flame and smoke.

              Some years, when the rains have been parched or the hurricane season hasn’t yet spawned any revolving Cumulonimbus patterns, you can await the launch of the space shuttle on a cloudless, sunny day. The space shuttle will launch in the prime of the morning, the Waning Gibbous moon still awake to watch. The weather is just right: the ground still crisp with dew and seventy degree morning air.

    As children, we didn’t always wait for daylight to gawk at the launch. We would spring out our lawn chairs and scurry to Cape Canaveral.

    The wait is tedious: nothing less of boring. However, as more people pile in, behind the cross-hatched, metal fence, the premonition of what is to come sets in. Your legs start shaking and you feel as if you must run a lap or two to get this anxiety “out of your system.” You hear the tension, the awe, the shiver as it crawls down your neck to your lumbar, while the crowd closes in closer and closer, until they are plastered against the fence.

    You rise to your feet, your hand grasps your binoculars, and your heart loses all sense of rhythm as it palpitates. But you dare not look away, as to keep all contact towards the shuttle as you admire it disappearing past its contrail and competency. At night, your mother brings you a book of space shuttles, which she says is far less tiresome than a day watching a space shuttle launch in the peak of summer. That’s when you realize you should get your rest, although, still, you dream of becoming the most promising astrophysicist.

    I saw my last space shuttle launch a month before we left Florida. It wasn’t delayed, the smoke was minimal, and it was so exquisite that I never wanted to leave my spot in that lawn chair because I thought I would forget that sight. Along the long drive across the country, I would recall that day’s events: waking up before the sun, picking the perfect spot to sit and wait, growing apprehensive as the countdown begins, being awestruck by the sight of the shuttle moving farther and farther away.

    Today, I sit in front on the television program covering the details before the launch of the space shuttle. The approaching countdown is tempting. It reminds me slightly of summers in Cape Canaveral and hardly being able to catch some shuteye on the night before the launch. But this is summer in Illinois, and I am no longer a child.

    The countdown has already begun, “10...9...8,” and crowd is rowdy with cheers and shouts. I take the remote control and change the channel, those dreams of becoming a astrophysicist are behind me, and the desires to grow up are sprawled out before me.