Wally was a hometown boy from Oradell, NJ. I can remember his dad joking that he knew he was going to go to space because he used to fall asleep at night with his head out of the window just looking at the stars. We had a big ole parade for him when he came home for a visit and even built a park named after him. I was working on the town road department as a summer job back then and was responsible for putting in the garden and planting a whole bunch of geraniums. It was a simpler time then when kids jokes were take offs on old nursery rhymes. You know things like "jack be nimple jack be quick jack jumped over the candle stick and burned his #$&*". Then there was "Mary, Mary quite contrary how does your garden grow. With silver bells and cockle shells and one #@%^##$ pink petunia." Well in the garden of geraniums for ole Wally where things were all supposed to be red and white there was one friggin' pink geranium. All the grade schoolers had a big chuckle and no one could figure out how that pink flower got there.
