Recalling the teacher up the street
Christa McAuliffe 25 years after Challenger
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I’ve been thinking a lot this week about Christa McAuliffe. The high school teacher who died in the Challenger explosion 25 years ago today would be near retirement age now.
Back then, McAuliffe lived a couple blocks away from me in a big Victorian in Concord, N.H., across the park where I’d take my daughter. I didn’t know her, but her selection as the first citizen in space and, of course, her death, deeply affected all of her neighbors – which is to say everyone in Concord – and beyond.
Over the years, I would sometimes stop by her black granite gravestone on my way to work. It’s a peaceful spot, with a good view of the hills beyond Concord, and I was fascinated by