I was in the living room a moment ago watching television with my parents when a commercial came on that started with a gentleman taking his biplane out of a hangar. The person was Canadian astronaut Bjarni Tryggvason.
Bjarni Tryggvason
What's so special about him? When I was 17 years old, I had dinner with him.
As you all likely know, I spent many years as an Air Cadet with the 779 Black Knight Squadron out of Mount Hope. Back in February 2005, all of the cadets in the Hamilton Air Wing (779 Black Knight, 713 Thunderbolt, 735 Firebird, 150 Hamilton Tiger, 826 Gryphon) had a mass mess dinner with Bjarni Tryggvason. He gave a talk about the Canadian Space Program, what it was like to literally be out of this world, and gave all of us cadets the additional motivation to pursue our goals, and to never let the sky be the limit. Dare to go beyond if you so choose. His presentation came with a slideshow showing all of the amazing things from space that the internet could only dream of posting. And because they came from his personal experiences, they were that much more interesting.
He was a very personable guy, and opened the floor to questions when he was done. If you didn't have anything in particular to ask, he made it known that we were more than welcome to come speak with him after. So I did. I shook his hand, and thanked him for speaking with all of us. Given my rank at the time (Warrant Officer, and Squadron Deputy Commander), it was important for me to thank him on behalf of all of us, even though other cadets had already done so.
Seeing that car commercial on the television this evening, and shouting, "hey! I've had dinner with him," really made me want to share my experience with all of you, even if the dinner was many years ago.
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