To the Moon, Alice. To the Moon!

"Boys.... Boys: Wake up."

I remember this call very, very faintly. It was my mother.

And it was around midnight, Eastern Standard Time.

And it was July 21, 1969.

Blinking and shielding our eyes from the light, we padded down the hall to my parents bedroom, where the TV was.

And on the screen was a fuzzy, blurry, black-and-white image of ... I wasn't really sure. I was, after all, only six years old.

But what really struck me -- and what remains memorable these 50 years later -- is what my mother said to me and my brothers: "I want you to see this. I want you to be able to tell your grandchildren you saw man land on the moon."

I'm not sure what drove my mom to be such a fan of the space program. I can only guess that it was her fandom of President Kennedy, who kicked this effort up big time before his assassination.

My dad was equally as interested, working in Naval Aeronautics his entire career. He was wowed by the engineering of it all.

He was also pretty conversant on the nighttime sky. He liked pointing out the constellations to us, whose shapes he learned at sea. Topside on a ship at night, he claimed, enabled even the most faint of faraway stars to stand out like a diamond on a black cloth.

He also told me to look for the man in the moon by imagining it was like the logo for the Jackie Gleason Show. I took him literally, and was trying to see Ralph Kramden in a surface of vague pits and crevasses.

Can't tell you how old I was before I finally discerned the man in the moon.

As the following years unspooled, man in space, man on moon became more common. I remember the advertising associated with it, specifically Tang (even though the stuff had been around since the late 1950s). And I remember things like the lunar rover.

CBS on Saturday Mornings ran a show called In the News, which was a two-minute recap of national stories that the producers thought would be interesting to kids. Christopher Glenn was the host, and the show would be nestled into the lineup of cartoons. Many of these reports centered on the space program into the 1970s (lots of coverage on Skylab), and I well remember waiting for them to be over to get back to "Archie" and "The Groovy Ghoulies."

When we went as a family to Walt Disney World in 1973, Dad worked in a side-trip to Cape Kennedy. And in all honesty -- after a handful of days of audio animatronic attractions, stellar fireworks, elaborate parades, amazing restaurants, and character interactions -- I was bored to death looking at rocket towers and gigantic warehouses.

(Always thought we should have flipped those trips, done the space stuff first, then gone to Disney. Eh. Hindsight.)

The space program faded somewhat from my consciousness after that, until the Challenger disaster in 1986.

Since then, I've hoped we could recapture the technological oomph (and the budgetary resources) to get back into space. It's currently resurfacing as an idea in Washington (Space Force. Yes!! Even if it sounds like a cheesy Sci-Fi TV series), but I doubt it has the public support to find funding, especially under the current administration.

Still, I'm grateful for that midnight call to come and stand in front of the TV set. I may not remember every detail to tell my grandkids.

But I remember some.

And I look upward a the full moon often.

And somehow see Jackie Gleason.

Plots but No Plotzing

Gad, it's hot.

High temp is expected to soar to a feel-like 100 degrees plus over the next few days.

When we were kids, 100 years ago, days like these usually meant an afternoon at our nearby swim club. Or hunkering down in front of a fan in the living room for a marathon Scrabble game.

But I also remember escaping the heat by riding my bike to the local library.

Not only was the library a place of access to a seemingly unlimited number of books, which was appealing on its own because of my love of reading. But it was also air conditioned! 

Which meant blissful browsing. Novels in Nirvana. Plots but no plotzing!

The bike ride was about two miles from home. Traffic made it generally safe, but there was a point where one of the road squeezed its lanes together as an underpass beneath an old trolly line. I remember that section requiring extra attention, given the close proximity between handlebars and passenger doors.

Once inside the library, I was in another world. A cool, quiet place with nothing but reading material as far as the eye could see.

I remember often pulling books from the shelves and, in a burst of enthusiasm to start, sitting down in the aisle and starting to read. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if I finished a book before I even had the chance to take it home.

