Page 19 - Demo

Several decades later, I was able to determine which flight it probably was, and was quite pleased to learn that the rocket I saw had likely been carrying Ham the chimp.After Alan Shepherd%u2019s short spaceflight, I wrote him a letter, requesting an autographed picture, and he mailed me a small 5x7 black-and-white. A few weeks earlier, I%u2019d made a similar request of President Kennedy, and he sent me a much nicer 8x10 color photo. They both had printed signatures instead of real autographs, so I didn%u2019t place much value on either one. But there was something I did treasure%u2014a small plastic pencil sharpener shaped like a Mercury capsule. Unfortunately, I don%u2019t recall how I received it, or how it eventually disappeared.On the day John Glenn first orbited the earth, I was in 7th grade at St. Mary Cathedral School (which we always dutifully wrote at the top of our assignments). Our teacher that year was Sr. Claire Therese who was in charge of a large class of about 50 of us. I collected U.S. postage stamps back then, and was excited when it was announced that a new Project Mercury stamp had been released to honor the flight. I always thought I heard about the new stamp while at school, because on that historic day, a parent of one of my classmates brought in a television set so we could watch the news coverage of Glenn%u2019s flight. When I was beginning this collection, I contacted four of my old classmates, to see if they recalled the TV. None did, so I must have generated a false memory about how I first heard about the new stamp.In 1962, Lafayette was in the Central Time Zone. So, the Project Mercury stamp was released at 2:30 local time, and St. Mary%u2019s students were dismissed at about 3 o%u2019clock. So, if there was a television in our classroom on that momentous day, I could have learned about the stamp in school. More likely though, I heard the announcement after walking the three blocks to our home. In any case, as soon as I heard about it, I knew I needed to get to the Post Office ASAP.While I had a bicycle, I often walked whenever I went downtown, so that%u2019s probably what I did on February 20, 1962. After covering the 14 blocks from home, I arrived at the Post Office, and bought several of the new stamps. I don%u2019t remember seeing any adult collectors, but I did see some boys about my age%u2014girl stamp collectors being a rarity%u2014and they were discussing whether or not to have stamped covers cancelled. Together, we decided they might technically be First Day Covers, but because the stamp had been released %u201ceverywhere,%u201d it was our collective opinion that a cover cancelled in Lafayette wouldn%u2019t be anything special. After all, it would represent just one of thousands of cities and towns in the country. We obviously didn%u2019t realize that the new stamp was only available in 305 locales. Also,