From the Earth to the moon: failure to communicate

What do Charlie Brown’s Christmas visit to Lucy’s psychiatric booth and the Artemis II lunar mission have in common?

I’m glad you asked.

But before I share my thoughts on that dichotomy, there’s something I need to get out of the way at the outset since it’s a central theme as to what follows — specifically, the fact that two-thirds of Americans living today have absolutely no memory of the Apollo program and its six manned moon landings … born too late.

From July 1969 until December 1972, a total of 12 astronauts walked on the lunar surface, thus rewriting the history of space exploration while, at the same time, making an entire nation proud.

The world at large marveled at American ingenuity, creating for a few short years the kind of global reputation that seems a dream now, a time not that far removed from what the Temptations captured in “Ball of Confusion,” a hit from summer 1970.

“Shootin’ rockets to the moon

Kids growin’ up too soon …

People all over the world

Are shouting, ‘End the war!’

And the band played on.”

Speaking only as one small human being in an endless universe, I can attest to the fact that when Neil Armstrong stepped off that ladder and put the first footprints in the moon dust, I never felt more patriotic. I was 14 on Sunday, July 20, 1969, but even now, in my seventh decade, it’s still at the top of my list, and I salute it.

What followed was moon fatigue, a period of been-there, done-that ennui, which seems hard to believe, given the scale of the achievement, but budget cuts and boredom eventually ended an era.

The space station begat the shuttle, which begat tragic calamities, leading to a series of unmanned satellites dispatched to the edge of the cosmos, but to me anyway, the thrill was gone, and I zoned out.

I lived on my memories, recalling how the nun wheeled in a TV set to our first grade classroom so her students could watch the launch of Friendship 7 with John Glenn aboard, the first American to orbit the Earth. I remembered dressing up as an astronaut for Halloween a few years later and dropping pennies into a Mercury capsule bank, a space-age souvenir that survives to this very day.

And then there was a family trip to the St. Joseph Airport in South Bend, where actual, authentic moon rocks were on display, something that would have seemed too sci-fi even a decade earlier.

It was right around then the conspiracy theory nuts became certain the whole lunar landing was faked, a cruel ruse perpetrated on an unsuspecting public, something akin to the rumor Paul McCartney was dead, another stupid story meant to grab headlines and convince the more gullible among the citizenry.

And you think right-wing radio is something new under the sun.

I suppose somewhere on the lunatic fringe there are those perpetrating the notion the Artemis II flight never happened, that it was all a made-for-TV figment of internet/AI imagination.

Spare me, please, and crawl back under a rock, where you belong.

But I must confess the whole enterprise left me curiously unmoved. I expected to be captivated by the resumption of lunar exploration after half a century in mothballs. From blastoff to splashdown, however hard I tried, I couldn’t muster a single shred of enthusiasm for what should have been 10 days of excitement.

And that’s where Charlie Brown re-enters our little narrative.

From the time it premiered in 1965, “A Charlie Brown Christmas” has become a holiday tradition, beloved by generations for its sincerity, its insight, its musical score and its ageless message.

We identify with his struggle to find the true meaning of Christmas, a problem that leads him to get advice from Lucy, who listens as he says, “I’m in sad shape. I know I should be happy, but I’m not.”

Contained therein is a philosophical dilemma that has confused children and adults alike since Lucy demands five cents before she begins her therapeutic session. Even now we hear her delight:

“Boy, what a sound! How I love to hear that old money clink! That beautiful sound of cold, hard cash! Nickels, nickels, nickels!”

Charlie Brown then comes to the point.

“Actually, Lucy,” he says, “my problem is Christmas. I just don’t understand it. Instead of feeling happy, I feel sort of let down.”

If you substitute “Artemis II” for “Christmas,” that could be me.

But I don’t need Lucy to peel back the layers of my disillusionment since I know precisely the cause of it all.

And it’s this simple: Why, after 54 years, did we send astronauts back to the moon only for them to spin around in pointless orbits?

Why didn’t they land? I mean it was like driving to Disney World, circling the parking lot for hour after hour and then just leaving.

Good grief … they didn’t even bring back a lousy moon rock.

Mike Dewey can be reached at Carolinamiked@aol.com or 1317 Troy Road, Ashland, OH 44805. He invites you to join him on his Facebook page, where we’ve experienced the dark side of the moon.