Homer Hickam - Rocket Boys

It is a moment that may well go down in McDowell County history. On June 4, 1960, the Big Creek Missile Agency, fresh from its medal-winning performance at the National Science Fair, is sponsoring a day of rocket launches at its Cape Coalwood range. Everyone reading these words is invited. I tell you this: This writer will be there and with him everyone I know. There is no more inspiring sight than that of a sleek, silvery BCMA rocket blasting off from its black, sparkling slack launchpad, hustling into the sky with a backdrop of green mountains, splitting the blue sky with its roar as it hurtles high on a great column of smoke. This may very well be the last chance we will have to see this grand sight, this amazing sight, this glorious sight….

My basement lab stank one last time with zincoshine preparation, six rockets curing at once. All the boys came to help, and the fumes of the remnants of John Eye’s elixir left us all a little giggly.

I woke early on the first Saturday in June, the day of the final launches. I moved to my window as I had done so many times before, to look out at the mountains and the highway that led past the mine. I half expected to see the usual line of miners making their way on the path to and from the tipple, and Dad among them, getting his reports, giving his encouragements and directives, but the path was empty. The mine hadn’t gone to a full seven-day shift, even with the new orders for coal. I heard the familiar sound of the backyard gate opening and closing, and there Dad was, going alone up the path to the mine. He walked hurriedly with his head down, as if the world depended on him getting to his office not a moment late. His hands were jammed deep in the pockets of his loose canvas pants, and his dented hat sat on the back of his head.

A car came down the road from the Welch direction and turned right, toward town central. Another followed it, and then another. When I went to the kitchen and made myself breakfast, I heard the faint rumble of more cars and trucks passing the house. I thought for a moment they might be going to our launch, but that wasn’t possible. It wasn’t to begin for another two hours. I went back to my room and put on my summer launch-day clothes—jeans, short-sleeve shirt, and boots. Before I left, I took a look around my room and suddenly felt as if I’d returned to it after being gone for fifty years. There were my shelves, heavy with books and stacks of note paper filled with the calculations that had defined our rockets. There was my little dresser and the airplane models on top. Pieces of rockets, old nose cones, bent casements, and scarred nozzles were scattered everywhere. The feeling of being gone and then returning was so strong I had to sit down on my bed for a while. In times past, Daisy Mae would have sought me out, rushing to get her head petted and her ears scratched. Nothing stirred. I sat alone, everything quiet except for the sound of cars and trucks passing by.

Roy Lee came to the back door, knocking politely. I met him in the kitchen. Mom was at the kitchen table in front of her beach painting, which she had finally finished. There was a beach house and a woman standing in front of it looking out to sea. “Don’t blow yourself up,” Mom said, with a look that defied interpretation.

“Yes, ma’am.”

Quentin arrived as we were loading rockets in the backseat of Roy Lee’s car. Auk XXXI was so long we had to roll down the window to fit it in. Quentin and I sat in the backseat, gently cradling the rockets. Billy was waiting with Sherman on the bridge that crossed over the creek to Sherman’s house. They wedged into the front of Roy Lee’s car. We met O’Dell at the Frog Level cross-roads, and he squeezed into the back in between rockets, careful not to bend the fragile fins. We spoke little.

A mile before we got to Cape Coalwood, we came upon the first parked car. Tag was there. He motioned us to him. “Bet there’s never been so many cars in Coalwood since it was built. I’m going to park ’em alongside the road, single file. The people can walk in from there.”

We were astonished at the number of cars and people. Behind us, more were coming. Roy Lee had put two cases of pop and a gallon jug of water in the trunk to offer our audience. We were going to be a bit short.

Some people saw the rocket sticking out of the window, and shouts of encouragement rang out. “The rocket boys, hoo!” “We’re proud of you, boys!” “A-OK, all systems go!”

Some of the people we recognized, but not most. “They’re coming from all over the county, looks like,” Billy said in wonder.

We drove out on the slack and unloaded our rockets with tender care. Tag seemed everywhere, shooing the curious away from us, turning cars around that violated his single-file parking dictum. I looked up the road past several curves, and the sun sparkled off parked cars as far as I could see. The Coalwood Women’s Club was setting up a picnic table with all kinds of pastries and jugs of punch and tea. Tag reserved special places of honor for Sherman’s and O’Dell’s parents and Roy Lee’s mother.

It was noon by the time we were ready to get our first rocket off. We ran up our flag. It was the same one O’Dell’s mom had made for us nearly three years before, a little tattered but still serviceable. Wind was negligible. Quentin disappeared downrange trailing telephone wires and carrying his theodolite. We signaled Tag when we were ready, and a hush fell over Cape Coalwood. I looked through the blockhouse portal before beginning the first countdown and saw Miss Riley sitting at the Women’s Club table. Two of the Great Six teachers were fanning her. Jake stood nearby, with Mr. Turner.

Auk XXVI had a simple countersink nozzle. It zipped off the pad and flew nicely downrange as if buoyed by the cheers and applause. Three thousand feet, we all agreed, and the altitude was reported to the crowd, which ooohed and ahhhed appropriately.

Auk XXVII was a one-and-one-quarter-inch-wide, three-and-a-half-foot-long rocket, designed to reach ten thousand feet. When it took off, it jumped from the pad on a silvery column of smoke, stuttered strangely in little puffs, and then seemed to find its way, another spout of fire sending it hurtling skyward. Since it had been the last rocket we’d loaded, maybe the zincoshine had not entirely cured. The crowd, still growing, took no notice of its problems and clapped and yelled exuberantly as it disappeared. It hit with a ground-shaking thunk downrange. Nine thousand feet. Not bad for a little rocket not given time to cure.

We hauled out Auk XXVIII and set it up. It was designed for fifteen thousand feet. Readying the rockets for launch was hot work, and refreshments were sent over. Mr. and Mrs. Bundini and their beautiful daughters waved at us from the picnic under the trees that shaded the clearing by the road. I saw Mr. Caton and our machinists in a knot. They were working the crowd like politicians, telling their rocket-building stories. Mr. Dubonnet and his union leaders stood nearby, their arms crossed, contented smiles on their faces.

Auk XXVIII worried me for a moment when it bent slightly toward the crowd before straightening up and flying past Rocket Mountain, accelerating on a thick plume of smoke. “It’s going to land behind the mountain,” Billy predicted, and he was right. We saw it fall, but the noise of the crowd was too great for us to hear the familiar twang of steel hitting rock and mountain earth.

I started to tell him to wait, we’d pick it up later, but Billy was off on a run, heading up the mountain. Some of the men from the crowd joined his trek. A half hour later they all came running back with Billy holding the rocket over his head, yellow jackets in close pursuit. The crowd scattered. Jake moved to stand over Miss Riley with a folded newspaper, but the angry bees had too many targets and gave up in confusion, retreating back up the mountain.