Memories of the moon

I was thirteen days away from my seventeenth birthday when Apollo 11 touched down. There was an interval—the better part of an hour, I believe—before the astronauts clambered onto gthe surface. With about five minutes lacking of that historic moment the family's elderly "Capeheart" television set experienced a catastrophic failure ("Houston, we have a problem") of its CRT, whereupon all present stampeded over to the neighbors' premises to watch the historic event. There is, or at least was at one time a piece of moonrock inset in a display at the Smithsonian, so that you could actually press your fingertip to an area of appropriated lunar surface, itself about the size of a fingertip. I was thirty when I did this for the first time and, imagining myself jaded, was thrilled to do so.

Incidentally, young "JvlivsCaesar" will be accompanying my chum Robert "Death March" Williams and me on a trek into California's "Desolation Wilderness" this weekend. Young Caesar cut his teeth in the old USSR, and still quite firmly believes what he was taught in the successor state's primary schools, to wit, that the entire Apollo program was undertaken on a series of elaborate Hollywood sound stages. I have been arguing this point with him on and off for a couple of years, and he greets my every refutation with expressions of condescending pity for my naïveté, attributing this, I suppose, to the steady diet of imperialist propaganda I've absorbed these five decades & change past...

cordially,

Post #165,480 by rcareaga 7/21/04 9:57:12 PM Reply	Memories of the moon I was thirteen days away from my seventeenth birthday when Apollo 11 touched down. There was an interval—the better part of an hour, I believe—before the astronauts clambered onto gthe surface. With about five minutes lacking of that historic moment the family's elderly "Capeheart" television set experienced a catastrophic failure ("Houston, we have a problem") of its CRT, whereupon all present stampeded over to the neighbors' premises to watch the historic event. There is, or at least was at one time a piece of moonrock inset in a display at the Smithsonian, so that you could actually press your fingertip to an area of appropriated lunar surface, itself about the size of a fingertip. I was thirty when I did this for the first time and, imagining myself jaded, was thrilled to do so. Incidentally, young "JvlivsCaesar" will be accompanying my chum Robert "Death March" Williams and me on a trek into California's "Desolation Wilderness" this weekend. Young Caesar cut his teeth in the old USSR, and still quite firmly believes what he was taught in the successor state's primary schools, to wit, that the entire Apollo program was undertaken on a series of elaborate Hollywood sound stages. I have been arguing this point with him on and off for a couple of years, and he greets my every refutation with expressions of condescending pity for my naïveté, attributing this, I suppose, to the steady diet of imperialist propaganda I've absorbed these five decades & change past... cordially, Die Welt ist alles, was der Fall ist.
Post #165,490 by deSitter 7/21/04 10:38:03 PM Reply	Re: Memories of the moon Please work on Julie the C's orthography while he's underwing. :) -drl
Post #165,516 by rcareaga 7/22/04 1:18:48 AM Reply	English lessons His spelling is likely better than yours or mine was after five years exposure to the mother tongue, and his English is moreover far better than my or thy Russian will ever be. But to the extent it lies within my power on a camping trip, which is unlikely to involve a lot of written communication, I'll attempt to exert a salutary influence. cordially, Die Welt ist alles, was der Fall ist.

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