Each summer, the library would embark on a campaign to encourage reading throughout the school recess. These efforts were usually embodied by some method of tracking the books kids had read; I know one year, we were given an empty U.S. map, and each read book was logged by getting a sticker (a cluster of a few states, as the Library didn't expect us to read 50 books between early June and late August). 

Participants who filled their entire map were awarded a small prize and the honor of having their maps -- or whatever the monitoring artwork was -- hung on a library wall.

I can't recall a single tchotchke I received; I only know that I'd have my paper done well before July 4, and often before the library had received its supply of prizes.

Didn't matter. 

I never participated for the prizes. I participated because I loved reading.
... and, well, okay, I was a little competitive.

As I got older, my visits to that library became less and less frequent. The bike was replaced by a car. Enrollment in elementary school eventually became high school and then college, where I spent an awful lot of time in the library and never earned a sticker for it.

I'm still an avid reader. The trips to the library to browse thousands of books is now a logon to the Kindle store to browse millions of books.

But the joy of escaping the heat by diving into a gripping story still has appeal.

Rockets Red Glare

I've written before about my rather obsessive love of fireworks.

I've seen some great shows in my day: July 04 displays that end with a barrage of shells made me think the night sky was noontime. And the deafening explosions rang in my ears until I'd finished the long walk back to the car.

One memorable show was on the Philadelphia Parkway, in front of the Art Museum. The power of the explosions was so forceful, I felt the legs of my shorts being tugged with every shot, moving on their own from the sudden changes in air pressure.

But only one fireworks show stands out as truly unforgettable.

And not surprisingly, it was courtesy of Walt Disney Parks and Resorts in Orlando.

I had heard about this show, which blazed nightly over World Showcase Lagoon in EPCOT. I'd heard about the power of the music and the use of multiple visuals including fountains, lasers, fire, barges and projections to create a fireworks show unlike any other.

What I wasn't prepared for was the sheer emotional wallop this show packed. At least for me.

We first saw it when Kristin was very young; in fact, she spent most of the performance cowering in Eileen's shoulder to escape the sheer power of the audio and visuals.

I, however, was rapt.

From the impressive opening, whose narration about the power of gathering to share stories, ended with the whimsical blowing out of a ring of giant torches, ala a massive birthday cake.

The music then took over, full of chaos and fury but evolving into a four-movement symphony that helps the story unfold. It covers the dynamic range of fortississismo (that's three fs, people) to pianississimo (three ps) and back again. Its time signatures swung between syncopated measures of 5/8 and 3/8 to calmer sections of 6/8 to bouncy measures of a more traditional sounding 4/4.

The accompanying visuals were showers of sparks, explosions of color, bursts of fire, beams of light and video images on the large globe that had been floated to the middle of the lagoon.

After the dazzling finale, it segued into two vocal selections ("We Go On" and "Promise") before the final exit music.

Eileen was rather distracted as Kristin was freaking out, and Amanda was somewhat nonplussed by it all. But I remember Claire looking up at me as it ended, with tears streaming down her cheeks (matching my own waterworks, fyi). When I asked her what was wrong, she said, "The magic's all over."

To this day, I'm not sure if she meant the magic of the fireworks display or the magic of the entire trip, which was indeed ending, as we were departing the following morning.

We got back to Disney a handful of years later and Illuminations was must-see. Kristin was much calmer this time and enjoyed herself.

Somewhere along the line, I acquired an EPCOT soundtrack, and the Illuminations music remains to this day a favorite. I play it in the car loud enough to strain my speaker system. But it still moves me.

Illuminations is on its way out, according to the Disney folks. The lagoon at EPCOT is due for a refresh, and with it will come a new show. And I suppose that's as it should be. "We Go On" is more than just a theme song to an evening entertainment extravaganza; it's a viewpoint for all of Walt Disney World.

And life in general, I suppose.

