finally explained the trick. “You have to be fearless. Toss the entire glass. Don’t sip. There isn’t enough oxygen in your mouth to feed the flame so it’ll go out. If you do it fast enough, the flame will stay with the glass.”
The formula for success had come far too late. At breakfast the next morning a few embarrassed, miserably hungover post-docs sat at the table nursing multiple blisters on their faces. Some of those victims, no doubt, were dreading having to explain to their spouses the source of their injuries. “Honey…you’re not going to believe how this happened.” Indeed, they wouldn’t.
At every opportunity the military TFNGs also introduced the civilians to our lively, sometimes sick, sense of humor. During our tour of NASA’s California facilities, Steve Hawley made the mistake of asking Loren Shriver, Brewster Shaw, and me to dinner with a former colleague of his. In the course of the meal Steve’s friend, a male astrophysicist, became overawed with the Vietnam aspect of our past lives. Like me, Loren and Brewster were combat veterans of that conflict. The young scientist was relentless in probing for information on our experiences. “Mike, what did you do in Vietnam?”
I couldn’t pass up the opportunity to play with his head, so I seamlessly replied, “I flew a candy bomber.”
“A candy bomber? What was that?”
I had a fish on the line and began to reel it in. “In the villages the women and children would hide in their spider holes and trenches. You could never get them in the open. So I flew a plane loaded with canisters of candy and would swoop low over the villages and drop them nearby. This would bring the women and children out of their holes to scoop it up.” At this point in my story I pointed to Loren and Brewster. “And these guys would be thirty seconds behind me loaded wall to wall with napalm and would lay it down on those villagers. It got them every time.”
The scientist’s eyes widened in shock and outrage. I could just imagine the scene playing out in his brain: images of women and children dipped in jellied gasoline running around on fire. He snapped his head to Loren and Brewster, anticipating a denial. At this point I expected my twisted joke to come undone but Brewster and Loren picked up my lead. They assumed the steely eyes of professional killers and silently nodded in the affirmative. Every Vietnam atrocity this young scientist had ever heard of was now confirmed.
Hawley tried to calm him. “That’s bullshit. They make up these stories all the time. Don’t believe them. They didn’t kill any women and children.”
At that comment, Brewster shrugged. He didn’t say a word but his body language did: “You can believe what you want.” There was no doubt in any of our minds Steve’s friend walked away from dinner believing he had just socialized with war criminals.
On a trip to Los Angeles it was Jeff Hoffman who felt the sting. At breakfast he asked Brewster and me what we had done the night before. While we had actually been at a bar having a few beers, I immediately replied, “We visited that museum.”
“What museum?”
I made up an incredible story about a museum of “cultural art.” Loren Shriver picked up on my lead and added his own embellishments about famous paintings by Picasso and sculptures by Michelangelo. Dick Scobee joined in with more bullshit. Through it all Jeff expressed his disappointment at missing such a rare and wonderful opportunity. Finally he asked, “Where’s the museum?”
I replied, “It’s right next to the Christian Science Reading Room. We did some studying there before going to it.”
Even this over-the-top BS didn’t immediately register in Jeff’s brain. He continued to lament he had missed one of America’s greatest museums. A minute later he jerked up from his coffee. “You guys made all that up, didn’t you?” We laughed.
Jeff would prove to be the most enduring TFNG scientist. Over the
The formula for success had come far too late. At breakfast the next morning a few embarrassed, miserably hungover post-docs sat at the table nursing multiple blisters on their faces. Some of those victims, no doubt, were dreading having to explain to their spouses the source of their injuries. “Honey…you’re not going to believe how this happened.” Indeed, they wouldn’t.
At every opportunity the military TFNGs also introduced the civilians to our lively, sometimes sick, sense of humor. During our tour of NASA’s California facilities, Steve Hawley made the mistake of asking Loren Shriver, Brewster Shaw, and me to dinner with a former colleague of his. In the course of the meal Steve’s friend, a male astrophysicist, became overawed with the Vietnam aspect of our past lives. Like me, Loren and Brewster were combat veterans of that conflict. The young scientist was relentless in probing for information on our experiences. “Mike, what did you do in Vietnam?”
I couldn’t pass up the opportunity to play with his head, so I seamlessly replied, “I flew a candy bomber.”
“A candy bomber? What was that?”
I had a fish on the line and began to reel it in. “In the villages the women and children would hide in their spider holes and trenches. You could never get them in the open. So I flew a plane loaded with canisters of candy and would swoop low over the villages and drop them nearby. This would bring the women and children out of their holes to scoop it up.” At this point in my story I pointed to Loren and Brewster. “And these guys would be thirty seconds behind me loaded wall to wall with napalm and would lay it down on those villagers. It got them every time.”
The scientist’s eyes widened in shock and outrage. I could just imagine the scene playing out in his brain: images of women and children dipped in jellied gasoline running around on fire. He snapped his head to Loren and Brewster, anticipating a denial. At this point I expected my twisted joke to come undone but Brewster and Loren picked up my lead. They assumed the steely eyes of professional killers and silently nodded in the affirmative. Every Vietnam atrocity this young scientist had ever heard of was now confirmed.
Hawley tried to calm him. “That’s bullshit. They make up these stories all the time. Don’t believe them. They didn’t kill any women and children.”
At that comment, Brewster shrugged. He didn’t say a word but his body language did: “You can believe what you want.” There was no doubt in any of our minds Steve’s friend walked away from dinner believing he had just socialized with war criminals.
On a trip to Los Angeles it was Jeff Hoffman who felt the sting. At breakfast he asked Brewster and me what we had done the night before. While we had actually been at a bar having a few beers, I immediately replied, “We visited that museum.”
“What museum?”
I made up an incredible story about a museum of “cultural art.” Loren Shriver picked up on my lead and added his own embellishments about famous paintings by Picasso and sculptures by Michelangelo. Dick Scobee joined in with more bullshit. Through it all Jeff expressed his disappointment at missing such a rare and wonderful opportunity. Finally he asked, “Where’s the museum?”
I replied, “It’s right next to the Christian Science Reading Room. We did some studying there before going to it.”
Even this over-the-top BS didn’t immediately register in Jeff’s brain. He continued to lament he had missed one of America’s greatest museums. A minute later he jerked up from his coffee. “You guys made all that up, didn’t you?” We laughed.
Jeff would prove to be the most enduring TFNG scientist. Over the
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