There was a time in America when a boy’s interest turned to cars rather than computer games, smart-phone texts, or Instagram.

Fast cars, to be sure.

The summer of 1970 brought 16-year-old Mark Grissom back home.

Back home to Bryan Air Force Base.

For many years, autocross events were regularly held at the site of the present-day RELLIS Campus. Few other places featured as much unencumbered asphalt for amateur driving enthusiasts, thanks to the multiple runways and flight line of the former military installation where pilots trained during two American wars.

A half century ago, Bryan-College Station had a lot to offer racing fans like Mark, a high school junior living in the suburbs of Houston’s Clear Lake City area.

The Texas Motor Speedway opened its track here in 1969.

Al Unser, A.J. Foyt and Richard Petty drove to wins there.

The Texas A&M Research Annex autocross rally, held at the former Bryan Air Force Base, gave Mark Grissom a chance to drive where his father had flown jets as a young instructor pilot in the aftermath of the Korean War.

Mark inherited his love of cars from his dad. As a kid, Mark was the envy of his young friends, thanks to his dad’s Chevrolet Corvette.

But, it wasn’t just any Corvette. 

It was a brand-new, right-off-the-production-line, second-generation 1963 Corvette Stingray, a perquisite for the job Gus Grissom held at the time.

Astronaut.

Mark Grissom was back in town June 6 at the invitation of the Texas A&M University System’s chancellor’s office.

The A&M System, in an effort to preserve the history of the RELLIS Campus, seeks to honor the legacy of those who spent time at the site and achieved major accomplishments in their lifetimes.

Gus Grissom is one of those people, although his life was cut tragically short.

Gus Grissom died in a launch-pad accident preparing for the first Apollo spaceflight. In a twist of bitter irony, Grissom was one of three future astronauts previously stationed at Bryan Air Force Base to die in the line of space duty.

Ted Freeman and Charlie Bassett perished in separate airplane crashes before flying into space.

William Pogue and Buzz Aldrin also spent time in Bryan as cadet pilots. Pogue later flew on NASA’s Skylab 4 mission. Aldrin, the Apollo 11 Lunar Module pilot, walked on the moon.

The original Mercury Seven astronauts, a group which included Gus Grissom, quickly became national celebrities  in the early 1960s. As interest in the “Space Race” grew, free cars from admiring auto dealers came along with that fame.

Grissom and fellow astronaut Gordon Cooper even bought into an Indianapolis 500 racing team while active in the astronaut program.

“People must remember the Mercury astronauts got just their military pay for pretty hazardous duty,” Mark said of America’s space pioneers, all of whom, including his father, came to the space program as military test

“All of them got a car as one of the ‘benefits’ of their new jobs,” Mark remembered. “Except John Glenn.

 “(Wally) Schirra had a Ferrari, Scott Carpenter drove a     Cobra, and Gordo Cooper had a Ford Galaxy 500 with a 429-cubic-inch engine.”

Gus got the ’63 Stingray from Indy 500 winner and Florida auto dealer Jim Rathmann.

While Mark drove a 2007 Chevy pickup to his RELLIS homecoming, the other car in the garage of his Oklahoma City-area home is more in line with family tradition: 
a 2018 Sebring Orange Corvette.

Like father, like son.

Mark Grissom was born at the Bryan Air Force Base hospital on December 30, 1953, second son to 1st Lieutenant Virgil and wife Betty Grissom. During their just-over-a-year stay in the area, the Grissom family lived on Nagle Street near the Texas A&M campus.

Newly-hired A&M football coach Bear Bryant lived around the corner.

 “Mom always talks about Coach Bryant being a neighbor,” Mark said of his mother, who still calls Houston home. 

 “The other thing she remembers about living in Bryan was how low and ominous storm clouds seemed to her. She says she always felt like she could reach up and touch them.”

After Gus Grissom became an astronaut, the family settled back in Texas. Dedication to duty kept Mark’s father away from home much of the time. 

“He was gone a lot as I was growing up,” Mark said. “In the Air Force, he frequently spent his weekends flying cross-country to earn additional flight pay.

“I think he got into that habit while stationed at Bryan Air Force Base.”

Mark Grissom was 13 when his father died alongside fellow astronauts Ed White and Roger Chaffee. 

The January 27, 1967 incident left Mark, his mother and his older brother, Scott, saddled with the task of carrying on alone.

The blue Camaro with the white convertible top in which Mark competed in autocross rallies as a teenager helped bring some normalcy back to his young life.

As did memories of his father, some of which Mark shared on his visit to the RELLIS Campus.

“Whenever he was in town during his career as an astronaut,” Mark said, “Dad would load up the car with neighborhood kids and we’d go to the drag strip, or an Astros’ game, or we’d all go duck hunting somewhere.”

Mark is now 64, nearly a quarter-century older than his father was at the time the Apollo 1 mishap occurred. Short but powerfully built, Mark bears a striking resemblance to his dad, although his hair is longer and flecked with gray. 

Gus Grissom always sported a signature military-style flattop. 

Like his mother, Mark wears glasses. He has for a long time.

And, to hear Mark tell it, those glasses prevented him from attending college at Texas A&M.

“I was offered an ROTC scholarship to come to school here,” Mark said “That was at the height of the Vietnam War.

“But I had bad eyes. Maybe not the worst, but not good enough to become a fighter pilot.

“So, I turned down the opportunity to join the Corps of Cadets.”

While not following his father into the Armed Forces, Mark eventually enrolled in his dad’s alma mater, Purdue.

There, he pursued a professional pilot technology degree, determined to fly.  

After college, Mark landed a series of aviation jobs, but none lasted. Eventually, he became an air-traffic controller at Oklahoma City’s Will Rogers World Airport.

He continues in that line of work today. 

Mark’s only child, son Cody, 24, flies as a first officer for American Eagle. He, too, is a Purdue graduate.

Before the late-spring return to the site of the old Bryan Air Force Base, it had been some 35 years since Mark Grissom had revisited the town of his birth.

The RELLIS campus, he said this week, feels like a part of his heritage.

“I look around, I see the flight-control tower and the hangars and the old mess hall, and it’s easy to imagine my dad being here.”

 Mark smiled as he looked out over the flight line where his father once soared and where, as a teenager himself, he weaved his ’69 Camaro through a slalom course of road cones. 

One had the sense Mark felt it was good to be back home.