Of Porch Lights And Moon Beams: A Tale Of Two Worlds

     A great many plans devised by humans end up well, not perfect because, well, they're designed by humans.  Burnside at Fredericksburg, Custer at Little Big Horn, the introduction of New Coke, the Edsel, and the famous missing hyphen in the programming code for NASA's 1962 launch of Mariner 1 are all great examples of well-meaning people who excelled in something that humans try their darndest to avoid but never completely can:  Royally Screwing Up.
     Forty-four years ago tonight, my mother hatched her own plan.  On that summer night and just under 250,000 miles away, three brave Americans were preparing to make history.  The LEM containing Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin was preparing to land on the surface of the moon, while Mike Collins orbited - and waited above - in the service module Columbia.  The whole nation was watching on television.  The whole nation.  Except me.  Where was I?  Across the street over at the schoolyard playing baseball with my friends.
     Mom could not understand why I would miss out on a chance to see this momentous and historic occasion.  So she had an idea:  She told me she would turn on the front porch light when they were about to

land, and since I could see the light from the field where we were playing I was supposed to drop what I was doing and head to the television.  Give up baseball and summertime?
     Fat chance, Mom.  Priorities are priorities.
     Now, later on - after it got dark, naturally, which rendered further baseball impossible - I found myself planted in front of our living room black and white television watching history unfold along with my parents, sister, and maternal grandparents.  I understood that it was a BIG thing, as much as an eight-year old who had baseball on the brain could, I suppose.  Did I appreciate it as much as an adult would have?  No.  But to this day I consider myself very lucky to have been alive and old enough to have understood what has happening.
     Except for the sound of screaming mid-summer locusts outside and the hum/rattle of our window unit air conditioner, the house was silent.  In a kind of reverent awe - as if a sudden noise or a random uttered

phrase might somehow cause a celestial lunar problem - we watched in silence the grainy movements of a human being doing heroic things at an impossible, incomprehensible distance.
     At a few minutes before 10:00 Central Time, pictures were beamed back from the moon showing the ghostly picture of a man standing on what looked like a huge metallic leg; in the background, there showed a semi-circle sliver of moon surface.  Neil Armstrong paused before making history and commented on the physical consistency of the ground upon which he was about to stand.
     "I'm going to step off the LEM now."
     There is some historical debate as to whether in the excitement of the moment Armstrong misspoke his first words, leaving out the "a" after the "for" and before the "man" making it "One small step for man" instead of "One small step for a man", rendering it sort of redundant.  A subsequent NASA examination of the audio tape showed there had been garbling of the signal due to storms over certain portions of the Earth in the right

location and at the right time that caused the "a" to not be heard.  Armstrong claims he said it as he wanted to, and who is to disbelieve him?  Does it matter much?  No.  The sentiment was there and the words were eloquent, timeless, and eternal.
     (Click on this link to hear Neil Armstrong's famous words.)  "That's one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind."
     And with that, our world changed.  We went back a few times - all successfully, except for the cinematically-documented Apollo 13 mission - but eventually as a species we went scurrying back to safety under the wide and protective skirt of Mother Earth, save for a ton of circular orbits of the planet doing experiments and such.  Conspiracy theorists say that somewhere along the line, aliens got a hold of us and basically said:  "You're not welcome out here."  And that's why we've not gone back, or onward to Mars.  More than likely though we just lack the political will that was once fueled by nationalistic pride and competition, and we're also missing the copious amounts of money that would be needed for the endeavor.
     In July of 1969, however, it seemed as if it would be a given:  In the years to come, we would routinely travel to the moon and beyond.  We didn't, of course.  But for that time period, we all dropped what we were doing and simply watched, absorbed, took it all in, and tried to remember.  Housework was put away, parties paused, work was stopped, and baseballs were placed safely in worn and sun-bleached gloves to await another day.
     I'm just glad that Neil decided to make his first step when it was too dark to see a ground ball coming my way.  Because if he had stepped out during a glorious summer mid-afternoon?  Decisions, decisions....
    
    

That Imperfect Season

      I recently came across an old memory, one of those things that are seemingly long forgotten but in spite of everything they retain a foothold on your soul, waiting for you to put down the burdens of the present to once again look, savor, and remember.

     It is worn and yellowed now, and perhaps angry for being so ingloriously stuffed away in a box under the stairway for forty years or so next to old Life magazines and dog-eared Sears and Roebuck catalogs.  Such is the fate and paradox of old memories:  They gather their strength and power through the lowly dust that collects upon them like a musty badge of honor.
     The kids in my neighborhood all had a dream of one day playing Major League Baseball and to that end our summer days were filled with seemingly countless pick up games over at the old schoolyard.  They consisted of maybe four - or at most, five - players per side, with the person at bat doubling as the catcher, meaning: if they missed the pitch, they'd take three steps back to the backstop to get the ball and throw it back to their opponent.  Baseball is the only sport in which the offense never touches the ball, but the "rule makers" never played true schoolyard ball, Lincoln, Nebraska style.
     As part of the stepping stone to the "Bigs" we all played little league baseball in the summer, the Lincoln version of it being called the "Little Chiefs."  It was called this in tribute to the old Lincoln Chiefs, a minor league affiliate of the Pirates who played their home games at venerable Sherman Field in the late '50's and early '60's.  Our summers revolved around this activity, and it is still one of the great times of my life.

     One year, we had a really great team.  I mean, really great.  Our best player was Steve Damkroger, the last in the line of a fine athletic family; he went on to be an all Big 8 linebacker at the University of Nebraska, following his brother, Maury - one of my childhood idols - who also played at the "U" as a fullback and had a brief cup of coffee with the NFL's New England Patriots after using up his eligibility.  Steve was a stud.  He pitched and no one could hit him; fortunately, he was on our team.  As a group, we were basically unbeatable.  
     Almost.

     I recently came across a booklet documenting our season that consisted of number-crunched statistics from the score book, various memories from Coach McCormick, and, oddly enough, a meticulous final page showing a to-the-penny bookkeeping statement of the after game treat fund which was used to pay for trips to the local A&W.  We only went if we won, and that summer we consumed a lot of A&W.  Except one time.
     In our fourth game, one of the players who was not normally a pitcher wanted a chance to take the hill and he was given that opportunity.  I remember playing shortstop during that game and seeing it not go well for us.  Looking back at the stat sheet, I see that there was one hit and three walks recorded early on, and peeking at the coach's memories part of the booklet, I saw that there was also a home run involved.  We gave up five runs in that inning and never recovered.  Later on in the year we got our revenge for that loss by defeating that team 22-1.  But the damage was done.  

     It's funny how sometimes I still think of that game and that imperfect season.  I can drive by that field and picture ourselves out there, gangly youth still full of innocence and chasing wisps of dreams in the early evening sun, caring only for the next batter, the next inning, the next hour, the next day, the next game.  Our adult lives were still out there somewhere, waiting and silently plotting to impose on us another, more harsh, imperfect season in the form of divorce, heartbreak, financial trouble, and all that being an adult would imply.  We eventually went our separate ways after school and a couple more seasons, but to this day the bond of that time and that one loss remains among us.