A Grateful Reader writes:

At ten fifteen this morning, we heard a roar in the air. It was the right time, but not the right place. Our neighborhood was not on the scheduled flight path. Hopefully, my son ran to the door, and we followed him into the front yard. Looking up, we saw the space shuttle Discovery perched atop the 747 accompanied by a military jet. Time stood still. Flying slowly and low directly along our suburban street, they nearly touched the tops of the trees.

The retired spacecraft looked much nicer in reality than in photographs; the connected pair appeared clean and bright against the blue sky, with fluffy clouds above and the tiny dark T-38 to the right. A bit less than half the size of the airplane, the space shuttle was more squat and “cute.” The shuttle seemed like a new toy that a giant child could unhook from the back of the plane and put back on, time after time. We watched from behind as it flew away into the blue yonder on its final flight to the Smithsonian Museum.

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