Past Times Remembered - the Leonids

Mom and I had a great time yesterday! We got pedicure's (hers pink, mine purple), I got new tennis shoes, packed some clothes into my spiffy new giant suitcase, and walked a dog. I helped her get some dresses down from her closet and put up a new shower curtain for her too. We were busy, busy, busy from about 11:30am 'til 6pm and I really felt like I'd had a day off for the first time in a long time. We talked and laughed and giggled, remembering this and that. I don't remember how this conversation came up but one of the best things I remembered was a meteor shower about 12 or 13 years ago.

I dug around a little bit and I think this is it. There was an unusually active Leonid meteor shower in mid-November 1994. That sounds about right but for the purposes of this anecdote it is going to be exactly right since I couldn't find anything else any closer to what I remember.

Mom had brought out snacks and she and I were laying on the deck covered up with blankets and watching the sky. Where we lived at the time (Dad's still there) was, and still is, quite rural so no streetlights were hampering our view. Just as I got comfortable, a HUGE swath of light rocketed across the portion of the open sky we could see between the trees. It looked like it was skimming the treetops and mom and I grabbed each other and screamed! I though it was going to be the end of us...it seemed that close! For the next hour or so, there were so many of these, some bigger and brighter than the first, that I couldn't begin to count them. We screamed and huddled every time one went over.

My dad finally wandered outside to see what all the fuss was about but apparently the show was over. There may have been two or three that next hour and Dad lost interest and wandered back into the house. I still think about that night, every time I look up and see all those twinkling stars (or actually see a falling star) and wish that shower would come back around again. I would make sure S and C got to see it so they could have this great memory too.

I also remember seeing Halley's Comet from our backyard in Hueytown in 1986. I remember being excited about seeing that comet since our names were so similar. At nine years old, that signified a special connection to me...Halley and Holley. Halley's Comet will be back around to us around 2062 and it's entirely within the realm of possibility that I'll get to see it again, albeit with 85 year old eyes instead of 9 but I figure that's a pretty cool goal so I'm keeping it.

Adiós!
htw