Hey Mr. Spaceman
Woke up this morning with light in my eyes
And then realized it was still dark outside
It was a light coming down from the sky
I don’t know who or why
Hey, Mr. Spaceman
Won’t you please take me along?
I won’t do anything wrong
Hey Mr. Spaceman
Won’t you please take me along for a ride.
Mr. Spaceman is a song written by Jim McGuinn of the Byrds and included on their 1966 album Fifth Dimension. The song is about extraterrestrial visitors coming to earth.
Space was big in America in the 1950s and 60s.
Last night, Kim and I sat with my mom and watched the Artemis II splashdown off the coast of San Diego after their trip around the dark side of the moon.
When we arrived, however, my mom was having a moment, missing my dad. Grief rears up on its own schedule. Not surprised, though, today, April 11, would have been my dad’s 97th birthday, and she was missing him.
My dad was a huge fan of the space program.
It was President John F. Kennedy who proposed the goal of sending an American to the moon before the end of the decade.
It was the “space race.”
And the Soviet Union was winning.
I remember being in my early years of elementary school, and with great American pride, we followed the space race in our “Weekly Readers,” a current event newsletter we reviewed “weekly.” As young kids, we knew all the astronauts’ names and their accomplishments.
And before the end of the decade of the 60s, on July 20, 1969, Neil Armstrong stepped on the Moon surface declaring “That’s one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind.”
Kennedy, as we know, wouldn’t live to see his goal achieved.
It was a big deal for the rest of us.
So I think it’s great to see the space program being resurrected with a new goal of establishing an American presence on the Moon.
In the 1950s and 60s people were proud to be American, even democrats.
The times have changed, however.
There are days I could hope for aliens to take me along for a ride.
Things are getting pretty weird down here on earth.
Who knows, maybe the extraterrestrials are already among us.
That might explain some things.
Anyway, it’s nice to see a renewed effort to get back to the moon.
Maybe it’s something we can all get behind.
The New Frontier.
Something we could be proud of.
I know my dad would be.
Postscript:
The photo above is of my father at Cape Canaveral or Cape Kennedy as it was known then. Its from a slide so the reproduction is poor.