So tomorrow night, July 04, I will stand with neighbors and family at our local golf course, stare at the sky and oooh and aaah.

But somewhere deep, I'll wish I was in Florida once again being literally blown away by a fireworks show.

A Bomb of a Prom

Kristin, our youngest daughter, is in a flurry right now, prepping for her Senior Prom. This is a milestone for us as a family, the final time we will navigate the dress-buying, hair-styling, accessorizing, make-up, transpo, ticket-buying, flower-deciding, photo-snapping and post-dance gauntlet.

Whew!

It brought to mind my own high school proms.

In general, I had a meh-time at most of them. I found school dances to be an awful lot of fuss over not much of anything, and that was the days way before guys were expected to wow a girl with a truly memorable (and Insta-worthy) promposal.

But my Junior Prom.

Oh, my Junior Prom....

I will keep her name to myself out of a sense of discretion that maybe she has matured since those days. I certainly hope so. I shall, for the purposes of relating this tale, call her Toni Kathcart.

I believe I had a math class with Toni. And that I sat near her. And that in the course of the semester, we struck up a good friendship.

And in the run-up to the Junior Prom, it was made known to both of us that neither she nor I had a date.

So I asked. And she accepted. And she made me aware of a post-prom party at the home of a friend of her's.

Fine. Great.

Prom night came, and everything went off without a hitch. I picked her up. We went to the school gym and navigated our way through the crepe paper decorations. Picture staged (hand here, flowers there) and taken. Onto the dance floor. Dined on cafeteria cuisine. Pretty much business as usual for a Junior Prom.

Things really didn't jump the tracks until after the dance was over.

I drove her to the party. Parked the car on the street. Walked with her up to the door. And right before she went to ring the bell, she turned to me.

"Well, thanks. I had a great time."

"Huh?"

"Well, I'm going in..."

"And?"

And her next words have stayed with me to this day:

"Well, I was invited to this party. But you weren't."

And in she went.

And I stood on the stoop for a moment. Partly to catch my breath. Partly to pick up the shattered pieces of my soul before turning around and heading back to the car.

We never spoke again. Math class unspooled for the rest of the year, and we ignored each other. Senior year came and went. And we graduated and went our separate ways.

I, of course, got married to someone lovely and caring and considerate and funny and wise... someone who would never do anything like eviscerate another human being on the doorstep of a complete stranger.

And Toni? I have no idea. I'd like to think she has matured a lot since those days, or at least developed a compassionate heart.

And if she's married with kids and has a son who sheepishly asks a math classmate to the Junior Prom.

Well, I at least hope he gets better treatment than I did.

Salve Regina

Notre Dame Cathedral. So sad. I have such fond memories of being there once.

In speaking to a colleague yesterday about the fire, I actually became slightly emotional. We were discussing the loss in terms of architecture and history and art, and I cited the point that the soaring edifice was also home to one-of-a-kind artifacts of religious significance.

Like the Crown of Thorns. And a relic from the True Cross of Christ.

And as those words left my mouth -- the True Cross of Christ -- I felt my throat tighten just a bit.

My colleague never commented on my tone. She does know that I am a practicing Roman Catholic, as the point has come up in various political discussions we've had along the way. But I could read sympathy in her eyes.

Thankfully, these priceless items have apparently been saved. Divine intervention, perhaps.

Stories and memories of Notre Dame are everywhere today. And I've got one as well.

March 1984. I was in the midst of a study abroad semester in London with 24 other students from SJU. As the semester unfolded, a group of us decided to go to Paris for the weekend.

We took a bus to Dover and got on the Sealink -- this was all pre-chunnel, folks -- to France.

The morning we arrived, we navigated the Metro (not a one of us spoke French, by the way, other than how to pray the Hail Mary) and made our way to Notre Dame.

I don't remember the particulars of the tour we took, except for its finale. After exploring the interior, we were led up a series of switchback staircases outside to the roof of the two columns. From there, we were led across the rooftop on a narrow pathway bounded by a parapet that came up to perhaps my hips.

