Of Lunar Modules and Papaya Trees

There are very few street addresses that I cannot remember from our childhood. The address on Goode Street is one them. We had just moved that summer from 3939-C Montague Street at Schofield Barracks, Hawaii. Dad had gotten promoted to warrant officer, and they sent us to new quarters on the other side of the post.

I had just finished 5^th grade at Hale Kula Elementary, the school we traveled to each day in a cattle bus. And I had not yet started my epic 6^th  grade year with Mr. Waite at the newly built Solomon Elementary. My little brother, Keith, made the transition with me as he started second grade. This year marked the first year since I started first grade that my sister, Marcia, and I were not at the same school; she was off to Wheeler Junior High at Wheeler Air Force Base. And my big brother, Carl, was headed to Leilehua High School.

Mr. Waite taught us words like “propaganda” and read us Lord of the Flies. I don’t think I knew the word “liberal” or the expression “bleeding heart” in those days. In our experimental classroom, each week began with one-on-one contract sessions with Mr. Waite. We worked out what we would study and what we would accomplish for the week. Each week ended with the whole class going outside to shoot off model rockets and to measure the height they reached by using a protractor and trigonometry. Sometimes we would burn things with magnifying glasses.

That summer I had not yet met Ted (Theodore Scott Joseph Silva, Jr.), who would become my best friend for 6^th grade. I had not yet started the school newspaper with Ted and his brothers Rick and Chuck. I don’t remember their four year old brother’s name (Benjy, maybe), but he once asked me if ALL of me was brown. I think he used the word “wiener.” The Silvas were Catholic, which meant they went to Catholic chapel and to catechism. We attended Protestant chapel and Sunday School. Ted and I stayed after school many days to “rap” with Mr. Waite. We were nerdy sponges eager to soak up whatever indoctrinating propaganda he wanted to spill. After the sessions, we walked home together. I would stop at Ted’s house and hang a few minutes with him and his brothers before continuing on to our house on Goode Street. When that year ended, we moved to Fort Knox, Kentucky, and Ted enrolled at Punahou Academy, which would later become my alma mater.

But this was the summer before all of that, and we were settling into our new digs. I was mostly an inside kid, I think I had already stopped playing "Army" or "cowboys and Indians" with my brothers. I was content to work jigsaw puzzles or make plastic models using that model glue that was not yet an age-restricted controlled substance. I had built all manner of cars, planes, and ships. The aircraft carrier was my favorite. For a while. This was before I knew what a lunar module was. As much as I loved the inside, sometimes, probably because Mom made me, I would play outside. Usually by myself. I preferred it.

We had been hearing a lot about NASA’s plans to land on the moon. I was too much of a homebody to aspire to be an astronaut, but I was fascinated by them. I admired them. John Glenn was a hero when we lived in Ohio. And this summer we had already heard the names of Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin and Michael Collins. I don’t really remember the launch, and I don’t remember if we knew specifically when the landing was supposed to be.

But it was an outside day. I had shimmied up the papaya tree that grew in the front yard of our number-not-remembered house on Goode Street. I believe Dad is the one who called me down from the tree. He knew I wouldn’t want to miss it. I climbed down and rushed in the house. It was July 20, 1969. It was my 11^th birthday. It was Apollo 11. The Eagle had landed!

Apollo 11 became a touchpoint in my life. I don’t think about astronauts much anymore; I have other heroes. But that was a hopeful time. Probably helped instill a hopeful attitude that I have needed to draw on at many periods in the ensuing 50 years. Times have changed. But it looks like they still make the plastic model of the lunar module. And I’m old enough to buy the glue.