Welcome to my BLOG

An account of my journey from a rural coal mining town in northeast Tuscaloosa County, Alabama

to the Rocket City of Huntsville Alabama where I participated in the efforts of the United States of

America to put men on the moon and into orbit aboard the International Space Station. Along the way I raised a family , met many interesting people, and made numerous friends.

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NOTE: If you are new to this Blog and would like to read my adventure from the beginning, scroll down to my first entry and read up to the current date.

Wednesday, November 21, 2012

Me and the Planet Mars
                                                  
On Saturday mornings in 1946, I would be sitting in the Ritz Movie Theater in Tuscaloosa watching as the hero of the “Serial” was saving the Earth from Martians who came to the Earth in  a rocket ship and allied themselves with earth’s criminal elements.  Surely this was far-fetched, but I knew that I would return week after week until I had seen every episode .  I could not put out of my young mind the thoughts that there were other worlds out there waiting to be explored; maybe with creatures either like us or strangely different.
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In 1950 I was exploring the planet Mars as a warrior beside John Carter.  Suddenly a sharp tug on my arm brought me back to the din of the other 37 people on the school bus and my best friend, Maurice, saying “Why are you always reading those funny books?”   

Well, it was not a Funny-Book, it was a hard bound copy of Edgar Rice Burroughs’ Dejah Thoris, A Princess  of Mars;  so my logical reaction was, “It’s not funny!”  

I tried to return to my alternate world but Maurice grabbed the book from my hands and began to read out-loud a vivid description of the Martian landscape and the beautiful warrior-princess, Dejah Thoris.  This elicited loud laughs and giggles from the other boys and girls on the bus and I became known for a while as the “Boy from Mars”.   
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On Thursday nights in 1951, I could be found sitting in our large over-stuffed maroon chair with my right arm wrapped around our new white-plastic radio while grasping the antenna coil on the back.  I listened to the radio in this strange position because that was the only way that I could receive the Birmingham station that carried the program entitled “DIMENSION - X”.  This program broadcast dramatizations of Science Fiction stories by various authors, including Ray Bradbury and his MARTIAN CHRONICLES.  I would sit there, my eyes often closed, oblivious to the world around me,  exploring the planet Mars with the rocket men from Earth or joining the fatalistic Martians' resistance to those invaders for the sky.
Copyright 2012© Willie E. Weaver 

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