Forty years ago today, Americans landed on the moon and left their footprints in the Lunar dust.
Forty years ago today, my maternal grandfather was buried in a different type of dust.
I was seventeen at the time, and I had just completed my junior year of high school. That year had been very momentous for me. My school had launched its first varsity football season in their four-year history; and after a severe hand injury, I was able to bounce back and start the fifth game in Jefferson City. We lost 14-12.
That was not the last loss I would suffer that year. My favorite cousin fell out of the back of a moving truck that spring, and suffered a fatal head injury. He was dead, but he was such a strong physical kid, he lasted for nearly a month. He was one year ahead of me in school and was the only child of diabetic parents who had lost three others at birth.
Nixon was now the President. The previous year, 1968, had been tumultuous. Two good men had been assassinated, and another good man had narrowly lost as the Democrat chosen to lead his party in the presidential race. Mr. Brown, my history teacher, told me he was voting for Nixon, just because he thought the country needed change – sound familiar? The Russians invaded Czechoslovakia and my mother nearly died of worry for my brother, who had enlisted in the navy. She thought World War III was going to begin.
It didn’t seem right that John Kennedy was not president when our astronauts stepped into history. He had been the man with the vision, but we should acknowledge that those who followed him kept his dream alive.
After my grandfather’s funeral, the family congregated at my parent’s house. As was the case in those days, everyone was present, and the men migrated to the family room where we watched the momentous landing. The atmosphere was subdued, but the meal was excellent. My father’s stepfather, had engineered components for the space program from Mercury to Apollo, and as usual, he was giving us a blow-by-blow account of what was happening from a technological perspective.
My mind was definitely not in tune to his techno-speak. I was instead, going back to better days, remembering the most beloved man in my life. I was also thinking of how I had let him down in his final years, when I couldn’t face the horrible slow-motion death of my hero. He had never failed me, but I was not there for him – when he needed me most.
My grandfather was a mechanic for TWA. He worked on the “Connies.” These big four-engine passenger planes, with their unique triple-finned tail section, were actually called Constellations. He used to take me to the Kansas City Municipal Airport, so we could go to the observation deck and watch them take off. Those piston-driven beauties were the most wonderful sounding machines ever created, and I watched them with the man I called Dad.
He had always loved me best. I was not the apple of my father’s eye. That position was reserved for my older brother. I was just his “Charlie,” the son he had never been able to enjoy. He could spoil me, and then send me home.
Sometimes we would just watch television. He loved the western drama, “Gunsmoke” and the Gary Moore variety show. We watched Ed Sullivan, and I will never forget how hard he laughed at the antics on Candid Camera. I ate Sunday supper with him every week: roasted chicken, potatoes and gravy, salad with mayonnaise dressing, and for dessert, ice cream with Hershey’s chocolate syrup. I was always seated next to him.
I always wanted to be with him, and any day off he had from work was a chance for us to embark on some new adventure. Fishing was his passion, and I learned to fish beside him. I have never really cared to fish in my adult life, because he was not there with me.
When we visited my great-grandparents in Burlington Junction, I rode with him – not my parents. I would stand on the hump of the back floorboard of his 1950 Pontiac Chieftain, and place my head as close to his as possible. He smoked “Camel” cigarettes, and I have no idea how I could inhale so much second-hand smoke without dying on the spot. I didn’t mind the smell then; I was with my Dad.
He always wore a Stetson hat, a white shirt, and a pair of blue jeans with enormous cuffs. He was about my present-day height; and I inherited his baldness, while my brothers kept their hair. He would buy me any candy I wanted and never tell my mother. Again it is amazing; I kept my teeth. He wore glasses as I do, and he could spin a yarn that would keep me bedazzled for hours. He called me a windjammer whenever I talked too much, and I learned to give complete love while sitting beside him on the armrest of his easy chair.
When I was 12, my grandfather became sick with athero-sclerosis, and the operations, amputations and paralyzing strokes took him away from me. I couldn’t watch him deteriorate before my eyes, and so I ran from him. I was becoming a teen, and I had new interests. Once he came to our house in a wheelchair, and I commented that he needed a shave. He looked up and noticed the darkening hair on my upper lip and said, “So do you.” I immediately went upstairs and shaved – for the first time.
No matter how hard I try, I cannot remember anything else he ever said to me, even though he lived another four years.
Last Friday, I found out that I am going to be a grandfather for the first time. I hope that I can be as special in my grand-children’s eyes as my Dad was to me.
July 20, 1969, was a proud moment in every American’s life; but I find it hard to be too proud, because it reminds me of my personal failure. Dust to dust, gone but not forgotten.
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