In the Shadow of the Groundhog

How could he not see his shadow??

It's Groundhog Day again today, or, as I like to call it, "Rodents Suck at Math Day". Or maybe it's not their fault: after all, they didn't choose the date of the "holiday". February 2nd is "Candlemas", supposedly midway between the start of winter and the start of spring, but somewhere along the way our calendars changed just enough that it's actually not the midway point any more, if it ever was. "Candlemas", by the way, is yet another Christian holiday that was co-opted from the pagans (who called it Imbolc); another story in their long tradition of demonizing "witchcraft" while simultaneously "purifying" the important days of Celts and Pagans everywhere. That, of course, is a story for another time: my main point here is Candlemas or Imbolc or however you like to refer to it comes forty-two to forty-three days from the beginning of winter but forty-six to forty-seven days before the beginning of spring. Remember those numbers; I'll return to them later.

Neil Armstrong, Modern Pioneer

Neil Armstrong: First human on the moon

"Neil Armstrong was the spiritual repository of spacefaring dreams & ambitions. In death, a little bit of us all dies with him." *

My first hero died today at the age of 82.

As a little boy, all I ever wanted to be was an astronaut. I ravenously devoured every detail of every Apollo mission from Apollo 7 (the first manned mission) onward. When Apollo 8 orbited the moon at Christmastime, 1968, it was then -- and still is now -- one of the greatest thrills of my life and an uplifting end to an awful, awful year. I followed the docking mission of Apollo 9 and the oh-so-close orbit of Apollo 10, running home from school on many of those days to absorb as much of the dazzling story unfolding on my television as I could manage. And then came the summer of 1969.

"'Men Walk On Moon' - The only positive event in the last 50 yrs for which everyone remembers where they were when it happened."

Apollo 11 Mission Patch

As luck would have it, we were to be in the States that July, renting a cottage in Old Orchard Beach, Maine, for a couple of weeks beginning on the 19th. There was no television in that cottage, but fortunately my aunt and uncle and their daughters had rented another place not far from us with a tiny black and white t.v. in the living room. We were still in Toronto for the liftoff, on July 16, and I was glued to the television for much of that morning. The launch itself took place at 9:32 a.m. EDT, but I was watching hours earlier as Walter Cronkite described the mission particulars at great length. I simply could not get enough of that sort of thing back then. I followed the mission as best I could over the next day or so and then I was in a kind of "radio silence" as my family made the long trip to Maine by car. I picked up reports in dribs and drabs via whatever source was nearby until the afternoon of the 20th when we dropped in on my cousins to watch the actual landing.