In the town of Coalwood, Homer Hickam is the husband of Elsie Hickam and father of Jim and Sonny Hickam. He is a superintendant of the mine and cares deeply about his job (Hickam 201). He goes to the mine frequently, whether it is his assigned time or if he received a call from the black phone in his house, which rang quite often. Thus, he was usually never home with the family, usually coming home after Sonny had gone to bed or leaving before he woke up. As he has a fierce reputation at the mine to uphold, he complains that Sonny will embarrass him and the family if his failure attempts of exploding experiments continue, such as when Sonny accidentally blew up his mothers rose garden fence after testing out chemicals burning. When one of his test rockets landed near the mine, a very angry Homer yelled at his son about how he had told him to stop launching (Hickam 110). Overall, Homer wishes for Sonny and his rocket boys friends to stop trying to launch his homemade rockets and initially embarrassing him with his failures.
Another aspect of Homers character is that he is more interested in his elder son, Jim, than he is Sonny. Throughout the book, Homer supports Jim and his dream career in football and his desire to earn a football scholarship, although loved the mine and would have wanted his son to stay in Coalwood. When an unfair acclamation was directed towards the Big Creek High School football team and warranted no future games for them, Homer attempted to file a case and see a lawyer to allow Jim and his team to play in the state championship, although there was little chance. After eventually failing, Homer claimed he would pay Jims way through college, an act that showed just how much he thought of Jim. Meanwhile, Homer expects for Sonny to stay in Coalwood, and will end up getting a job on the outside of the mine, such as acting as a clerk of some sort (Hickam 50). As such, that was the extent of what he believed Sonny to be capable of, showing he did not think much of him or his possible career in the rocket industry.
