Shooting Stars

In the summer of ’76 some friends of mine answered the call of God and went to England to accompany a traveling evangelist. The boys had just graduated from high school and were from my youth group at church. They would be gone for the whole summer.

One night me and Barb went over to Rhonda Owens house out in the country for a sleep-over. Rhonda said let’s make a tape for Keith and Mike and send it to England for them to listen to. We set up a tape recorder out in the backyard and lay down under the stars and just gabbed. If I recall it was a lot of nonsense.

What I also remember is the brilliance of that night sky. Crystal clear. The whole universe pinwheeling above our heads. A smudge of Milky Wave. A plethora of falling stars streaking across the sky, more than I could count. Comets trailing tails of colored gases. It was as if the heavens were giving us a show. Every other exclamation on the tape was: There’s another one! And another one!

I wish with all my heart to hear that tape today if it still exists.