Grave Laughter
May, 1986
It was two full days before I heard the first space-shuttle joke, and it was a strange relief. Two days seemed an unnaturally long pause between disaster and the rough humor that always bubbles up in its wake from nobody knows where. This particular joke, which I can't tell here because it has a brand name in it, came to me over the phone from a woman friend. I laughed harder and more spontaneously than I wanted to. Then I had a moment of emotional whiplash while the small parts of me that are s...
