This chapter forms the second part of the meteor story that began in Chapter 1. Because the meteor I saw on July 4, 1958 might have been an Omicron Draconid, this most insignificant shower gets a whole chapter to itself. In the Chapter 1 portion, I told how the sighting of a single meteor might have ignited my interest in astronomy. The rest of the story, however, requires a little more background about the nature of meteors and meteor showers, and thus I withheld it until we reached the normal part of the year where this shower is visible.

Although I saw a meteor in 1956, it is only recently that I grew serious about trying to identify its nature. It would be easiest, of course, to conclude that since no major showers are active around July 4, this meteor was simply a sporadic meteor that is not related to any particular shower. But all meteors come from showers, even if the showers are so dissipated that they are no longer recognizable.

There are two minor northern streams that begin around July 4. To try to reconstruct the event, a few years ago I went back to the ruins of Twin Lake and stood near the same spot, trying to visualize the meteor's path toward Vega.