(In which Manual Scan/Lemons Are Yellow vet Paul Kaufman re-evaluates his prospects for space tourism.)
Here’s the first in a short series of examples of how my young self was Dead Wrong on some major issues of our time.
If you had asked me as a 15-year-old what I wanted to be, I would have had no firm idea. But as a five-year-old, the answer was certain: an astronaut! It was 1969, and when I wasn’t listening to my well-worn copy of Yellow Submarine, I was reading about the Apollo missions and constructing home-made Command Modules out of cardboard boxes.
The future seemed obvious to me — we were just beginning to travel to space, and in the future, this would steadily become more and more of our daily lives, as had air travel, electricity, telephones, TV, et al., right? Soon we’d be booking commercial flights to distant planets, choosing among the tasty, reconstituted, colorful foods from the hip flight attendant, just like in 2001: A Space Odyssey. This would be the new frontier, and Americans are always drawn to frontiers.
Of course, none of this happened. It didn’t occur to me that we’d complete the mammoth task of going to the moon in the 1960s (can you imagine the computing power they had then?) and then just stop. But of course, as a five-year-old, I didn’t really understand anything about the science or economics that made my vision impractical. I just thought it would be fun, and I wanted to part of it.
So, what were your childhood certainties? Did they come true?
— Paul Kaufman
There’s not too many events that I can recall from my being 5 years old but I can remember that day when we landed on the moon almost as well as can remember what color briefs I put on this morning. I remember sitting in front of our massive RCA black and white maybe not fully comprehending the significance of what was happening but judging by my folks behavior(their eyes were glued to the set like mine were watching Sesame Street) I felt it was something HUGE. I guess knowing what I know now and looking back at that, it really was our country’s one bright spot in a not so cheery decade.
My mom told me that around 3 or 4 years old I announced that I wanted to be an eskimo when I grew up. An eskimo! -- they live in the cool ice houses in Santa’s neighborhood and play with the polar bears, right? My mom curtailled that idea along with the paleontologist and the egyptian tomb raider.
Paul, I was making robots out of cardboard boxes. And constructing phones where you could pretend to see the person you were talking to --
I blame the Jetsons.
I think I’ve described how I tried to hustle an aeronautics company in first grade by writing a letter explaining that we were a group of adult astronauts who needed very SMALL space suits for our chimpanzees.
I’d designed a wood-burning spaceship with a large round rubber bumper on the nose to keep it from crashing into things. I believe I sent the blueprints to the company in the expectation that it would convince the company of our serious intentions.
I’m still waiting for a reply.
Cool thread. Well, let’s see…I was already a huge Star Trek (Original Series, of course) fan by the time I was five. My dad was a diehard fan and I spent many weekends watching with him. I loved Spock! In fact I was so into him that I used to study him and his eyebrow-raising technique. I perfected my skill over the years and to this day can raise (only) my left eyebrow. (He, of course, raised his right, but when you’re looking at a TV screen, it’s the opposite.)
Anyway, all through elementary school I used to pretend that I could “Beam me up, Scotty!” Especially during stressful times, like when Juan Boner (I kid you not) used to follow me home from Kindergarten. We were only 5, but that dude must have been held back several years cuz I swear he was twice the size of everyone else! He used to freak me out. “Beam me up” sure would have come in handy, vs. hiding in the bushes or behind a telephone poll. 😉 I thought for sure, by now, we would have THAT technology.
:: Can’t wait for the new Star Trek next year. Come on, Zachary Quinto as Spock! And then there’s Simon Pegg as Scotty. And…ok, enuf geekiness ::
In 1969 I had the Major Matt Mason space station and moon crawler complete with a martian that shot string out of his ray gun. I also lived on a steady diet of Tang and space sticks(YUM!!) and loved “Lost In Space” and “My Favorite Martian”. I guess “space” would probably be the ultimate escape and I tend to be an escapist at times.
Does anyone else harbor fond memories of the “Mushroom Planet” series?
I cried when Richard Dreyfuss got to go on the spaceship, didn’t you? Except they probably ate him. chomp!
Lori, my earliest television memories are of Star Trek too (and Clutch Cargo). But I really didn’t get into sci-fi until the Star Wars, Close Encounters and Battlestar Galactica era.
At my high school (SCPA), they offered an alternative Sci-Fi American lit class where we studied Arthur C Clarke’s 2001 and got graded on our interpretation of the movie. That was an easy class to show up to!
My favorite martian? the great Gazoo, of course.
Yeah, sad, but happy! *Hopeful* How many of you ran to your nearest instrument and tried to pick it out? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sMg5w7ShLNM
Gosh, I don’t recall Clutch Cargo.
I think I would’ve dug your H.S. Funny, I didn’t even know about it at the time. Cool class.
{ Gazoo }
Harvey Korman? -or- Alan Cumming?
> Who was your fave?
Clutch Cargo is probably the worst cartoon ever. At least before the 80’s.
Rhetorical question: Was Dr. Smith on “Lost in Space” the gayest thing on ’60s TV?
