The Huntsville Times Columns - January 2010 - Changing History

The following column was published by the Huntsville Times on January 17, 2010. No part may be republished without the permission of the publisher.  The title has been changed to the original submission title.

I was born the son of a poor aerospace worker. We were so poor that our carport was for only a single car. We were so poor our second car was bought used. We were so poor we drove to launches at the Cape. When I tell that story I never receive any sympathy, nor should I. I was born in Huntsville, a solidly middle class Southern city that changed history during my childhood.

Like many others here, I was a NASA brat. My parents moved to Huntsville just before my birth.
My father first worked for Thiokol but soon moved over to NASA. We lived in Fleming Meadows in southeastern Huntsville, close enough to the Marshall Space Flight Center to have the ground shake under us whenever rocket boosters were tested.

As an adult I have come to appreciate that each of those man-made earthquakes was history in the making. Our parents were small parts of something big and I'm proud of that. They made the impossible possible. And in July 1969, when a small spacecraft landed on the moon, the Eagle carried not just two astronauts; all of Huntsville rode along.

My father was also a Korean War veteran. His Purple Heart and Silver Star are displayed on my den wall. If you asked him about those medals, he would only say "We took a hill. I got shot, but it was not bad so I kept going until the battle was over." Like millions of our parents he was a war veteran who helped shape our history. Like most, he did not brag about what he did.

My mother was born in Birmingham, but during World War II she lived in Oak Ridge, Tenn. Her father was a factory worker. Oak Ridge was a closed city doing military research. The factory helped create the atomic bomb, changing history forever. In 1970, my mother became one of the first women CPAs in Alabama. Because of the rules then in effect, she was able to do this before she completed her college degree. She went on to complete both her bachelor's and master's degrees. Her story was also history in the making. The role of women in the U.S. was changing and my mother was quietly (or if you knew mom - not so quietly) participating.

The point is not to brag about my family but to point out that everyday people are the ones who move history forward. In most history books we read about generals and politicians making history, but they are impotent without millions of ordinary people who do the real work. Among us are veterans of wars, the civil rights movement, of the fight against disease and poverty; ordinary people who accomplished the extraordinary believing rightly that their efforts would improve our world.

Because of my childhood in Huntsville, I'm an optimist. Our parents didn't listen to pessimists who thought that going to the moon was a fairy tale. They simply went to work. Reaching the moon was a problem to be broken down and solved. The U.S. was not built by pessimists. Our ancestors did not cross an ocean with an expectation to fail. They sought a better life and were willing to work hard together to achieve it. We now face challenges of war, recession and political differences that divide us. When I hear someone argue that the U.S. can't do something simply because it is hard, or they offer no solutions, only criticisms of those who are trying to improve things, I wonder about the hardy people who built this country. Is it that we are suffering from our success; from laziness or selfishness and simply choose not to do the hard work needed to succeed?

I grew up in Huntsville, where ordinary people did the impossible. If our parents could achieve the impossible, isn't it our turn to quit listening to the whiners and get to work?