Woodrow (born on Woodrow Wilson’s 1st Inaugural Day) with His Wife, and Wilma (Half Sister)—All Homestead Pioneers on the Cape Who Had Their Homes Taken Away from Them for Building the Space Center—Watches the Launch of Apollo 11
Woodrow on the far right of the group in this
snap from his boyhood on Cape Canaveral
Three million people looked across the land
And slightly lower waters of lagoons
That day, across the hopeful-colored sand—
Canaveral and its slightly rising dunes
Ignored—all staring at the future, blind
To what had gone before. (Did I say “all”?
There was history there for some, to bind
Them each together to that place.) A ball
Of fire, a cloud of smoke exploded from
The bottom of the upwards rocket. High
And higher still it went, to massive thrum
Of engines and the crowds in their full cry.
But, what did he ponder, during that blast?
Perhaps he thought, “They took away my past.”