to the moon alice

We watched the strangest images on television.  We saw footage of rockets taking off, orbiting and voices crackling from outer-space.  Nations raced to the moon and we found ourselves in a new age - a space age.  I was in elementary school.  I kept up with the Apollo project's progress, set-backs, and triumph in my Weekly Reader.  I kept those little school newspapers for years, until the great news became old news.  What a wondrous time to be a kid.

We looked at surreal images on television news at 6.  We marveled at all the photos in the newspapers and magazines.  We wondered what it was like to actually see and hold a moon rock for ourselves.  Our heroes were astronauts.

I drank  A LOT of  Tang.  I drank it not just because it was what the astronauts drank, but because it came with a little lunar buggy toy.  I drank as much as I could and eventually owned an entire fleet of those little buggies.

I got a G.I. Joe capsule for Christmas one year.

Before the space race, space was science fiction.  Space was elusive and mysterious and yet in our time - obtainable.  Having men strapped to rockets and shot into deep space stirred a boy's imagination.  And there we were, growing up among giants who proved the impossible possible.