Find out Moonshine
Jul. 20th, 2009 03:44 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
pameladeanI was sixteen in 1969. In the back yard, our jungle gym, as it was called then, a structure of tubular metal for kids to climb on, was in the shape of a rocket ship. It was painted red, white, and blue. There were three seats at three different levels. These caused certain conflicts while there were three kids and a lot more when there were four of us.
I used to go out after dark, when our house was the last one in the subdivision and the streets and houses to come were just slabs of concrete that did not obscure the sky nor cast any light, and look up at the stars until I felt I had left my body and was floating around out there. I wanted to go out there more than I wanted anything else in the world.
We all stayed up late and watched the moon landing on the black-and-white TV, puzzling the dog mightily. We watched on CBS, because Walter Cronkite, in my mother's opinion, was the only newscaster who was properly excited about the situation. My father wanted Huntley and Brinkley, but we didn't watch them that night.
I couldn't sleep afterwards. Going to the stars was suddenly real, and I knew I wouldn't do it. I had read too much Heinlein to think I would get there. I was the clumsy, careless, stupid person who endangered everybody by acting as if they were still back on earth. Having seen the tiny capsule, the puffy awkward suits, having heard the quality of the radio transmissions, having seen the immense blackness of the unfiltered sky, I knew I wasn't going there.
It was still a very happy night, because I knew that somebody else was.
Pamela
Edited to correct a very elementary mathematical error. See, Heinlein was right.
I used to go out after dark, when our house was the last one in the subdivision and the streets and houses to come were just slabs of concrete that did not obscure the sky nor cast any light, and look up at the stars until I felt I had left my body and was floating around out there. I wanted to go out there more than I wanted anything else in the world.
We all stayed up late and watched the moon landing on the black-and-white TV, puzzling the dog mightily. We watched on CBS, because Walter Cronkite, in my mother's opinion, was the only newscaster who was properly excited about the situation. My father wanted Huntley and Brinkley, but we didn't watch them that night.
I couldn't sleep afterwards. Going to the stars was suddenly real, and I knew I wouldn't do it. I had read too much Heinlein to think I would get there. I was the clumsy, careless, stupid person who endangered everybody by acting as if they were still back on earth. Having seen the tiny capsule, the puffy awkward suits, having heard the quality of the radio transmissions, having seen the immense blackness of the unfiltered sky, I knew I wasn't going there.
It was still a very happy night, because I knew that somebody else was.
Pamela
Edited to correct a very elementary mathematical error. See, Heinlein was right.
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no subject
Date: 2009-07-20 08:58 pm (UTC)I was 8 in 1969 and my father woke us up to watch the moon landing. My parents have a photo of my brother, sister, and I in feetie pajamas watching it on a black and white tv.
no subject
Date: 2009-07-20 09:26 pm (UTC)We were in our pajamas, too, but it was a very hot night in Missouri, so we had seersucker short ones, no feet. You are lucky to have the photo!
P.
no subject
Date: 2009-07-20 09:00 pm (UTC)(I am reminded of a golden age short story; I thought the title was "The Dream is Not for Dreamers" but Google can't find it under that name.)
no subject
Date: 2009-07-20 09:24 pm (UTC)I think we must have had similarly-flavored childhoods in some ways.
The short story isn't ringing any bells, alas.
P.
Going into space
Date: 2009-07-20 09:11 pm (UTC)Nate
Re: Going into space
Date: 2009-07-20 09:22 pm (UTC)The Heinlein I'm thinking of was a couple of short stories. I'm pretty sure one of them involved Eagle Scouts.
I am very slow in emergencies. I'd know what I should do, all right, but doing it, not so much.
P.
Re: Going into space
Date: 2009-07-20 09:25 pm (UTC)P.
Re: Going into space
Date: 2009-07-20 10:16 pm (UTC)*Hm. I seem to be less cynical than I thought I was.
Re: Going into space
Date: 2009-07-21 01:20 am (UTC)I am now 42 and working on process improvement rather than anything more technical. So for me it's been a much slower process of realizing I won't get there, though the upsurge in recent years of commercial rather than governmental spacecraft is heartening.
no subject
Date: 2009-07-20 09:22 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-07-20 09:31 pm (UTC)P.
no subject
Date: 2009-07-21 01:21 am (UTC)We were in Ely, our annual fishing vacation. Normally, tv was banned, unavailable, except in the private quarters of the owners of the resort. I was 13 and babysitting a six year old and a three year old, and it was my job to go tell the adults what was going on, whenever they broke from their pinochle game. I remember sitting on the floor, the three year old asleep on one leg, the six year old on the other. I woke them up, telling them that someday, they would want to remember they were awake for it.
It was just magic.
eta: we had Cronkite as well.
no subject
Date: 2009-07-22 04:28 pm (UTC)I've been foolishly surprised, reading people's memories, to see how many people were on vacation. But of course, it was July. My dad hadn't had his stroke yet, but he was overworked at a new job and we'd only recently moved, so that's probably why we were home.
P.
no subject
Date: 2009-07-20 10:01 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-07-21 12:17 am (UTC)Well, all right, I could put it in as a comment to the introductory post, but it's here already.
P.
no subject
Date: 2009-07-21 01:50 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-07-21 06:06 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-07-22 04:29 pm (UTC)P.
no subject
Date: 2009-07-22 12:18 am (UTC)For me, it was the space shuttle launch. I'd read too much Heinlein, too, and NASA had fallen out of favor and funding, and I never had much discipline in school, which was why I knew I would never get there.
And I thought of the old man, and the nurse who lied to let him and his fragile bones reach for the sky.
no subject
Date: 2009-07-22 04:30 pm (UTC)I was very excited, as an adult, by the shuttle launches, but they always made me feel I'd gotten into an alternate universe somehow.
P.
trek
Date: 2009-07-22 11:32 am (UTC)Re: trek
Date: 2009-07-22 04:31 pm (UTC)I dreamed of serving on the Enterprise too. There was more room for bumbling around there, it seemed, because the technology was so much more advanced.
P.
no subject
Date: 2009-07-24 08:44 am (UTC)Several days ago, I had lunch with my wife and a friend of hers.
When it was revealed that said friend was a Classics major, one quite cheerfully able to quote such things of the Ancient Greek and Latin of which I was only remotely acquainted, I'm afraid I started to snicker madly.
I now owe this friend a copy of Tam Lin. I blame you. I can never look Classics majors in the eye.
Off to take my much-worn Tor paperback edition to bed where I will open it at random and dream of the madness of college. :>
(I figured you might be amused at this anecdote.)
no subject
Date: 2009-07-24 06:14 pm (UTC)Well, all right, there were plot reasons too, but still.
P.
no subject
Date: 2009-07-26 01:11 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-07-28 01:11 am (UTC)P.
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Date: 2009-07-28 12:44 am (UTC)