A Common Pornography: A Memoir

Space Shuttle

We went to California once in a motor home to see a space shuttle land. One of my half brothers, Russell, was stationed at Edwards Air Force Base and that’s where it was supposed to land. We went to some kind of NASA museum that morning before this “historic event” was to occur. Dad bought a black baseball-style cap with NASA in yellow letters on it. It was really hot out there by the landing strip and there were hundreds of people around with cameras and umbrellas. People were taking scissors and cutting the sleeves off their T-shirts. Dad got carried away and cut the whole top of his new cap off.

“My head’s gotta breathe,” he said. Everyone thought it was foolish, even Mom, who kind of snorted at him and said it looked silly.

We felt sorry for Dad and I think he felt sorry for himself too, because after a couple of hours he took it off and put it in the motor home.

The space shuttle landed without a hitch, but we couldn’t see anything with all the people there. Later that day, I saw the cap in the motor home’s trash bag.