Korman I guess. I often think that people wearing helmets on scooters look like the Great Gazoo, don’t you?
If any science fiction adventure roped me in it was Twilight Zone. Two classic episodes were about life from outerspace: To Serve Man, where the friendly aliens (spoiler alert!) were really just hungry and then there’s that great one with Roddy McDowall where he’s part of a human exhibit in a zoo on an alien planet. Rod Serling was a genius and made smoking look cooler than Bogart.
I loved when I got to stay home sick from school and watched Twilight Zone reruns and Perry Mason on channel 6 at noon.
To me Dr. Smith was the Uncle Charlie(My Three Sons) of the last frontier.A total bummer. You just wanted him to get ditched on some planet-“See Yaaa!”
Twilight Zone AND Night Gallery!!! Oh man, I must have been in the 5th grade and my parents were at a party next door and we 3 kiddies were alone in the house. We were watching that episode with the little girl who said: “Mommy, why’d you let me die?” Jeez, that scared the living daylights out of us. Oh, and that house we lived in, the woman died there! Crazy times. My parents’ bedroom had this constant chill in the air. And we kinda inherited her rocking chair and piano. The very same piano that I took lessons on.
R.I.P. The mother from My Three Sons died over the weekend. Great show! Ernie, Chip, and what was the other one’s name???
Mike.
I loved the pig-face one with the girl who wanted to look “normal”! :@)
Oh, and the one with Burgess Meredith: “Time Enough at Last”
“Witness Mr. Henry Bemis, a charter member in the fraternity of dreamers. A bookish little man whose passion is the printed page but who is conspired against by a bank president and a wife and a world full of tongue-cluckers and the unrelenting hands of a clock. But in just a moment Mr. Bemis will enter a world without bank presidents or wives or clocks or anything else. He’ll have a world all to himself, without anyone.”
And he breaks his freakin’ glasses before he can even read a single word!
“The best laid plans of mice and men and Henry Bemis, the small man in the glasses who wanted nothing but time. Henry Bemis, now just a part of a smashed landscape, just a piece of the rubble, just a fragment of what man has deeded to himself. Mr. Henry Bemis in the Twilight Zone.”
I just loved how Rod would set up the episodes with his little narration and ended with a moral or message. Then that music would start up and man you were IN.
For fun:
(I got: You belong in my very favorite Twlight Zone, called Jess-Belle. In it, a girl named Jess-Belle is heartbroken that the boy she loves loves someone else. So she goes to the local witch, who has her drink a potion, which makes him fall head over heels in love with her. The catch is, by drinking the potion, she becomes a witch, too.)
Mike? And who was Robbie?
I’m really surprised there’s not a nod to John Lennon here today. Have I got my dates mixed up or did the train run off the rails here?
When I was a kid I told my mom I didn’t need to do my homework because I was going to be a garbage man when I grew up.
No, you’re right Toby. Today is the day we lost a “god.” 🙁
Was gonna mention it as well, just didn’t know what thread to put it in.
Thank you!
Ooohhhhhhhh … Can’t BELIEVE I missed it myself.
And it’s a Monday night, just like 1980. What a shitty week that was.
Darby Crash, too. Same day.
It really does seem like the sixties was the golden age of science fiction. I loved Ray Bradbury stories. Anyone else love “All Summer in a Day,” or “The Veldt”? I’m sure I’ve seen every Twilight Zone episode at least three times, too.
Every age seems to promise us the same future: flying cars, monorails and jet packs. I’m still waiting. Here is the most accurate future I’ve ever seen imagined, though, from 1979:
Paleofuture.com is pretty much the best site ever created.
I’m frustrated that Disneyland is still employing Mark V monorail technology after more thn 30 years. If we can send a man to the moon, can’t Disney’s Imagineers introduce a Mark VI monorail??
Matthew: NO. No new monorail. The 60’s design of the future is cooler than the “i-rail” they will come up with. I still rue the day they pitched the People-Mover. Best make-out ride ever! “Old future is better than new future”, aesthetically speaking.
Oh yeah. This is also a pretty accurate depiction of the future:
Tron rules! I got tron toys. 😉
I can’t believe there still isn’t a Mark 1 monorail connecting all the West Coast cities. Nearly a decade into the 21st century and no high-speed rail?
Nononononono! I was being facetious, and God punished me!!
1. I love the Mark V monorail — my family and I always laugh when the canned voice says, “You are now riding in a Mark V monorail … The latest in monorail technology.” ‘Cause it seems like it’s been “the latest” forever.
2. But actually, I just learned the Mark V is a 1987 introduction: Check out the monorail timeline.
3. But it’s moot anyway because in July Disneyland introduced the Mark VII!!!
I’m an emotional and intellectual wreck. What happened to the Mark VI?? Did they get the same narrator? Will the Mark VII, you know, HURT? So many questions.
It was Robbie Douglas on My Three Sons. Don Grady played Robbie. He was a mouseketeer and was in the 60s pop-psych band The Yellow Balloon.
