“It is good to renew one’s wonder, said the philosopher. Space travel has again made children of us all.”
Flurries fell a little while ago. They were small and wispy and didn’t last very long. It’s cold again, 29°. Yesterday I did some errands and cleaned the bathrooms; today I’ll do nothing as I’d hate to get into the routine of doing something every day. I will make my bed, shower and brush my teeth, but that’s it! I’m in flannel pants, a sweatshirt and warm slippers. They will be the uniform of the day.
When I was growing up, we imagined. I didn’t have any guns but sticks worked just as well, except for the spinning with your fingers part. I did have to yell, “I got you,” so my victim would know he was shot and could fall dramatically holding his chest. When I’d read, I could see all of the characters in my mind’s eye. I was part of the action. The 50’s science fiction movies now look a bit silly with their crude special effects, but I love them still. The same with monsters. I remember The Thing with Two Heads, one black and one white, and the hand which roamed the old mansion halls and strangled the guests.
Even though I didn’t know the concept I had learned to suspend disbelief. I took the monsters and space aliens at face value. They were, after all, just characters in movies.
I never saw the moon landing, but I did hear it on the radio; however, listening to it didn’t give the historic event a whole lot of impact. I might as well have been listening to The War of the Worlds. There we were huddled around the radio hearing the announcer from Voice of America say Armstrong had jumped off the ladder onto the moon. We heard his historic, “One small step for man…,” but had to imagine it all. It seemed more science fiction than real.
In my mind the moon landing is a black and white movie. The spaceship is huge, and the astronauts can walk upright from one floor to another. The women bring sandwiches and coffee to the hard-working male astronauts. They spend a lot of time looking out the portholes a the Earth gets smaller and the moon bigger. They even land on the moon. Those landings I have seen many times.
Explore posts in the same categories: UncategorizedTags: Moon landing, radio broadcast, scifi movies, Voice of America, War of the Worlds
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January 19, 2012 at 1:12 pm
I did see the landing on the moon but was just to young to understand it 🙂 When I think of landing on the moon I always think of Tintin, the Belgique cartoon. I read that comic magazine so many times it broke in several pieces and it was so exiting, better than the real thing 🙂
I love those old monster movies 🙂 They showed lots of japanese ones with Godzilla, Mothra and all the other monsters they had over there 🙂 Badly made but still I love them. The new ones they have made today is of so much higher quality but still in a way worse than the old ones.
I read that they have calculated that there possibly are several billions of planets like ours out there, how I wish I could visit some of them 🙂 Every night when the sky is clear I stand out there looking up in the sky wishing aliens would come and fetch me so I could travel with them 🙂 🙂 🙂
Have a great day!
Christer.
January 19, 2012 at 5:12 pm
Christer,
Tintin was never very popular here so I don’t know much the stories.
I too live all the monster movies, the cheesier the better. My favorite are the 50’s B&W ones about all the creatures invading the Earth.
I once read that it is egotistical for us to think we are it, the only sentient life in the universe. In the vastness of space there must be more.
January 19, 2012 at 4:54 pm
When Kev and Lisa were much younger, we went to the Wilton NH Town Hall Theater (Google it) to see “The Creature from the Black Lagoon” and “It Came from Outer Space”, both b&w, and we had to wear the 3-d glasses. Cheesy, yes, but we enjoyed them.
When I traveled to Japan, I couldn’t help but notice all the high tension electrical towers on the landscape. It was almost like I expected Godzilla to show up any minute.
We didn’t hear the moon landing report on the radio in Ghana, but read about it the next day. I remember the students in Bolga doing a skit about it on Talent Night, and it was hilarious.
January 19, 2012 at 5:17 pm
Bill,
Those are two of my very favorites.
My sister who also loves B movies was heart broken when her kids saw the Creature and all they noticed was the scuba tank hidden under his suit. I love TCM when it has a day of B&W scifi movies.
I would have thought the same thing about those electrical wires. Godzilla dropped them like matchsticks.
We were in Bawku at our live-in and was at the volunteer’s house who was our liason. We listened on his radio. We weren’t very impressed.
I used to love talent night. Do you remember tribal dancing night? On one of them, you and I wandered around to the different tribes. In the dining hall were the aliens dancing with each other to records. We roared laughing.
January 19, 2012 at 6:43 pm
Another sunny and warm day here in North Texas. It’s in the sixties with mid seventies forecast for tomorrow. The sun must be shining here because the Rangers signed this 25 year old Japanese phenomenon pitcher, Yu Darvish, for nearly enough money to pay off the national debt.
As a kid I hated Science fiction monster movies because they gave me nightmares. I still can’t watch ‘The War of The Worlds’ or any of the remakes. I can still remember hiding under my seat in the movie theater trying to watch ‘It Came from Outer Space’ with my friends. My favorite ‘B’ Science Fiction Movie is ‘Plan 9 from Outer Space’. This Ed Wood classic is considered the worst movie ever made. It makes Godzilla look like an Academy Award winner. It even had Bela Lugosi in his last role. I think Bela died before the film was completed. There is a great movie about the life of Ed Wood which was made in 1994 and starred Johnny Depp. It’s entitled “Ed Wood” and is available on DVD. Ed was the king of B movies.
The moon landing in July 1969 is one of mankind’s great moments. To achieve this goal in less than 10 years was momentous. The people who think it was staged belong with the other nuts in the flat earth society. It was on of the US’s great moments of the 20th. century along with the Marshall Plan.
January 19, 2012 at 7:13 pm
Bob,
Another cold day here but we had the sun for a good part of the day. I’d give a warming about signing a Japanese phenom after Dice K, a fiasco here for which the Sox paid through the nose.
Ypu’re right about his dying before the end of the movie. Ed used his dentist instead and the dentist kept hiding his mouth with his cape so one one would know.That he was so much taller wasn’t suposed to be noticed.
I love Plan Nine and watch it when I need a laugh.
Many Ghanaians think it was staged because they, like, only heard it on the radio.