Dad

I finally got to move fully into my office.  There were delays in getting furniture and a computer.  So today was the first day I got to be in there the whole day and hang stuff on the walls.  

I got to hang this Space Shuttle Poster up in my office.  It was the first thing I hung up.  This poster has been hanging at my parents house since I was in 2nd grade.  Remember book orders?  I got one when I was in Mrs. Decker’s class and there was a Space Shuttle poster that I had to have.  I think it was a dollar.  After much begging and pleading, Mom ordered it for me.  When it came in Dad and I made a frame for it and it hung in my bedroom for years.

My Dad is the reason I have this job.  He’s the reason I am who I am.  That same year when we went to Disney World for vacation, we also went to Kennedy Space Center and got to see a shuttle on the pad.  I also counted a whole bunch of alligators while on the bus tour.  Dad took us to Civil War battlefields and museums.  He used to have Fridays off in the summer and we would hit every museum within a hundred miles.  He found out when they had animatronic dinosaurs at the museum in Lawrence Kansas.  Him and I stood in the rain at the crater in Petersburg Virginia, and got lost in a battlefield when he let my brother navigate.  We went to air shows and he only got a little mad when I put a dirty wash rag into the cooler of cold water. Through him I learned to love science and history and museums.  

Cool kids at an air show.

Civil War reenactment at school (Dad didn't really dress up that much)

Taking pictures of Air Force One in Topeka, KS.

Kennedy Space Center

Dad has been sick for a while.  He has alzheimers.  He has good days and he has not so good days.  When I told him I was taking a job with the Smithsonian he got a huge grin on his face and said congratulations.  He’s still around, but I miss him.  I would give anything to be able to take him up and show him my office with the shuttle poster and frame he made hanging up.  

My favorite picture of me and Dad.

When I got hired for this job, one of the things I looked the most forward to was hanging that poster up in my office.  Today I did that and now something my dad made is hanging at the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum.