Bryce Zabel's FOR WHAT IT'S WORTH

A "Wonder Years" Story About the Arctic Circle Drive-In, Neal Armstrong and a Guy Named Harvey

A few news organizations may note that today marks the anniversary of Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin's moonwalk on July 20, 1969. Since it's only the 38th anniversary, though, most will let it slide and we won't get the big "special" coverage for two more years on the 40th anniversary.

Even so, July 20 is an important day in my life but not solely for the awe and accomplishment of the technological and spiritual acheivement of the moon landing, but the personal impact it had on my young life. Years later, it was on a July 20 back in 2001 that my father passed away. Both of those events are related in my own memories, making this day always stand out to me.

Let's go back nearly four decades. It was 38-years-ago that Neil Armstrong made that little jump off the ladder from the lunar lander: "That's one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind."  And it was also 38-years-ago that I was fired from my first job.

Back then, I was the youngest fry-cook in Hillsboro, Oregon, having scammed my way into a job at the Arctic Circle Drive-In before I was strictly employment legal, I think, based on the fact that my older brother had paved the way. It was a sweet deal -- I was making a full $1.35 an hour, up from my starting wage of $1.10 a year before. Do the math, that added up to a whole $10.80 a day and, if overtime was involved, man, that was serious bread. Of course, those burgers only cost nineteen cents, a quarter for a cheeseburger.

The boss was a tough immigrant -- a Basque from Spain -- named Mariano Bilbao and he was living (or working) the American dream.  Work, work, work and, if you did that, life would be easier for your kids.  His kid was just a baby, and Mariano was in full pay-the-dues mode to get ahead in time for his kid to have the good life he dreamed of.

When the schedule for the week of July 20 got posted, I got a sinking feeling because I had the night shift and, if all went according to plan, Neil Armstrong was going to be moon-walking while I was slinging burgers.  At the time, I was very into the whole moon landing, even more (if possible) than the rest of the country.  Plus, I'd been raised in a house where my dad -- a strict father if ever there was one -- was also a strict American history teacher and history didn't get much bigger than this.

So I asked Mariano if I could trade shifts with someone?   No.  Maybe we could have a TV in the kitchen so we could watch with every other person within ten miles of a TV?  No.  A radio then, just to listen to hear in real time how it went?  No.

Resigned to missing it all, I accepted my fate, strapped on my apron, and went to work.  Being the boss, even Mariano was at home, of course, watching the moon-walk with his wife.  Back at the grill, I was going insane and about thirty minutes before Armstrong was scheduled to set foot on the lunar surface, I snapped.  I called my dad and told him I wanted to come home to see the moon walk.  Would he come pick me up?

There was a long pause.  If you remember Kevin's dad (Dan Lauria) from "Wonder Years," then you remember my dad, Harvey. That same gruff son-of-a-bitch exterior, always pissed off, never connecting with his kids. I waited on the other end of the phone, knowing that The Lecture was coming. About responsibility, about sticking with your decisions, about not screwing up.  Instead, he said, "You know you'll be fired?" 

I said I knew. I waited again. Surely The Lecture was coming now. Another beat. "I'll be right down."

So my Dad drove down to the Arctic Circle Drive-In on Baseline Street in a moment of high drama in my young life.  We went back home, gathered with the rest of the family around the TV set, held our breath with everyone else and watched Armstrong's ghostly image from the moon.  When it was over, dad said we had to go back to the restaurant and I had to face the music.  I had done the crime, now I had to do the time.  As I returned, it was clear that my co-workers had given me up to Mariano, who was there waiting for me and, man, was he pissed.  He was a short guy with a fiery temper and his face was as red as I'd ever seen it.

Mariano fired me that night, as predicted. My dad told him he was missing a great worker and he was a small-minded man to not understand the importance of what was happening, and how this event had changed the world for everyone. Even fry-cooks.

All I know is that my dad had never stood up for me quite like that before and never quite like that after. I remember July 20, 1969 as clearly today for turning in my greasy apron as I do for Armstrong and Aldrin doing the moonwalk. And I remember July 20 because it was also the day that my dad passed away back in 2001.

So -- that giant leap for mankind -- for me, it isn't about where I was when it happened -- but all about where I wasn't.

Crash-and-Burn: The Lisa Nowak Story

Word today that NASA has fired astronaut Lisa Nowak. Okay, will everyone who is surprised please raise your hand. Nobody? Okay, then...

The Lede blog on the New York Times web-site has NASA's statement if you want to look at that. The space agency clearly seems relieved to pass Nowak back to the U.S. Navy to deal with, acting like they're not really firing her as much as re-assigning her. Okay, Navy, your move.

When the story broke just over a month ago, my first reaction was to blog about it.

Talk about the wrong stuff. Wigs, trench coats, pepper spray, rubber hose, latex gloves, large garbage bags, air cartridge BB gun, steel mallet, four-inch folding knife and diapers. Sounds like she was getting ready to conduct an interrogation worthy of Jack Bauer!

So now this woman who fell to Earth won't be making any giant leaps for mankind or anyone else since she gets to wear a GPS ankle bracelet to keep her from stalking anyone while she's out on bail. That's the spirit. Use satellite technology to keep her in line. The Space Shuttle program just keeps paying dividends!

The other thing I pointed out back then was that as a Hollywood screenwriter type if I'd pitched the story as fiction, people would have said that it was too loony to be believable. So, of course, I pitched the non-fiction version!

I called up Frank Von Zerneck, the producer I'd worked on "Fall From Grace: The Neil Goldschmidt Story" with for USA Network. It seemed like a natural, right? After all, that was the story of illegal behavior, tied into forbidden sex.

We decided to give it a shot and I wrote this treatment ASAP to get it on the market. So far, no takers. Maybe someone else has sold it, but neither "Daily Variety" nor "Hollywood Reporter" have had any articles to that effect. Here's what that treatment for "Crash-and-Burn: The Lisa Nowak Story" was like for those of you who care about such things:

Crash-and-Burn.pdf

We obviously had no rights at that time, certainly not to Nowak, and even the astronaut who was in the middle of the love triangle wasn't going to option his rights if he wanted to stay employed at NASA. What we had was me, so to speak, as I'd covered NASA while at CNN and PBS, and I'd been an investigative reporter who'd actually won a few awards. We also had a take on the movie, that it would tell the story while tracking her preparations for two major trips: the first being her maiden Space Shuttle flight the summer before, and the second being her ill-fated drive to Florida.

The thing you have to understand is that the TV movie business has changed dramatically over the last decade or so. Networks (the big ones) are not so much into the "ripped from the headlines" movies anymore; it's just not their business model. They prefer series. In fact, when I was the TV Academy chairman, I was approached by several network presidents who simply wanted the TV movie category to go away, or to at least not be featured on the primetime broadcast.

That leaves cable but that part of the business is in its own transformation. It's hard to sell there, too, because the cable networks see themselves as having very specific identities.

The upshot? A film that probably would have been a slam-dunk to be on TV when the Space Shuttle was first on the scene is a non-starter today.

Crash-and-Burn: Lisa Nowak's Crazy Descent

• UPDATE NOTE:  To read a post about Lisa Nowak's firing by NASA, and to read "Crash-and-Burn: The Lisa Nowak Story" a treatment for a TV film, please CLICK HERE. Posted March 7, 2007.

The story of astronaut-gone-wild Lisa Nowak and her star-crossed romance may be even better than the Runaway Bride saga of a few years ago. In terms of hatching a bad plan and then executing it incompetently, it certainly takes the prize.

Talk about the wrong stuff. Wigs, trench coats, pepper spray, rubber hose, latex gloves, large garbage bags, air cartridge BB gun, steel mallet, four-inch folding knife and diapers. Sounds like she was getting ready to conduct an interrogation worthy of Jack Bauer!

So now this woman who fell to Earth won't be making any giant leaps for mankind or anyone else since she gets to wear a GPS ankle bracelet to keep her from stalking anyone while she's out on bail. That's the spirit. Use satellite technology to keep her in line. The Space Shuttle program just keeps paying dividends!

If there was ever any doubt that love can drive someone nuts, this case would have to be it. Just last July this woman (psychonaut?) was orbiting the Earth on the ride of a lifetime. Now she's going to end up divorced, without the man she loved, disgraced in front of her kids, booted out of NASA, and she'll probably have to plead her case and spend a couple years in jail. Houston, we definitely have a problem...

I write for a living, but if I'd pitched this as fiction, I think most people would have said I'd gone too far. It's probably a moot point anyway. A few years ago it would have been a slam-dunk TV movie but the Big 4 networks have all pretty much gotten out of that business. Maybe cable...

Here's something else to think about, though. If a seemingly rational person like Nowak can fall so far so fast here on Earth, what would be the consequence of a similar crack-up on a long-term space mission, say, to Mars? Something for NASA to think about...

Sidney Sheldon & the UFO Conspiracy

I have only read one book authored by Sidney Sheldon who died Tuesday out in the desert at Rancho Mirage. It was his 1991 novel, The Doomsday Conspiracy, on the subject of UFOs. The plot and characters invovled the usual Sheldon formula applied to a global cover-up of a crashed UFO, complete with murdered witnesses and the like. Even though I hadn't read his other work, it still felt like maybe he'd stretched a little too far afield. But then, because I've done a lot of fiction-writing myself in the world of UFO's and aliens, I guess I'm a picky read.
In an author's note at the end of the book, he discusses the research he conducted in order to write the book. He really took no definitive position, preferring to couch most of his thoughts this way:

I have read a dozen books that prove conclusively that flying saucers exist. I have read a dozen books that prove conclusively that flying saucers do not exist.

Still, the last thing Sheldon said on the subject was a quote from Jill Tartar, an astrophysicist and Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence (SETI) project scientist at NASA's Ames Research Center. She said:

There are 400 billion stars in the galaxy. We're made of stardust, really common stuff. In a universe filled with stardust, it's hard to believe that we are the only creatures who could be.

Sheldon, in his writing career, preferred a more Earth-bound creature anyway. As the New York Times put it in today's obituary, he preferred to write about "stalwart women who triumph in a hostile world of ruthless men." Here's how Sheldon put it:

''I like to write about women who are talented and capable, but most important, retain their femininity. Women have tremendous power -- their femininity, because men can't do without it.''

One thing I always admired about Sheldon though was how he had achieved success in film and television and even on Broadway when, at the age of 50, he decided to try a life-change and turn his attention to writing novels. I guess by doing that he proved that you really are the author of your own life.

Let's Get Small: Plutonian Edition

Now that international astronomers have everyone thinking about the cosmos for at least a day by throwing Pluto out of the Solar System, let's give a passing thought to our place in the universe. We know that Pluto got tossed out of the planetary club for being a shrimp, a "dwarf planet" that is so small it can't even control its own neighborhood. Okay, then, size matters, so think about this...

Back when Steve Martin was a stand-up comic, he made a splash in 1977 with his debut album "Let's Get Small". My friend, Thomas Skala, sent me something by e-mail a couple of weeks ago that has absolutely nothing to do with that other than by the time you get through this photo journey you will feel even smaller than Steve Martin felt at his smallest. Ready? Here's picture number one.

Now this should make you feel pretty good. There's our home planet Earth looking like the biggest baddest mother on the block. Mars, which is our closest cousin in the solar system they say, looks like a puny runt compared to us. Now let's roll in the outer planets in the solar system.

Whoa! Suddenly we're looking pretty damn tiny. I mean, if Jupiter is a basketball, then we're a marble, barely. Mars has turned into a BB. Now let's pop in our own sun, Old Sol.

Suddenly our scale is, well, underwhelming. We need the arrow to see the Earth because, at its current size, we'd miss it. We're getting seriously small. But at least we can agree that it's all relative because the sun is immense, right?

There's our sun next to a few of the other suns our astronomers have discovered out there in the galaxy. This is pretty shocking because our sun has become the BB and Earth doesn't even compute. At least we can console ourselves that that other gassy giant Arcturus must be huge beyond all belief. Not so fast.

Yep, that's Arcturus down there, looking like a speck compared to Betelgeuse and Antares.

FYI, Antares is the 15th brightest star in the sky. It is more than 1000 light years away. There are 14 brighter stars that we know about.

Definitely feeling small now?

BTW, I don't know the source of these photos. I'm sure that thanks to the reach of the Internet someone will soon tell me so I can post the credit and if any of you scientists out there want to toss in your own analysis, fire away. Or if this is all one of those demented hoaxes that would be fine to know, too. It might be a relief to think we are bigger than this makes us out to be, but I doubt it. Maybe they're right, though, maybe size isn't everything when it comes to sex or significance.

Me? I'm gonna give Steve Martin another listen and try to stay psyched up enough to get out of bed tomorrow...

Walking on the Moon (For Real!)

Today marks the anniversary of Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin's moonwalk on July 20, 1969.

A few years ago, I had the chance to visit with Aldrin several times, even went to a party at his home. For me, that was like meeting Mick Jagger, something you'll never forget.

Last September, the White House said it plans to spend $100 billion over the next 12 years building the spacecraft and rockets it needs to put humans back on the moon by 2018. That will make it nearly 50 years since they last set foot there back in 1972.

Still, let's talk about The Day Itself. I suppose we remember most big news events for how important they were, yes, but also for what we were doing when they happened. That's how my mind works.

So -- from JFK's assassination to 9/11 -- the memories of modern Americans are intermingled with their personal stories.  For me, it's the moon-walk and, from my POV, it always feels like I was a participant, not just an observer.

It was 37-years-ago that Neil Armstrong made that little jump off the ladder from the lunar lander: "That's one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind."  And it was 37-years-ago that I was fired from my first job.

Back then, I was the youngest fry-cook in Hillsboro, Oregon, having scammed my way into a job at the Arctic Circle drive-in before I was strictly employment legal, I think, based on the fact that my older brother had paved the way.  It was a sweet deal -- I was making a full $1.35 an hour, up from my starting wage of $1.10 a year before.  Do the math, that added up to a whole $10.80 a day and, if overtime was involved, man, that was serious bread.  Of course, those burgers only cost a quarter.

The boss was a tough immigrant -- a Basque from Spain -- named Mariano Bilbao and he was living (or working) the American dream.  Work, work, work and, if you did that, life would be easier for your kids.  His kid was just a baby, and Mariano was in full pay-the-dues mode to get ahead in time for his kid to have the good life he dreamed of.

When the schedule for the week of July 20 got posted, I got a sinking feeling because I had the night shift and, if all went according to plan, Neil Armstrong was going to be moon-walking while I was slinging burgers.  At the time, I was very into the whole moon landing, even more (if possible) than the rest of the country.  Plus, I'd been raised in a house where my dad -- a strict father if ever there was one -- was also a strict American history teacher and history didn't get much bigger than this.

So I asked Mariano if I could trade shifts with someone?   No.  Maybe we could have a TV in the kitchen so we could watch with every other person within ten miles of a TV?  No.  A radio then, just to listen to hear in real time how it went?  No.

Resigned to missing it all, I accepted my fate, strapped on my apron, and went to work.  Being the boss, even Mariano was at home, of course, watching the moon-walk with his wife.  Back at the grill, I was going insane and about thirty minutes before Armstrong was scheduled to set foot on the lunar surface, I snapped.  I called my dad and told him I wanted to come home to see the moon walk.  Would he come pick me up?

There was a long pause.  If you remember Kevin's dad from "Wonder Years", then you remember my dad, Harvey.  That same gruff son-of-a-bitch exterior, always pissed off, never connecting with his kids.  I waited on the other end of the phone, knowing that The Lecture was coming.  About responsibility, about sticking with your decisions, about not screwing up.  Instead, he said, "You know you'll be fired?" 

I said I knew.  I waited again.  Surely The Lecture was coming now.  Another beat.  "I'll be right down."

So my Dad drove down to the Arctic Circle Drive-In on Baseline Street in a moment of high drama in my young life.  We went back home, gathered with the rest of the family around the TV set, held our breath with everyone else and watched Armstrong's ghostly image from the moon.  When it was over, dad said we had to go back to the restaurant and I had to face the music.  I had done the crime, now I had to do the time.  As I returned, it was clear that my co-workers had given me up to Mariano, who was there waiting for me and, man, was he pissed.  He was a short guy with a fiery temper and his face was as red as I'd ever seen it.

Mariano fired me that night, as predicted.  My dad told him he was missing a great worker and he was a small-minded man to not understand the importance of what was happening, and how this event had changed the world for everyone.  Even fry-cooks.

All I know is that my dad had never stood up for me quite like that before and never quite like that after. I remember July 20, 1969 as clearly today for turning in my greasy apron as I do for Armstrong and Aldrin doing the moonwalk. And I remember July 20 because it was also the day that my dad passed away back in 2001.

So -- that giant leap for mankind -- for me, it isn't about where I was when it happened -- but all about where I wasn't. 

{"For What It's Worth" offers a new way to search through previous posts. It's a one-stop-shop on a single page which you can access by CLICKING HERE. Thanks for visiting!}

Spaced Out: The Art of Kimmo Isokoski

If you don't know the work of Kimmo Isokoski, and you like sci-fi, or the idea of space exploration, you should check him out.

"Shores of Titan" by Kimmo Isokoski

Kimmo's body of work is just startling. I urge you to take a look for yourself at his gallery. Each picture is just beautiful, wonderfully executed. He's a free-lance commercial artist who lives in countryside in central parts of Finland. When he was ten-years-old he read the Finnish translation of Robert Heinlein's "Space Cadet" and found his life's passion.

It's a bit strange how I've discovered him. A few years ago when I was trying to teach myself a new computer and some new photo editing software, I'd stumbled across his art and saved a few pictures. Then, years later, in a post about a proposal J. Michael Straczynski and I had made about re-booting "Star Trek" I used one of the photos to spice it up. I'd cropped the photo and had no clue whose it was and where I got it. I figured that maybe I'd find out and credit it then.

Well, I found out the hard way. Cheryl Morgan from the Emerald City Blog set me straight about whose it was. Then Kimmo himself sent me an e-mail where he wrote:

As I understand, there was some misunderstanding concerning about my sci-fi art. It seems that some people were much more upset than I :)  I just took it as an compliment that you liked the picture. I have no problems if You still want to use it. And if you need more illustrations to your interesting blogpage you have my permission to use my art as you like (non commercial purposes only).

So, all's well that ends well. Kimmo is credited, as he should be. And you know about his work which is, as I say, fantastic. By the way, if you want to learn more about the entire sci-fi scene in Finland ("Finndom"), check this out. Meanwhile, here's a parting shot from Kimmo:

CLICK HERE for more Kimmo Isokoski

Spaced Out: Re-Booting Star Trek

Admittedly, it takes a lot of nerve to offer to resurrect the "Star Trek" franchise when nobody has asked you to do that, but that's just what prolific writer/producer J. Michael Straczynski and I did back in 2004. We were working together on a network pitch for a limited series, "Cult", and we started talking about the state of the Trek universe and, before we could stop ourselves, we'd banged out a 14-page treatment called "Star Trek: Re-Boot the Universe."

Chutzpah on a Cosmic Level
{Art by Nancy Tokos, Tokos Design Associates}

I know, I know. If you read the papers, you already know that the "Star Trek" flame has been passed, if you will, to an incalculably larger solar giant, J.J. Abrams ("Lost", "MI3"). You can read all about it in Daily Variety, but the bottom line is that Abrams and his writing posse appear to be going back in time to prequel status.

Project, to be penned by Abrams and "MI3" scribes Alex Kurtzman and Roberto Orci, will center on the early days of seminal "Trek" characters James T. Kirk and Mr. Spock, including their first meeting at Starfleet Academy and first outer space mission.

What with this stellar creative team at work, there doesn't seem to be any upside in sitting on our own Trek fever-dream anymore. Might as well let the fans who'd heard about it and wanted to see it, see it, so you'll find the download link later in this post. There's no big agenda since it really was just a "Hail Mary" and we've long since moved on. These days, JMS is on fire, having just sold "The Changeling" to Imagine Films for Ron Howard to direct while also writing "Spider-Man" and "Fantastic Four" and several other titles over at Marvel Comics.

Our brush with this "Star Trek" story, though, starts back in 1999, I think, when Straczynski (I call him "Joe") and I met in the first class section of a flight between Los Angeles and Vancouver.

Back then, I was executive producing the TV series, "The Crow: Stairway to Heaven" and he was wrapping up a very successful run as the creator of "Babylon 5." Running a series between Canada and the U.S. can be a pretty grueling pace and the first class tickets are one of the few perks to look forward to. Except that as a writer/producer, you are usually writing next week's episode on a laptop only with more leg-room than you get when you're traveling for vacation.

Anyway, at that moment, we had a lot in common, both producing sci-fi series and, in particular, a devotion to five-year plans. JMS had crafted one for "Babylon 5" and Brent Friedman and I had done the same for our NBC alien invasion series "Dark Skies." By the time JMS and I reached our destination we'd traded contact info and said we'd get in touch.

That's what led to us agreeing to develop the "Cult" mini-series together, years later. I seem to recall having lunch at Art's Deli and our conversation veering off into the Trek situation. I  have no real clue why we felt compelled to write what we wrote but, looking back, I think it's because we had all these ideas and being writers it just felt more natural to write them down than to let them go. Then, once that happened, we felt compelled to share them. Like buying lottery tickets, I guess.

Joe and I had something that everyone in Hollywood seems to pay lip service to and that's passion. We both love sci-fi, have worked different ends of the spectrum, and thought maybe, given the chance, we might combine briefly to spark a creative debate that could be useful.

Anyway, the take that JMS and I came up with included using the original characters as the new film will do, apparently, but not as young officers at Starfleet Academy. We wanted to do what they do in the world of comics, create a separate universe ("Universe A") for all the past TV and film Trek continuity in order to free ourselves creatively so we could embrace the good stuff, banish the bad, and try some new things. In our re-boot ("Universe B"), we wanted to start over, use Kirk, Spock and McCoy and others in a powerful new origin story about what it was that bonded them in such strong friendship, and show them off as you'd never seen them before. It was, admittedly, pretty audacious but here it is if you want to take a look...

Star Trek Re-Boot.pdf

You may feel like, as I do re-reading it, that it leaves you wanting more specifics. My best defense is that we held back from putting everything we were thinking into it because, if we did, what would be the point of hiring us? So we suggested and prodded and explained and held some of the point-by-point work back for a meeting or an opportunity that never came. We don't think it's perfect, and with the passage of time, I have a whole new set of thoughts, but it is a snapshot, and offered in that spirit.

This was, I'm pretty sure, before the Sci-Fi Channel had done their terrific job with "Battlestar Galactica" (which I just voted for on my Emmy ballot as Outstanding Drama for the second year in a row). If you're trying to imagine the changed tone that JMS and I were thinking about, this would be a good place to start.

As we take pains to point out in that treatment, however, JMS and I both have lots of respect for the writer/producers who brought "Star Trek" to TV in so many forms over the years, including the last on-shift at "Enterprise," Brannon Braga and Manny Coto, both of whom were wrapping up as we did this. Same admiration for J.J. Abrams and where he's likely to take the franchise. No snark intended. He's a great talent.

So, for what it's worth, please just consider this another artifact to be found somewhere in the alternate "Star Trek" universe that never was.

And thanks to Stephen Hawking for making us all respectable again. Let's get at least some of these ideas out of the movie theaters and back on the launch pads where they belong!

What if JFK got out of Dallas alive?

Spaced Out: Hawking Colonies

The world's most famous scientist, Stephen Hawking, says humans need to
move out into space in order to guarantee the survival of the species.

This, of course, is something that has always seemed inevitable to space buffs and sci-fi fans, but it's about time somebody of Hawking's intellectual throw-weight has given voice to it. Carl Sagan's been gone too long. According to USA Today:

"The British astrophysicist told a news conference in Hong Kong that humans could have a permanent base on the moon in 20 years and a colony on Mars in the next 40 years."

Hawking says that we are in increasing danger of wiping ourselves out through nuclear war, sudden global warming or even a genetically engineered virus.  Because of this growing threat, he believes it's time we get off our
asses and out of the cradle. We need to boldly go... wait a minute... that sounds familiar... {Art by Kimmo Isokoski}

Thinking about these things may seem like a waste of time to most people with a mortgage and bills to pay, but I've got one of those great jobs where I can actually let my mind wander and convince myself I'm working.

The idea of moving out into and then beyond our own solar system is something I've been thinking about all my writing career. Back in the late 80s, my first writing partner Brad Markowitz and I sold a sci-fi feature to Warner Brothers with Silver Pictures -- "The Face" -- about the first manned mission to Mars. Our version never got made, although "Mission to Mars" back in 2000 was so close to what we wrote (down to a stranded astronaut from a failed mission, a rescue mission and the face on Mars) that the only difference was we never got to spend any of the residual checks.

Actually, this space thing's been a passion all my life. I got fired from my first real job so that I could go home to see Neil Armstrong walk on the moon. Later, as a reporter, I covered the Viking Mars landings and the Voyager Saturn encounters for both PBS and CNN, plus I covered the launch and landing of multiple space shuttles, and even applied for the Journalist-in-Space program before it was jettisoned after the Columbia disaster.

