T Minus 7 and Counting

I suppose that's now considered old-fashioned terminology, but I distinctly remember sitting in my 5th grade history class listening to the broadcast of the launch of Mercury-Redstone 3, codenamed Freedom 7--Alan Shepherd's historic first flight into space. We listened to the countdown on May 5, 1961. "T minus fifteen minutes and holding." It was after 9:00 a.m. on Friday morning, but we'd been waiting for it since Tuesday. When it looked like the flight would actually take place, all classes in Kennedy Elementary and Junior High were called to a halt and radios were tuned in every room. For fifteen minutes and twenty-two seconds, I paced the floor in our classroom like an expectant father and when splashdown occurred, I wrote the time, date, and name of the astronaut on a slip of paper and wrapped the pencil I used in it.

Now, fifty-two years and three months later, I'm in my own countdown, waiting to launch my Ford/Lance Road Capsule, codename First Exit 0, onto the highway. I have a million details to finish before I launch, but I go about it with the fervor of NASA at the height of the space race. Legal papers to finish, taxes to complete, artwork and glass to sell, another book to layout and publish, writing to be done . . . I think there is too much to do, but I'm still committed to doing it.

I'm counting down the days and trying to keep from letting the same clutter that has marked my life fill my trailer. I finished the business taxes on Wednesday evening, just before the midnight deadline. Net owed: $0, but I still had to file. I still need to finish the personal taxes from last April, extended till October, but I need to get finished now. I finished the book cover design I worked on for a new client, but still have a new book to lay out for another client. And I need to put all the paperwork from my financials in order and get it boxed up so it's not lying all over the trailer.

Tomorrow (Sunday), I'll be delivering my "farewell address" at Northlake Unitarian Universalist Church in Kirkland at 10:30 a.m. If you are local, I hope you will come and share coffee and cookies afterward. The title of the talk is "Here and Now." I promise to be mildly entertaining. I've looked at my calendar, and believe that this talk falls on the tenth anniversary of my first talk at NUUC, the first Sunday in August, 2003. After that talk, titled "Gutenberg's Crime," I never went back to the Methodist Church that had "loaned" me to Northlake. Though not the most regular or active person in this congregation, it has nonetheless been the source of many friendships and has accepted me and my sometimes unorthodox messages over the past ten years. This is a fitting way to say goodbye to the community.