Don Grady bio
Right, Robbie. So the sons were Chip, Ernie, and Robbie? What about Mike? Was he like the son later when the dad remarried?
As I remember it, Mike was the oldest brother when the three sons were Mike, Robbie and Chip. When Mike got married, they added Ernie, who was supposed to be an orphan (but was played by Chip’s real life brother.)
I used to have the “Yellow Balloon” single. The B side was the A side backwards.
There is a Che Underground connection to My Three Sons, albeit indirect.
Robbie Douglas had triplet sons during the later seasons of My Three Sons. These triplets were played by the Todd brothers (Danny, Mike and Joe) who are real identical triplet boys. The Todds lived in Mission Hills and attended Grant Elementary where they were classmates (although a couple years behind) of Che Underground luminary Carl Rusk.
Man, that is some cool esoteric trivia. It’s amazing how closely connected everything is, Kevin Bacon style.
I used to work with Kevin Bacon’s sister, oddly enough. She looked almost exactly like him and even had the same hairstyle. Unfortunately the “Six Degrees of…” game requires you to be connected to him via his movies, otherwise my score would be 2.
New Wave w/ a Two-Tone look. Luv it.
It’s been waaay tooo long since I’ve seen these. Thanx, Toby.
FM Static (from The Epoxies) joined The Phenomenauts this year. Saw them a couple of years ago at Bottom of the Hill—what an amazing live band. Of course he wasn’t in the band yet. Oooh, just checked their site—they’re playin’ down in SD on the 21st @ HOB. Highly recommended.
The Todd triplets (from My Three Sons) attended SCPA and came to my 9th grade Valentine’s Party. I had a crush on Danny.
>>I had a crush on Danny.
Are you SURE??
😛 Oh man. 3 guys/1 girl. Nevermind…
Does anyone else remember that night forty years ago today? I sure do.
I was amused to see this from Tom Wolfe in the New York Times today, discussing the altered aspirations of NASA after the first moon walk:
“Like many another youngster at that time, or maybe retro-youngster in my case, I was fascinated by the astronauts after Apollo 11. I even dared to dream of writing a book about them someday. If anyone had told me in July 1969 that the sound of Neil Armstrong’s small step plus mankind’s big one was the shuffle of pallbearers at graveside, I would have averted my eyes and shaken my head in pity.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/19/opinion/19wolfe.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1
From the Wolfe piece:
“How could such a thing happen? In hindsight, the answer is obvious. NASA had neglected to recruit a corps of philosophers.
“From the moment the Soviets launched Sputnik I into orbit around the Earth in 1957, everybody from Presidents Eisenhower, Kennedy and Johnson on down looked upon the so-called space race as just one thing: a military contest.”
Heh — yeah.
>Does anyone else remember that night forty years ago today?
I remember butterflies in my stomach. Breath-taking.
“From the moment the Soviets launched Sputnik I into orbit around the Earth in 1957, everybody from Presidents Eisenhower, Kennedy and Johnson on down looked upon the so-called space race as just one thing: a military contest.” ???
NOT one thing!!
Actually, after the launch of Sputnik it’s more historically accurate to look upon the space/technology race as an “education contest”.
Concern was expressed by scientific leaders and educators in the United States that the Soviets had succeeded in this task ahead of us because of alleged shortcomings in our educational system.
Then came the “pursuit of excellence” phenomenon in education.
>>Actually, after the launch of Sputnik it’s more historically accurate to look upon the space/technology race as an “education contest”.
Bruce: Yeah, but the reason education got traction was because the U.S. was scared lack of science education would equate to military inferiority in the Cold War.
If there hadn’t been a USSR to freak out about, I don’t see the U.S. cranking up public education for its own sake. I mean, look at the way it’s receded in recent decades … Prop 13’s erosion of California’s public-education system occurred late in the Breshnev era (when the Soviet empire was already showing signs of corrosion).
For all our current maundering about Indian and Chinese scientists outstripping us, there’s no imminent military threat compelling us to focus tax dollars on education the way the Cold War did.
I sound awfully cynical, but it’s frustrating how this country seems unable to make big things happen without a big, technologically savvy antagonist — whether Germany in the first half of the 20th century or the USSR in the second.
Maybe Brazil can invent a nanotech bomb that forces us to get the lead out!
Yeah…our state of education is dismal. NCLB hasn’t helped much either!
It IS harder in the U.S. than other countries though. We have the most non-homogeneous society! We’ve yet to even state our goals of education, forget implementing anything of substance.
Remember when W made a speech about sending a manned mission to Mars? What was that about? He kind of tossed it out there, never to be heard from again.
Hey! Maybe we could get kind of a “War of the Worlds” meets “Wag the Dog” thing going. If Cheney had claimed Osama was on Mars back in 2002 …
This is only indirectly related to the original post, but here is a very interesting article:
http://gizmodo.com/5315766/suspiciously-prescient-man-files-patent-for-ipod+like-device-in-1979
Anyone else believe in time travel?