Hope we do as Hawking suggests...

Moonwalk Memories

Maybe NASA's timing could be better, what with the bill for Katrina looming large, but the news is good -- we're getting back in the manned space exploration game. News now that NASA just told the White House that it plans to spend $100 billion over the next 12 years building the spacecraft and rockets it needs to put humans back on the moon by 2018.

If you were alive the last time we went to the moon back in 1972, you must be at least 33 years old. I'm old enough to remember the first time, back in 1969, and those are still strong memories. We remember most big news events for how important they were, yes, but also for what we were doing when they happened. 

So -- from JFK's assassination to 9/11 -- the memories of modern Americans are intermingled with their personal stories.  For me, it's the moon-walk and, from my POV, it always feels like I was a participant, not just an observer.

It was 36-years-ago that Neil Armstrong made that little jump off the ladder from the lunar lander: "That's one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind."  And it was 36-years-ago that I was fired from my first job.

Back then, I was the youngest fry-cook in Hillsboro, Oregon, having scammed my way into a job at the Arctic Circle drive-in before I was strictly employment legal, I think, based on the fact that my older brother had paved the way.  It was a sweet deal -- I was making a full $1.35 an hour, up from my starting wage of $1.10 a year before.  Do the math, that added up to a whole $10.80 a day and, if overtime was involved, man, that was serious bread.  Of course, those burgers only cost a quarter.

The boss was a tough immigrant -- a Basque from Spain -- named Mariano Bilbao and he was living (or working) the American dream.  Work, work, work and, if you did that, life would be easier for your kids.  His kid was just a baby, and Mariano was in full pay-the-dues mode to get ahead in time for his kid to have the good life he dreamed of.

When the schedule for the week of July 20 got posted, I got a sinking feeling because I had the night shift and, if all went according to plan, Neil Armstrong was going to be moon-walking while I was slinging burgers.  At the time, I was very into the whole moon landing, even more (if possible) than the rest of the country.  Plus, I'd been raised in a house where my dad -- a strict father if ever there was one -- was also a strict American history teacher and history didn't get much bigger than this.

So I asked Mariano if I could trade shifts with someone?   No.  Maybe we could have a TV in the kitchen so we could watch with every other person within ten miles of a TV?  No.  A radio then, just to listen to hear in real time how it went?  No.

Resigned to missing it all, I accepted my fate, strapped on my apron, and went to work.  Being the boss, even Mariano was at home, of course, watching the moon-walk with his wife.  Back at the grill, I was going insane and about thirty minutes before Armstrong was scheduled to set foot on the lunar surface, I snapped.  I called my dad and told him I wanted to come home to see the moon walk.  Would he come pick me up?

There was a long pause.  If you remember Kevin's dad from "Wonder Years", then you remember my dad, Harvey.  That same gruff son-of-a-bitch exterior, always pissed off, never connecting with his kids.  I waited on the other end of the phone, knowing that The Lecture was coming.  About responsibility, about sticking with your decisions, about not screwing up.  Instead, he said, "You know you'll be fired?" 

I said I knew.  I waited again.  Surely The Lecture was coming now.  Another beat.  "I'll be right down."

So my Dad drove down to the Arctic Circle Drive-In on Baseline Street in a moment of high drama in my young life.  We went back home, gathered with the rest of the family around the TV set, held our breath with everyone else and watched Armstrong's ghostly image from the moon.  When it was over, dad said we had to go back to the restaurant and I had to face the music.  I had done the crime, now I had to do the time.  As I returned, it was clear that my co-workers had given me up to Mariano, who was there waiting for me and, man, was he pissed.  He was a short guy with a fiery temper and his face was as red as I'd ever seen it.

Mariano fired me that night, as predicted.  My dad told him he was missing a great worker and he was a small-minded man to not understand the importance of what was happening, and how this event had changed the world for everyone.  Even fry-cooks.

All I know is that my dad had never stood up for me quite like that before and never quite like that after. I remember July 20, 1969 as clearly today for turning in my greasy apron as I do for Armstrong and Aldrin doing the moonwalk. 

So -- that giant leap for mankind -- for me, it isn't about where I was when it happened -- but all about where I wasn't.