The Original Rain, Space Men

Last night, I had the opportunity to meet Kim Peek, the savant who inspired the movie Rain Man.  The occasion was the inaugural meeting of this rather peculiar group.  Peek travels the world with his father Fran (toting an Oscar), making such appaerances, sharing his message of respecting and appreciating each other's differences, and - the fun part - inviting people to stump him.

A man who has memorized 9,000 books is hard to stump.

A gentleman told Peek he was born on December somethingth (my memory's a shade weaker than Peek's), 1962 and asked if Peek could tell him what was in the news in New York City that day.

First of all, it was a Tuesday.  The big news in New York was the newspaper strike.  And people were gearing up for the NFL Championship game, in which the Giants would play the Packers.  (He actually recited a lengthy chant about beating Green Bay, which was apparently in fashion at the time.)  But New York didn't beat Green Bay.  As Peek noted, they would lose 16-7 and the Giants' only score would be a blocked punt recovered in the end zone.  Asked what his earliest memory was, Peek detailed coming home from the hospital at the age of 3 or 4 days.

Neat.

Among the other guests was Col. Joe Kittinger, who, so far as I can tell, is the baddest man in the history of the world.  Not because he was a fighter pilot who served three tours in Vietnam and spent nearly a year in the Hanoi Hilton.  And not because he was the first man to solo-cross the Atlantic in a balloon.  It's mainly becase he became the first man in space and the first man to go supersonic (without a vehicle, no less) on the same day.