My acrophobia kicked in. That barrier between us and the plaza below seemed much too low to be of much good, and I backed myself as far away from it as I could. I inched along, flat-backed to the wall of the church.

One of the guys in our group passed by a gargoyle and said to me, "C'm-here, Dan. I've got a great idea for a picture."

How many troubles were started with exactly that question?

He borrowed my wool hat and placed it on the gargoyle's head. And as he prepped to take a picture, the wind whipped it off the grotesquerie and blew it below.

I mustered the courage to lean forward to see it drop on another walkway underneath the rose window, far below where we were. It didn't land in the courtyard where I would have a chance to nab it when we descended.

It was being held hostage by Our Lady.

I immediately knew I had to get it back -- it was a favorite hat and I wasn't eager to ride out the rest of the winter in London without it.

We descended with the tour and I immediately searched out someone on the cathedral staff to help me.

The language barrier was huge. "Mon chapeau!" was about all any of us could manage. We pantomimed and pointed our way through the other details.

Our aide wasn't too happy to have to a) figure out what these idiot Americans wanted and b) act on it. But he did. Within 15 minutes or so, I was reunited with my hat.

"Merci! Merci!"

I'm not sure what the French word for eye-roll is, but I got an unmistakeable one.

The punchline to this story came after we got back to London and my housemate got his film developed (hah... remember having to get film developed?).

The shot was perfect: A leering, crouching gargoyle. And a hat in mid-air about two feet in front of his skull, about to submit to gravity's pull and cascade downward.

That hat is now long-gone. Many of my pictures from that trip are also MIA. And I've long ago lost contact with the friend who suggested the picture.

And now the Cathedral itself is nearly lost as well.

But this much is true: Catholicism is all about Resurrection. And even though pieces of this story have been lost forever, the church in Paris will rise again.

Vive la France!

Swing and a Miss!

Philly baseball season 2019 opened last week with Fightins' against the Atlanta Braves.

And surprisingly, there was a big finish -- the grand slam that sealed a win. Would that all (most, some, any) games generated this kind of big finish.

In all honesty, I've never really gotten excited about baseball.

First off, grand slams aside, the game to me is deadly dull to watch: It is long stretches of nothing followed by the occasional something.

Zzzzzz. 'Ray! Zzzzzz...

Now I know that's a broad -- and somewhat harsh -- judgment. Devotees of the subtleties of the game will tell me that I'm not watching closely enough. That there are areas of finesse throughout every pitch, both offensively and defensively. And that once cued into these finer points, the game becomes fascinating.

Uh-huh. There are also a hundred miracles involved with the blossoming of a dandelion in the lawn. That doesn't mean I'd make an afternoon out of watching one.

No, as I've stated before, I'm much more of a football guy. Sixteen games from September to January; three playoff games and boom... a Super Bowl.

Done and done.

So baseball to me has two strikes against it: The games themselves are too long and boring. And the season itself -- lasting from Easter to Hallow-frigging-ween -- is just too much.

Maybe my disinterest stems from being so lousy at the game as a kid.

Each spring, Dad would haul out the gloves, and we -- my brothers and I -- would gently massage the winter out of them with splurts of Neatsfoot oil. We'd then spend some twilight spring evenings tossing the ball back and forth.

I enjoyed these catches. They were more about spending time with my dad and brothers than honing any skills.

And it wasn't like I was totally inept at hitting and fielding. In the neighborhood, we played a form of baseball using a mini-bat and a tennis ball, and these epic games would stretch on throughout summer evenings until darkness made it too difficult to see anything.

But somehow it all fell apart -- the coordination, the camaraderie, the hustle, the fun -- in a more formal setting.

I did play little league. Lamely.

"Take Me Out to the Ball Game" indeed... As long as it's a football game.

1972 shot of me on the left, in the blue cap/uniform