A Listener Recounts Spotting Satellites In The Sky With His Father in The Mountains of New Mexico

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There's some of our favorites. Up next, a story from a regular contributor, Richard Munoz. Today, Richard shares with us the story of a magical moment in his life when he was young, his first time seeing a satellite.

Take it away, Richard. You stop and think about it. It's really funny how memories work.

I'm not saying funny haha, I'm saying funny strange. When I stop and think about it before six years old, my memories are kind of spotty at best. But there is stuff that sticks out more than others. And one of those that sticks out more than some of the other ones is the first time I ever recall seeing a satellite.

I wasn't even five years old yet. And we were going into the mountains. Now when I talk about the mountains, what I'm talking about here is a tract of land in northern New Mexico. In years to come, we'd follow Highway 17 up and around Coombra's Pass and come in through a different road. Now this led up to our summer range, and this is where we took our cattle in the summer. But this time, we took the road up through Osier. Now at the time, it was nothing more than a large water tank for the steam engines that used to move between Antico and Chama.

The other thing I recall about Osier is the station itself. At the time, it wasn't open. But in this particular memory, what had happened is we'd started out for the mountains.

And it was already late in the day, and it was very stormy. What this was was a family and extended family trip. And we were going to go up to the mountains and we were going to stay in what we called the Green Cabin. Pretty nice cabin. The reason it had this name was, guess what?

It was painted green. What I said mentioned, it was pretty stormy. It rained very heavily. It was raining so heavily up into the mountains. In fact, we kind of aborted our trip up into the mountains.

We had two wheel drive pickups, the soft mud was threatening to get them stuck. So unable to go forward unable to go back, we stopped and spent the night at Osier. The old station was unlocked, so we took refuge air. I recall everyone bringing in their bedding and we found a corner to sleep in.

A fire was starting the old stove and a mill was prepared. We ate and everyone started around talking. I liked listening to the old timers talk. They always told such interesting stories. I remember my old granny talking about coming out here with the Mormon expansion.

My grandfather talked about coming out here as a boy from Lebanon. Well later that evening the storm cleared out and the skies opened up. Washed by the rain the stars were hard and bright that night I remember. Echo was supposed to be passing over I remember someone said.

Echo? Yes, that balloon satellite they put up a few weeks ago. So we all went out into the night to look for it. Now as a four-year-old boy I had no idea what an artificial satellite was. Oh I'd seen TV shows and stuff like that. So what I was expecting to see was a full-size 1950 style rocket thundering overhead.

Of course that's not what I got. The Project Echo satellites were launched in 1960 and 1964. The idea behind them was one we take almost for granted today. Now way back in 1945 science fiction writer Arthur C. Clarke the same guy wrote 2001 A Space Odyssey came up with the idea of using satellites as a means of communication. The following year they tried some experiments using a more natural satellite in this case our moon to reflect microwaves for communications. Well once Sputnik was launched Clark's ideas were right on the verge of becoming reality.

Now the first real attempts at using this idea was pretty simple. Put a big aluminized balloon up in space and bounce the signals off that. Now it took two tries to get the first Echo satellite up. The first one on May 13th 1960 well that satellite ended up in the Atlantic.

The next attempt came a few months later this time on August 12th. This time the satellite settled into orbit some thousand miles or so above the Earth. So what we have here is a hundred foot across a luminomized balloon miles above the Earth catching the sunlight.

This made it a really easy target for the eye to spot. So we step out into the cool mountain air and I remember I looked up and there's the universe just sprawled out before me. I almost got dizzy looking up. Standing there on a loading platform of an aged train station I stood at the edge of infinity. Knots and tangles of stars were overhead and a ghostly cloud stretched from horizon to horizon and stars of every color and by the thousands blurred into it.

I'd never seen anything so glorious. You see the light from those stars I remember dad saying? They're so far away light left them before you're even born. They're so far away they may not even be there anymore. Now the idea of the speed of light meant nothing to me. But if they were that far away then how far was far? And suddenly I felt very small and very lost in it all.

It thrilled me. My cosmos had just grown amazingly big and I was part of something so much bigger than me. Now as a young kid the horizon is always incredibly close. As a child my universe ended at the mountains during the San Luis Valley.

There was little beyond it. I never put two and two together yet and realized there was more to my world than I knew. And now with a single sentence the universe had gotten very very big for me. We all peered into the sky each quietly searching for something.

Finally after several minutes someone pointed there there it is. I looked and here's a star moving quietly across the sky. I watched it travel like some magical force among the stars and that in years to come I learned so well. The star moved with so much quiet and dignity it amazed me.

I remember it'd be several seconds before I even remember to breathe. As I watched it move it flashed and then it faded away into the night. And even at four years old there was a part of me that wished I was up there riding along with it.

Today I've seen God knows how many satellites flying over. And like that four year old boy I still wish I was along for the ride. And a terrific job by Monti on the production of that piece and the editing. And again a special thanks to Richard Muniz who's a regular contributor here on Our American Stories. Check out Richard's blog at williamalban dot wordpress dot com and check out Richard's other stories at our american stories dot com. Just look up Richard Muniz m u n i z in the search bar. He's got a great one on the first black lawman in Colorado the Russian MiG jet and many others.

Richard Muniz story about a light in the sky in the beautiful mountains of New Mexico here on Our American Stories. Folks if you love the great American stories we tell and love America like we do we're asking you to become a part of the Our American Stories family. If you agree that America is a good and great country please make a donation. A monthly gift of seventeen dollars and seventy six cents is fast becoming a favorite option for supporters.

Go to our american stories dot com now and go to the donate button and help us keep the great American stories coming that's our american stories dot com. Roku has what you need to make your college home away from home feel more like your own. Make your dorm the place to be with Roku TV or bring a Roku streaming stick to easily access all your favorite free and premium content like I heart radio. Stream your favorite playlist with the Roku vibe setting smart light strips to sync your music to millions of colors and make your dorm feel more like you. Make your dorm the place to be with Roku TV streaming players and smart lights. Head to Roku dot com or your favorite retailer to deck out your dorm. Hey gorgeous it's Paris Hilton get the party started with my new album infinite icon dropping September sixth and stream the new single bad bitch academy.

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