A Grin After The Chilean Rescue From Homer Hickam

 
If ya'll aren't familiar with Homer Hickam, author of Rocket Boys, which became the movie October Sky, OS invites you to enjoy a wonderful treat.

He is amongst the best of the very best to emerge from the South (this best of places) in the past hundred years.


A wry story from his hometown paper in Hunstville, Alabama.

It appears his dad, a mine foreman back in his childhood home in West Virginia, had experimented with a rescue device similar (much cruder, but effective) than the fabulous piece of engineering that helped rescued Los Treinta y Tres yesterday.


Great ideas are immortal. Let's all hug an engineer today, ya'll.

Number 33 Emerges: The End Of The Rescue

They're singing, cheering, applauding, and waiting for the final miner.

What a moment. The foreman was the last man to leave, and was greeted as a hero, complete with a speech from a beaming President, followed by the singing of the Chilean national anthem, in one of the most heartfelt monotone renditions heard in history.

Let's do keep a good thought for these gents and their families. Nothing is ever the same for anyone who goes through a major life event. Ask your friends who are cancer survivors, or widows of those who didn't survive, or soldiers who make it back after hellish experiences. Everyone will have some adjustments to make.

We have a lot to learn from them, when they choose to tell their stories.

In the meantime, they and their families deserve their privacy and dignity.

God bless them all, and their rescuers from around the world.