The Things They Don't Tell Ya 'Bout Being an Astronaut...

People who know me know that I wanted to be an astronaut--When I was young and impressionable.

However, I overlooked one crucial fact about 20th-Century---Well ANY-Century space-travel, to be correct--

That being the actual-size of the "Space-capsule".

Call me stupid, but somewhere in my mind I had really thought that "They'd make the right person fit".

I was well over 6-feet tall before graduating 8th-grade.

The problem of course is that designing and building a Launch-Vehicle capable of carrying "cargo" of such physical-stature as myself
results in giant rockets...much larger rockets than any nation can afford to build or launch.

When I realized this fact (11th-Grade, I think), I had already charted course to attend the U.S. Air Force Academy (where aspiring young-Patriots train to be pilots.)

You've got to realize that no amount of wishful-thinking was going to change the rules of ballistics to suit ME.

My relatives (as helpful as they were trying to be) were no help.

The complexity of the combination of U.S. realpolitik and the physics of space-travel was not well-understood by many people whom I knew.

So I worked at a local movie-theater--while I was gathering my laurels.

And then I learned to type...in school.

Concurrently I was authoring quite a few bits of fiction for my new high-school's Writer-of-the-Month contest(s).

I won "Writer-of-the-Month" six times between 10th- and 12th- grades AND I was getting a lot of keyboarding practice.

Hungry for REAL Work(tm)...I applied for a job as a file-clerk in the California Superior-Court...self-motivated and detail-conscious, I thought I was doing fairly well at my job.

I was only getting about 4-hours sleep a night and commuting daily for two hours.

When I turned 21, I weathered a bout of Mononucleosis and was forced to stay home for two weeks...

My boss needed a healthy file-clerk, and sent me packing.

I was playing (bass guitar) in a working-band at the time, so I, in-turn, focused ALL OF MY ATTENTION on the band.

As if that weren't enough...my girlfriend at the time was trying to map-out her own life...and I was forced to let her go.

...and then the band fired me.

As my former guitarist, CG observed, my ever-vocal desire for near-perfection from the both the drums and guitar was pretty annoying.

I was TOLERATED.

Fortunately, CG recognized that there WERE circumstances where my attention-to-detail WOULD be appreciated.

So CG recommended I audition with a blues-rock outfit regularly playing a South San Fransisco/Daly City Blues-bar called The Country Club.

Drummer Dave Steinberg was--at the time--a student of authentic Blues-drumming evolved from the early rock-bands across the pond (in the U.K. primarily), so it actually turned out to be a step-up for me ;)

So I guess tall guys can't be astronauts. Only starving-musicians.

;) mattergy