Abandon in Place: Cape Canaveral, August 2010

Page 5 - The Heart of the Matter

.....and without any advance warning whatsoever, the place just rips my heart out and stomps it into the ground.

I am struck wordless, frozen in place by what lies before me.

The southern pedestal leg of the launch stand, as does the eastern one, has a sort of a cutout in it.

The cross-section of the pedestal leg is not square, but instead is somewhat 'L' shaped.

And as I rounded one edge of it, the small corner within the 'L' popped into view suddenly.

And there, directly in front of my disbelieving eyes, stood a wreath on a stand, commemorating the loss of Gus Grissom, Edward White, and Roger Chaffee, the three astronauts who died in a horrific pure-oxygen fire inside of their Apollo capsule, atop its Saturn 1B rocket, directly overhead of where I was now standing, dumbfounded.

I came upon it completely unexpectedly and the sight of it struck me a sharp blow directly to the stomach.

And it was more the condition of the wreath and its supporting stand, than anything else, that struck me such a telling blow.

It had clearly been placed out here by persons unknown, family members perhaps? I'm sure I'll never know, nor do I really wish to know.

But whoever it was that set it down beneath the launch stand, did so a very long time ago, and it has been sitting here ever since, just like the rest of this whole launch complex, utterly exposed to the elements.

In the silence that surrounded it, its heavily weatherbeaten and forlorn appearance was almost more than I could bear to look at.

It was placed here with love, for someone's father. Someone's husband. Someone's child. Someone's best friend. But the father, the husband, the child and the friend are long gone and now all that remains is.....

Beneath it, on the ground between the stand's three legs, was a small pot which at one time had obviously contained a bouquet of living flowers. Some force, at some time, had overturned the pot and and in my state of thunderstruck stupor, I unthinkingly bent over and gently picked it up and leveled it properly. The pot was upright and the long-dead stems now pointed toward the sky, and somehow that seemed more appropriate to me.

At some point, Sean walked by and all I could do was to repeat, "That's so sad," over and over.

Abandoned in place at Launch Complex 34, Cape Canaveral Air Force Station.

This is a horrible place, a truly terrible place.

But it is also a good place, a fine place for remembering.

Next to the wreath, a simple plaque was affixed to the pedestal.

And that's it, sum and total.

Undoubtedly, someone is seeing to it that the wreath, its stand, and the small pot of flowers never leaves this place, come thunderstorm, come hurricane, come whatever.

Thank you, whoever you are.

I took my pictures and, as have all the others before me, abandoned the wreath in place.

But of course, Launch Complex 34 was not done with me yet.

There was more.

And from across the flat shimmering expanse of concrete, I espied a small thing, nearly unnoticeable at the distance I was seeing it from, but it beckoned me to it, and I submitted to its call.

And Pad 34 got in a final kick to my gut, just for good measure.

At first, it didn't make any sense.

Three park benches, on a small tab of concrete just off the main circle of the pad itself.

But as I drew nearer, realization set in, and set in deeply.

Another memorial, placed here once again by I know not who.

Three simple benches.

Polished granite.

Three names.

Grissom.

White.

Chaffee.

No one alive sits on these benches.