Of Fire and Ice

Rocket or Flickering Flame?

There is no question that one of the earliest important literary influences on me was Jack London. His turn of the century depictions of the wild uncharted icy cold Klondike in "White Fang" and "Call of the Wild" were this young boy's calming distractions from the fearful realities of  nuclear blockade stand-offs and presidential assassinations.

Back in the early eighties when I was still dabbling in motor racing my business partner and I went to California to meet with an upcoming young African American driver named Willy T. Ribbs. We were going to see about representing him for sponsorship. When our meetings concluded we took a short tour of the Sonoma wine country.  There in a shop I saw and bought a  poster of the famous writer. I bought the poster more because of the quote scripted on it:

"I would rather be a  superb meteor, every atom of me in magnificent glow than a sleepy permanent planet. The proper function of man is to live, not to exist. I shall not waste my days in trying to prolong them. I shall use my time." - Jack London

Upon returning to Atlanta I had the poster framed. It has hung on a wall where I live for over thirty five years reminding me often to take courage. Twenty years ago shortly after the Challenger explosion one of my favorite Sports Journalists wrote a column about the disaster. It is one of the best pieces of journalism I have ever witnessed. Reprinted with permission from the AJC.Enjoy

****

Why seek the fire when fire kills?

BYLINE: KINDRED, DAVE  STAFF  
DATE: January 30, 1986 
PUBLICATION: The Atlanta Journal and The Atlanta Constitution 
EDITION: The Atlanta Constitution 
SECTION: SPORTS 
PAGE: E/1 

The seven dead astronauts held the risk in the palm of their hands, and they found it to be light. They went to the top of a rocket to ride the fire into the sky. So many others had flown away from Earth and come back that their acts of courage became routine, not worthy of our full attention. Is this the 8:50 a.m. express shuttle to Mars or what?

But now we have seen the consuming fire. And now we weigh the risk in our hands, and it is heavy with death. And we ask why. Why ride a rocket into the sky?

We want to understand what reward can be worth the risk of death delivered by a computer glitch or by an icicle falling against a square of tile. If we civilians came to think of rocketry as routine, the astronauts knew better. They knew cataclysm was a heartbeat away. Yet they walked to the firestick happy.

We have seen the videotape a dozen times. The five men and two women walked out of a building, dandy in their hero suits of blue cloth with belts, zippered pockets and insignia patches. Their walk was jaunty, even cocky. The laughing teacher strode in lockstep with the fliers, the seven of them electric with joy, and they climbed into a van for the ride to the rocket. We never saw them again.

We saw the fire lift them. The teacher's students in New Hampshire wore party hats as they cheered the rocket's ascent. President Reagan later would tell the nation's school children, "The future belongs not to the faint-hearted. It belongs to the brave." We know that. But still. Why does a teacher/wife/mother seek fire when fire kills?

`To be on the wire is life'

"The Man put us here - and He'll take us," the great race car driver A.J. Foyt once said. "That's a square deal if I ever heard of one. When your time's up, it's up - not before, not after." So Foyt races at age 50. He has been burned and broken. He has seen death and wondered why.

"In '57, I had a good friend killed. And he just laid on the track while we went by. The thought went through my mind whether I wanted to go on. I had to know in my mind if I wanted to do it. I went on. You just have to accept life the way it is."

And now, at 50, Foyt says he races for one reason. "It's fun."

Even at 70, Karl Wallenda went back up on the high wire after a fall killed two members of his family and left another paralyzed.

"To be on the wire is life," Wallenda said. "The rest is waiting." And he, too, died falling from the wire.

We search our experience for understanding. If we would know why a man rides a rocket, we should look at men who pursue risk. We should look at race car drivers. To speak of the seven dead astronauts on the sports pages is not to diminish them as scientists and explorers of ineffable courage, pioneers as trusting/wary of the rocket as Columbus was of his ship. Theirs was a grand work, not a game, and yet they share with racers a spirit vital to man.

They are using the gift of life

They pursue risk, they face it, they even need risk to define themselves as people using the gift of life. America's love of the underdog is emotional commitment to the idea that putting ourselves at risk is a fine thing, maybe even noble if we do it well.

To be on the wire is life. The rest is waiting.

"Why does A.J. Foyt race?" said a Tennessean named Gary Baker, a lawyer who races cheap stock cars. As drivers, there is no comparing Baker with Foyt. But as men, they share an instinct common to the best of us, common to the seven dead astronauts.

"Foyt races for the same reason we all do. It's a challenge. To go fast, that's the challenge. It's just in some people. It's like climbing mountains. Some people think that's silly. But to a man who lives to climb, it's not silly."

Jonathan Swift wrote, "May you live all the days of your life." To do that living, test pilots "push the sides of the envelope," those unknown borders of their work where man and machine are at risk. Race drivers "run on the ragged edg e," their machines teetering on a balance of friction and power that once lost may never be found. Wire-walkers and jet jockeys, race drivers and astronauts share with sculptors and composers and ballerinas the dream that lifts them up, the dream that a man, by reaching, can touch the stars.

In a chunk of marble, a sculptor sees beauty. A ballerina floats in dance born of physical agony. So did the seven dead astronauts live all the days of their lives. 

****

Is it our's or God's will that should propel us to acts as these astronauts? Are our efforts for our own edification and fame or to extend the magnificence of our Creator. Surely they become notable when the purpose becomes divinely one, unified in the purpose of mankind's awakening. Don't we all contain the flickering flame of a divine pilot light waiting for ignition bringing the shining light of Truth into the world.

Post Note: I was so moved by Mr. Kindred's column that I wrote him a letter of appreciation and sent along with the Jack London quote. And he graciously wrote me back a note I keep and cherish to this day.

Amen Mr. Kindred

Bradford Bosworth

May 2016