For info on the Shy Man's Guide to Success with Women (or any of Terry Heggy's other writing), please visit www.shyperson.com.

OK, I'm finally ready to talk about the Space Shuttle Columbia. I was there when she took off on her maiden voyage in April of 1981. America had not had a space launch for quite a long time, and I was certainly privileged to be among the folks lining the shores across from Cape Canaveral when the shuttle program first took to the skies.

Here's how I happened to be there: In the late summer of 1980, I was working for the Boeing Military Airplane Company in Wichita, Kansas. The job was OK, and I really liked the people I worked with...but despite having lived there most of my live, I hadn't really bonded with the city of Wichita. So, when I was invited to Denver to participate in a friend's wedding, I decided I'd use the trip to scout out other locales.

I'd be staying at the groom's apartment, and my only obligations were to show up for the rehearsal dinner and the wedding itself -- commitments totalling no more than a few hours altogether. That left plenty of time for sightseeing in Colorado. At that time of year, such a trip positively screamed to be done 'a la motorcycle'.

My Wichita roommate was also a rider. We called him "Harp", and though he had this irrational prejudice against comfort on a 'cycle, he promised me that he'd be able to handle the long drive on his drive-shaft powered Suzuki. My bike was a Yamaha 750DX, also a drive-shaft machine, with comfy swept-back handlebars, a cushy bucket seat, and a fully outfitted Windjammer fairing to keep the wind out of my face. I had a stereo (with speakers and/or helmet-mounted headphones), a backrest, footpegs, and cruise control. With the ultra-smooth 3-cylinder Yamaha engine, I could ride all day in absolute relaxation...while Harp was hunched over his gas tank, with a wind-battling death grip on his ridiculously square handlebars, spitting out the bugs that so dearly love to commit suicide on the highways of western Kansas.

The ride to Denver was wonderful. I had Blue Öyster Cult on the headphones, beautiful blue skies overhead, and miles of amber grain waving at us as we passed. It seemed that we met friendly bikers at every rest stop we made. And let me tell you, there are very few sights as inspiring as that first glimpse of the Rocky Mountains as they seemed to magically solidify in the distance. After ten hours on the road, we were still invigorated with the excitement of the gorgeous drive as we pulled into our Denver destination.

The rehearsal dinner was a spectacular event. It was in a fancy restaurant sitting near the top of the Denver skyline. Now, I'm not generally into fancy meals -- after all, with my unsophisticated taste buds, it just seems like a huge waste of money. But I enjoyed watching the groom-to-be, and had a great time interacting with his family. The only problem was that it was obvious to everyone that the bride was a flaming bitch from the bowels of hell.

Well, obvious to everyone but Steve, the groom. Actually, I think he knew, but was afraid to do anything about it because a) he was afraid no other woman would ever marry him, and b) he was afraid the bitch-bride would cut off valuable parts of his anatomy if he so much as looked at her crosswise.

It sucks being the best man at a wedding that you know is bound for failure. Your dear friend is about to plunge himself into the abyss of a marital nightmare, but you feel as if you have to support him. "Yeah, she's great," you say, while secretly hoping that there will be a large scale pipe organ disaster that will cause the bride to be decapitated in some sort of spectacular Dr. Phibes-like way. You want to scream, "RUN FOR YOUR LIFE!", but instead you meekly hand him the ring that will forever symbolize his pain and misery.

(Yes, the marriage did end badly, six months later -- with one of those awkward boyfriend-in-the-closet moments. And though I'm not sure how this relates, you probably should know that I had similar feelings a bit later when I was best man at Harp's wedding. Another six month marriage punctuated with much wailing and gnashing of teeth. The good news is that both of these gentlemen have since found the women they were meant for, and are wallowing in oceans of marital bliss.)

After the wedding, Harp and I posed for some photos, looking spiffily tux-clad, astride our motorcycles. Then we changed and headed for the mountains.

The first stop was St. Mary's Glacier. Just up the road from Idaho Springs, St. Mary's is a snow & ice field that never melts. It's stuffed into a rift between peaks, and features a perpetual snow slope leading down to one of the most beautiful mountain lakes you will ever see. We put on our snow suits and hiked up the side of the glacier, just for the pleasure of leaping over the precipice and cascading down the slope on our butts. Human sledding at its finest. What the hell, we figured, and did it again.

After butt-skiing, we got back on the bikes and took off again, with no particular destination in mind. We planned to find a rest stop somewhere and spend the night snuggled in our respective sleeping bags. But we were enjoying the ride so much, we didn't want to stop. As the sun went down, we were treated to a sunset that brought new meaning to the phrase "purple mountain's majesty", and later saw the moon rise into a starkly pristine sky. At one point, we stopped at a roadside pullout overlooking a little mountain lake. We were at just the right angle to see the moon reflected off the water's surface, and I remember thinking that if God were going to build a house on earth, he'd surely choose Colorado as his building site.

Though the ride was truly awe-inspiring, we did finally begin to tire out. Harp and I decided that we'd pull over at the next rest area and crash for the night.

In hindsight, we were obviously too picky about which rest area we would settle on. Too small. Bathroom too smelly. Too many creepy trucks with "Ax Murderer On Board" placards in the windows. Let's move on.

As we left the mountains and headed back down Highway 50 heading for Kansas, it started to rain. We each owned some half-assed rain gear. Harp's was a yellow slicker jacket to cover his torso and a couple of hefty bags to lash onto his legs. Mine was a one-piece Texaco-style grease monkey coverall that had been liberally coated with Scotchgard®. Of course, we were both soaked through to the bone inside of 15 minutes. It's dark, we're not equipped with visor-mounted wiper blades, and we're creating a pretty fair wind-chill factor by travelling 65 miles per hour. We're pulling over at the next turnout, no matter what.

