Recently I was in Orlando for a trade show.

It wasn’t as great as Orlando could have been…

I mean I was staying in the Disney Dolphin resort, and the weather was awesome, but all I saw was a hotel room, the trade show floor, and a few in-hotel restaurants.

But I did have one really memorable moment.

And I don’t mean a “I’ll always remember that moment at the trade show” type moment.. I mean “At the trade show I remembered that great moment”" type moment.

It sounds more complex than it is.

They say smell is the sense most strongly tied to memory.

I believe it.

The trade show had ended and we were all packing up.

The crew of the Dolphin was taking down the hotel’s stuff, and had some of the big loading bay doors open.

A warm breeze wafted in scented with a subtle mix of sea salt and orange. I’m sure the natives didn’t think twice about it, but that’s an experience you don’t get everyday in Indiana and I noticed it right away.

A flood of memories came back to me.

First the balloon ride Jana and I took when we first went to Florida together.

I really REALLY loved that trip.

I get all nostalgic thinking about it. We weren’t engaged or anything, heck we hadn’t even been dating all THAT long. But we had a BLAST. One of the highpoints was our hot air balloon ride.

We got up at dawn and lifted off from a hazy field as the sun came up.

I’d planned the outing for her… not expecting to get such a kick out of it, but it was really amazing. We swooped down over the orange groves and you could smell the oranges on the air.

Of course that trip was fun for a lot of reasons.

We walked the board walk, laid around clear water beach, and toured the Disney parks at length.

Really an awesome time.

And it all came back to me in about a tenth of a second.
Then (in the following tenth of a second) another memory came back.
This one much older.

Space Camp!!

Yeah space camp… like the movie.
But we never really made it into space.

When I was a kid Dave and I went to Space Academy (camp for the slightly older kids).
We were geeks.
We still are geeks.

But it was also a great time.

I met great people, and got to see/learn/do things that most people (of any age) will never get to do.

I mean think of this… both years I was there I was fortunate enough to be the commander of the shuttle that our team had for our simulations.

(and even though this isn’t an awards show I have to say that I was even MORE fortunate to have a really stellar team to work with. The pilot, the CAPCOM on ‘the ground’ all were great.)

Anyway… as a precursor to the BIG mission that concluded each year I was given a schematic of all the controls in the shuttle cockpit, along with a brief description of what they were for.

Same for the CRTS that would display various menu options.

More time was spent on the controls / menus that I would be needing in my mission of course. And as logic would dictate a very large part of my mission was successfully getting off the planet… and back onto it.

I can honestly say that if for some reason I ever find myself on a space shuttle, and the crew is incapacitated… I could land it.

Absolutely.

As long as the radio worked and I could talk to someone down there … I could land it.

How many of you can say that?!

But I digress.
We were talking about memories.

So in an instant I remembered the dorm I stayed in.

The full size shuttle in the center of the campus.
All the great people I met:

- Dave (Hilarious guy.. wonder what he’s up to)

- Crispy (My top notch Pilot)

- Jessie (The girl I had a crush on)

- And The Canadian (I can picture her .. but her name eludes me. When I’m home I’ll see if I can find a letter.)

The cafeteria…

Climbing into the flight deck.

Meeting all the “real life” astronauts.

It was a lot of fun.
And I hadn’t thought of it in a long, long time.

The flood of memory was interesting, and it made me think.
Will I remember these things so vividly when I’m 70?
Will the people I met remember me when they catch a familiar breeze?

Does it work the same for bad memories?

Does my Dad ever get flooded with memories of his buddies in VietNam on some random summer afternoon?

I guess time will tell.

I hope though that I can always remember those things so well.
Hopefully at home as well as in Florida.

Wow this is a long Blog.
Generally not the best idea to make huge Blogs… but hey I’m feeling nostalgic.

Some other time I’ll tell you about riding bikes up the ramp at the empty YMCA building during my childhood .