Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!usc!ucsd!ucbvax!decwrl!polyslo!vlsi3b15!lehi3b15!jwalicki
From: jwalicki@lehi3b15.csee.Lehigh.EDU (John Walicki [890904])
Newsgroups: sci.space.shuttle
Subject: Re: "High Flight" (was Re: The Ramparts):
Message-ID: <751@lehi3b15.csee.Lehigh.EDU>
Date: 7 Feb 90 01:52:32 GMT
References: <226.25BEC3D6@uscacm.UUCP> <5411.25c2dd7e@jane.uh.edu> <1096@sdrc.UUCP> <7786@sdcsvax.UCSD.Edu> <SHAFER.90Feb1075008@skipper.dfrf.nasa.gov>
Reply-To: jwalicki@lehi3b15.csee.Lehigh.EDU (John Walicki [890904])
Organization: CSEE Dept. Lehigh University, Bethlehem, PA
Lines: 40

In article <SHAFER.90Feb1075008@skipper.dfrf.nasa.gov> shafer@elxsi.dfrf.nasa.gov (Mary Shafer (OFV)) writes:
>
>The one I always saw was a T-38 Talon.  Pretty airplane!  Familiar in
>a recent incarnation as the black F-5's posing as MiGs in "Top Gun".
>
I've seen the video and was awed by the words and imagery.  A very moving
experience because I was about 13 at the time and still remember it 8 years
ago.  

>There also was a "Bloom County" Sunday strip based on this poem, featuring
>Opus, naturally.  Perilously close to desecration, but still funny.
>
I clipped the Sunday comic and it's hanging on my wall at home.  It depicts
Opus hanging from a fishing rod controlled by Oliver Wendell Holmes.  Opus is 
philosophizing (sic) in Magee's words.  He boasts -
    "Breathe Deep mine eyes the frosty saga of eternal suns,
     From depths unseen and dreams undreamt,
     I sing the unending cantos of unvanquished space..
     By thought I embrace the universial,
     With wings of mind I sail the Infinitude,
     Glory, Tis' the stars which beacons mans spirit
     and sets our souls adrift..

     And now its back to work.
  <Opus now carrying a pop gun while suspended in air>
     Time to deploy the Anti-Soviet Death-beam Nuclear Laser.

  <The last panel has the gun go POP and Opus looking at the reader and saying>
     How woefully unpoetic!"

My apologies to Mr. Magee and Burke Breathed, as I am reciting from memory.
I have checked Lehigh's library and it doesn't have any of the anthologies
with "High Flight" in it.  I would be forever grateful if someone out there
could mail me the entire poem.  Or, at least, as to where I could obtain a 
copy.  Thanks.

 _   /|                John A. Walicki    jwalicki@lehi3b15.csee.lehigh.edu
 \'o.O'   Ack!         Box F2 Lehigh U.   JAW7@LEHIGH.BITNET
 =(___)=  Bill Lives!  Bethlehem, PA 18015
    U                  "I slipped the surly bonds of Earth..."