A KOA "Kampground" sign lit up the night like the proverbial grail-shaped beacon. We pulled in. It was around 2am at this point; there was no attendant on duty. We picked a couple of covered picnic tables and promptly fell asleep, still wearing our clownish and sopping rain gear. We were too tired to even mess with sleeping bags.

At about 5:45, we both woke up and realized that we were supposed to pay for having used the kampsite. As young, motorcycle-riding rebels with microscopic bank accounts, we decided that our soundest strategy would be to hit the road before the park attendant came 'round asking for fees. After all, we hadn't really spent the whole night there...

Though the KOA had actually been in the state of Colorado, it was in the eastern part, which is really indistinguishable from Kansas. As our ride resumed, though, we found ourselves crossing the border in short order. Even though it was 1980, the sign still said "Welcome to Kansas, Home of Debbie Bryant, Miss America 1969". (Later, they changed it to a more generic "Home of Beautiful Women", and still later, the somewhat perplexing, but still vastly more appropriate "Land of Ah's".)

Within 5 miles of crossing the border, my front tire went flat. Fortunately, I was able to limp into the bustling metropolis of Larkin, KS. We grabbed some OJ and donuts from a greasy spoon where the waitress smelled like damp fungus, and the silverware had last been washed when LBJ was in office. By the time we finished breakfast, the gas station had opened, and I was able to get the tire patched. Back on the road.

The next indignity was a speeding ticket issued by a state trooper whose pantleg creases could slice tomatos. By the time I was finished writing a check for about 15 times the amount that was actually resident in my account, the sun had risen to its full summer fury. I rolled up my shirtsleeves and pantlegs to relieve some of the stifling heat.

And, of course, no more than two minutes later, the newly bare flesh of my leg met the tail end of a slow moving bumblebee as my bike was going about 70 mph. Let me assure you, you do NOT want to have a bumblebee stinger plunged into your body at highway speeds. Thank God I didn't crash, but I'm sure they could hear me screaming all the way to Topeka.

I stopped as quickly as I could, and used my nail clippers to tear a bloody gash in my leg as part of a heroic attempt to remove the poison-tipped insect carcass. After a prolific bout of gory hacking and mighty cursing, I was finally able to contemplate getting back on the road. Leaving a dotted trail of hemoglobin on the highway, I was seriously looking forward to the end of the trip.

It was now over 104°F. Time for the wind to pick up. I was surprised to learn that while a breeze supplies a cooling effect when the temperatures are below 80°, it acts to intensify the perception of heat once you reach a certain level of hellish heat. What had been a pleasant ride while we were in the mountains, now resembled a guided tour through Satan's own blast furnace. I began to suspect that heavenly powers were at work, trying to communicate this simple message: COLORADO IS WONDERFUL. KANSAS SUCKS!

I finally reached my apartment in Wichita. I had forgotten to cancel newspaper delivery, so there was a pile on my doorstep. I picked them up and headed inside, grumbling about how I should be in Colorado rather than this sub-tropical stink zone. The first priority was to take a long-overdue leak (hmmm, maybe that's what they mean by "Land of Ah's"...) Then I returned to the kitchen to "catch up" on what had happened while I was gone.

I picked up a newspaper at random, and flipped it open to a randomly selected page. As I read the contents of that page, I knew that I had indeed been receiving a message. the ad in the paper said, "YOU SHOULD LIVE IN COLORADO." OK, I thought...you've got my attention.

It was a double-page ad for Martin Marietta, wanting to hire engineers to work in the Colorado offices of their aerospace company. They had a recruiter in Wichita who would be accepting calls the next day. Needless to say, I wrote down the number.

When I called the guy, the first thing he said was, "We're looking for engineers. Are you an engineer?" I told him I was not. "Well, I'd like to talk to you anyway," he said. Hmmm. I figured they must be desperate.

After talking with the guy for an hour, I realized that while we had indeed talked a little about my employability, we had spent a much larger segment of our time talking about our enthusiasm for running. I knew what races the guy had coming up, what his fastest 10K time was, and what type of running shoes he wore. What I wasn't so clear about was whether I had said anything that would merit a call-back. But sure enough, two days later I got a call from George Dallas, who was in charge of Martin's engineering procedures group.

"So, Terry," he said, "you write procedures?" Yup. "I assume you're an expert with MIL-STD-100, then, right?" Huh? Never heard of it. "Well, then you must be working compliance with DOD-STD-1000, right?" Uh, no...sorry. "Experience with schematics?" Nope. "Drafting practices?" Well, I took a drafting class in the eighth grade. All I really remember is that a kid named Ronnie threatened to beat me up if I didn't show him how to find the 3-inch mark on a ruler. (No, I'm not kidding.)

"Hmm," George said, "I was kinda hoping for some experience with standards." He took a deep breath. "Oh, well, when can we fly you out to meet with you in person?"

Like I said, they were desperate. But the bottom line is that a couple of plane flights, a screening of "The Empire Strikes Back", and two weeks later, I was packing up all my earthly possessions to move to Denver to start my new job with Martin Marietta.

OK, so I still haven't talked about why I was in Florida to watch the Columbia take off on the first ever space shuttle mission. Stay tuned for the next blog.

Happily corresponding from Colorado,
Terry