April 29, 2021 at 12:26AM Few people think about the time Michael Collins didn’t go to the moon. Collins, who died of cancer on April 28 at age 90, is best remembered as Apollo 11’s command module pilot—in some ways the unluckiest man on the luckiest mission of all time. It was Apollo 11 that, in the summer of 1969, stuck the first crewed lunar landing, taking Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin down to the surface, while Collins, bless him, stayed aloft in the command module orbiting 60 miles above, keeping his uniform clean and white while his crewmates got dirty on the endless gray beach that is the moon. All three men got the credit, all three got the parades and the medals and the world tour and the TV appearances. But Armstrong and Aldrin were the two truly limned in the light of history. Collins? Well, said many, his was a yeoman’s job. It wasn’t, of course, but never mind. History had other plans for Collins, and in some ways he had already made his mark—a much subtle...
April 16, 2021 at 04:30PM We heard about the storm a week before the rains. Manny figured they wouldn’t be a problem. Jae disagreed. The news called it a minor inconvenience—a flash flood at most—but we’d learned not to lean too deep into forecasts. In the morning, Houston felt sticky. Our heels slapped across the floorboards. We plodded around the house, yawning and stretching and tugging at our boxers. Manny went straight for the vegetable garden, but Jae took his time with breakfast, stirring a pan of eggs, slipping everything inside pieces of toast. Between mouthfuls of sandwich, he swore we’d end up packing everything growing out back anyway—there wasn’t really a point to tending them now. Our state’s seen 11 straight years of record-breaking hurricanes. Houston’s caught like eight of them. And even though the government calls it cyclical, locals know better. Rains start earlier. Winds only ever increase. If you’re in the Loop, then you’ll likely end up halfway und...
Comments
Post a Comment