Vacation, Space Travel, and Purple Fever

Have you ever felt like you have all these "feelings" bottled up inside that you are going to explode? Or implode? I have a week of vacation scheduled at the end of May but I have a feeling I need to move that up a week or so. Or perhaps I should start today.

On another note (really, let's move on) I just heard that on this day in 1961 Alan Shepard became the first American in space. I was 6 and I remember at Robert Fulton there were these ginormous televisions set up in the hallways and we all went into the hall and watched the launching, in black and white. Now to be honest I know we did this for every space launch so I'm not sure if I actually remember this specific incident but I do remember those TVs and sitting on the wood floors watching men go into space. I think even as a kid that was pretty cool. Of course not as cool as going outside for recess or eating paste or the smell of paper fresh off the mimeograph. I've often wondered if all of us who were sniffing these pages whose purple ink was still wet were getting high off of some fumes. Perhaps that was my first drug of choice. This could explain a lot!