The Right Stuff

This was the first house that Rene and Scott had ever built, the first house that had really seemed theirs. They had turned the page, all right. Things happened so fast now. At one point it looked as if they were going to be given houses completely furnished! The best that $60,000 could buy in 1962, at wholesale! A month after John Gle

Sharpstown was one thing… but a threat to the Life deal—now, there you had something serious! Unthinkable was the word. The seven pilots, steeped in the honorable goodies tradition of the military, had begun to look upon the Life deal in the same way they looked upon the military pension that you rated after twenty years. It was an immutable condition of the service! It was part of the drill! Regulation issue! Covered in the manual! All holes in the argument were immediately vulcanized by the heat of the emotion. This was no time to sit around waiting for the orders to be posted on the bulletin board. It was only three weeks before Scott's flight, and he was in the thick of training, but on May 3 most of the others went to see Lyndon Johnson at his ranch in Texas to try to straighten the matter out. Webb was there, too. They had quite a conclave. Lyndon Johnson gave them some fatherly discourses on private lives and public responsibility, twisting his great hands around in the air in front of him, as if making imaginary snowballs. This pained him as much as it did them, and so on. The hell of it was that neither Johnson nor Webb would miss a minute's sleep if the Life deal was canceled forthwith. They had both been burned by the astronaut-Life co

Fortunately, there was no getting around John. By now, three months after his flight, John had ascended to a status that only a Biblical scholar could fully appreciate. John was the triumphant single-combat warrior. He had risked his life to challenge the mighty Soviet Integral on the high ground. Through his skill and courage he had neutralized the enemy's advantage, and the tears of joy and gratitude and awe still flowed. In the Bible, first Book of Samuel, eighteenth chapter, it is written that after David slew Goliath and the Philistines fled in terror and the Israelites achieved a mighty victory, King Saul took David into the royal household and gave him the status of an adopted son. It is also written that wherever Saul and David went, people thronged the streets, and the women sang of the thousands Saul had slain and the tens of thousands David had slain. "And Saul was very wroth, and the saying displeased him; and he said, They have ascribed unto David ten thousands, and to me they have ascribed but thousands: and what can he have more but the kingdom? And Saul eyed David from that day forward." And President Ke

"My ham loaf," said A

"Ham loaf!"

"Why not? Everybody likes it. I bet you Lady Bird asks for the recipe, too."

The Johnsons stayed until almost midnight. Lyndon had his coat off and his sleeves rolled up and was having a rare old time for himself. As they left, Rene heard Lady Bird ask A

One day John was out on the Atlantic Ocean, beyond the Hya