One Dad's Life

One of those "You'll Never Forget Where You Were" Moments

Today, our nation celebrates the 40th Anniversary of the first moon landing.  If you were alive way back then, chances are this was one of those "You'll Never Forget Where You Were" moments.

However, I have forgotten quite a bit about the first moon landing, and I also think that I've probably swirled a whole lot of the Apollo trips together.  Yesterday morning, my mom asked me if I remembered where I was and what I was doing at the time of the landing.  I thought I did, but I got it wrong, or at least confused.  Hopefully, this has more to do with the fact that I was three and a half at the first landing, and not any indication of any advancing senility!

I assumed I was watching it all on television, at night.  But, according to my mom's report, I was actually at a play at the "Spanish Pavilion."  They interrupted the play to announce the moon landing.  At three and a half, I apparently cheered loudly.  This would place the importance of the moon landing for me pretty close to the time one of the dwarfs fell off the bench he was sleeping on into the fireplace during a Muny performance of "Snow White."  I loved that.

This event began my fascination with space, space travel, and related topics that continues to this day.  An enumeration of key examples of my fascination:

• An early visit to Washington D.C. I was greatly disappointed that the Air and Space museum was essentially closed while they built the new exhibit space.  All you could really see were a few key artifacts in a small building.
• Starting building and flying model rockets in the 6th or 7th grade and continued through college.
• Finally got to the new Air and Space museum after it reopened.  I believe I read every single word that was written on any sign or exhibit in the entire museum.  There was no "browsing" for me. I had to go back for a second day to finish, while my family continued on with something a little more interesting for them!
• Purchased a Newtonian telescope with a 10" mirror to gaze into space from our backyard.  The major trigger for this was an incredibly close approach of Mars a couple of years back.  I did end up getting an incredible view, on an unusually calm and clear night.

So if some of my recollections were a bit hazy, what exactly DO I remember from those moon landings?

• Looking through the red plastic that used to be wrapped around banana stems, to make our B&W TV image into a color image.
• The explanations (probably by Walter Cronkite) of exactly how the rockets worked, and how the the lunar lander would emerge, land, and then re-launch.
• Our B&W TV going on the fritz, so we'd rush across the street to watch on our neighbors set.
• Looking up at the moon in the night sky, straining to see the astronauts. I was probably, at some point, convinced that I found them.

In the great scheme of things, odd stuff to remember, but stand-out memories for a three year old that have lasted all of these years.  Of course, I "remember" all the video and pictures of the astronauts bouncing across the moon.   I'm just not so certain whether I remember it that well from the actual events, or from the repetition over the years!

We now live in a world where travel to space is probably not so magical for most kids and doesn't even figure prominently in the news.  However, I'm still excited about every manned launch and every probe that is launched, but I'm really looking forward to the United States returning to the moon and heading out to Mars!

There is so much to see and explore out there!  If you'd like to restore your own wonder, I'd recommend making "The Astronomy Picture of the Day" your homepage.  One fantastic photo every day, along with great information and links!  As this post is published, today's picture is naturally the first moon landing.

What are your moon landing memories?

Last Chance for the Ming Dynasty

If you are looking for something interesting to see this weekend, I've got what you are looking for!

The St. Louis Art Museum's exhibit "Power and Glory : Court Arts of China's Ming Dynasty" is in its final three days and ends this Sunday.

We had been looking forward to this exhibit for some time, but kept putting it off as we were waiting for a couple of Chinese people in my department at work to arrive for their first visit to the United States. Luckily, they finally made it here and last weekend we took them to the exhibit.

One thing I've noticed in my Asian travels is that so far, the museums I've seen do not have the ability to display and care for their artifacts in the way that modern US museums do. In fact, ancient and priceless items are often simply laid on tables, behind a rope in a building that is not even climate controlled!

Our Chinese visitors were impressed with the display, and frequently wondered if the artifacts were "real" as they were displayed so nicely and were in such great condition.  They often explained various aspects of the art and other information to us, too.  It was the first time they had seen and read so much of China's celebrated Ming Dynasty, though it is a period in China's history that is still revered.

For those of you who do not have a couple of Chinese friends along to read all the Chinese and discuss what is there, the museum has a fantastic alternative - they provide Apple iPods with your ticket purchase which contains short 1-2 minute clips describing much of the history and culture surrounding various artifacts.

The display runs through Sunday, and is open Friday early evening for FREE (iPod rental is $3.00 and worth it), while on Saturday and Sunday admission is $10.00 (which includes the iPod rental).  I highly recommend you visit this beautiful exhibit!

For more information visit the Art Museum's page on this exhibit here.

Have a great weekend!

----------------------------------------

Photo taken with a Nikon D60, 18-55mm, f3.5-5.5 kit lens.  Heavily manipulated in GIMP.

Memorial Day

I think that over time, Memorial Day has turned into a celebration just due to the fact that it currently is forced to fall on a Monday, thus creating a three-day weekend. No work for many people, yeah!   Unfortunately, the original intent and meaning is lost on many.  I'm going to take a one day break from the usual silliness of this website, to talk briefly about this important day. 

Memorial day originally started, according to some accounts, when recently freed slaves in the Charleston area entered a southern prison camp, and re-interred the many Union soldiers that had been buried there in a mass grave.  They buried these soldiers in individual, marked graves and built a fence around the cemetery, honoring the soldiers that had bought their freedom with their lives.  It was 1865 and these slaves had just been freed the month before!  Can you imagine the personal risk they took to honor these soldiers?

Three years later,on May 30th, 1868, these former slaves returned, and decorated the graves with flowers and laurels.  The date became known as "Decoration Day", the original name for Memorial Day.  To this day, the National Cemeteries have their graves decorated for this occasion.   In St. Louis, the boy scouts play a major role in this task.  

The US government created this network of national cemeteries, originally to bury the many American Civil War dead.  Nearly 3% of the population died either fighting or as collateral damage during this horrific war.  That was over a million people.  Near my house is one of these National Cemeteries, Jefferson Barracks National Cemetery.  Jefferson Barracks itself was named after Thomas Jefferson, who had died the year before it was formed.  Jefferson Barracks started in 1826 as the country's first "infantry school of practice."   The first soldier buried there was in 1827.   In 1866, the cemetery became part of the US network of National Cemeteries and contains many civil war dead.

Memorial day has since been expanded to be a day honoring those who have died in any military service for our country, including the original confederate soldiers.  I encourage everyone in the United States reading this, to make this history part of whatever celebration you are participating in today.  If possible, make a brief stop at any of the National Cemeteries, either today, or over the next week.  I will be doing the same.

Photo info:  I made this print in 1991 - many years before all this digital stuff made such things easy...and cheap.  The picture is actually two individual pictures, shot on 35mm film with a Minolta SRT-201 camera.  One picture is of the cemetery at Jefferson Barracks, and the other is of a large rock that was behind my apartment.  Master Slide, in Webster Groves, took each 35mm negative and created a 4x5 inter-negative from each photo.  They then sandwiched both of these negatives together to create the final print.  I'm sure all together it cost me a fortune!  It is also matted and framed and hanging in my living room. I apologize for the "softness" of the scan.  I was afraid to remove the photo from the mat, so it was not directly on the surface of the scanner, and thus a bit out of focus.  The original is sharp and a bit brighter!