PAGING ROCKET JONES

Yes, Ted, I used to fly rockets, too, back when I was a clueless high school freshman.

We had a huge undeveloped park-like area near our house - huge being a relative term. Any open area was “huge” on the south shore of Long Island, even in the mid 1960’s. It’s not like we were living in Colorado, where there were miles of completely open land. A strip-mall parking lot was the “wide open spaces” for us.

But this place was big and open enough for us to fly our rockets, which would reach altitudes anywhere from 250' to 1500'. The higher flights always had a greater chance of disappearing into Greater Suburbia.

The picture below shows one of our rocket-camera flights in August, 1966. (Note the twelve-volt battery we used to fire our igniters.) It was a primitive affair, this camera, but it took a snazzy 1.25" circular black-and-white negative. One of the local papers got wind of our aerial reconnaissance activities and published an article showcasing some of our pictures. That led to a full page in Newsday in December 1966...which in turn led to the Nassau County constabulary coming a-knocking at our door.



Seems that our rocketry activities were, ahh, fairly heavily regulated in fairly heavily populated Nassau County. We could fly our rockets, all right - but only in the context of official National Rocketry Association activites at Mitchel Field, a good half-hour drive away. As opposed to the large, empty acreage within a short bike ride of our respective houses. We kept flying...but it was no longer as much fun. Because now it was “official.” Now it was an “organized activity.”

Bull. Shit.

My first experience with Big Government Interference! Then, as now, it sucked.