Thursday 29 January 2015

THE FINAL FRONTIER - NEIL ARMSTRONG: 1930 - 2012...



It's a curious paradox of time that past events can seem, at the point of recollection, both recent and long ago at almost the same moment.  I'm not quite sure how the process works, I only know that it does.  Perhaps when remembering something, one's memory leaps right back to the event, making it seem as fresh and immediate as when it first happened.  Then the intervening years instantly resurface in the mind's eye, shifting the focus and thereby placing events in their proper perspective, time-wise.  All this transpires in a split-second of course, creating the illusion of experiencing two diametrically-opposing sensations simultaneously.  Does that make any sense?

Regardless, New Year's Eve (Hogmany), 1970, seems like only a relatively short time back (despite being a lifetime away) when I look at my AIRFIX APOLLO LUNAR EXCURSION MODULE, which I first acquired shortly before (or maybe even on) that December 31st of  42 years ago.  Of course, I no longer own my original one, but rather a re-issue from the early '90s.  Fortunately, unlike more recent re-releases, this one features the original box art from the '70s. 

I recall, while my parents prepared for the unlikely arrival of any 'First Footers' on the stroke of midnight, putting the finishing touches to my LEM and sitting it atop the sideboard behind the settee.  Let me tell you something about that sideboard.  Not that I imagine you'll be interested, but the past weighs heavily on my mind and I suddenly feel compelled to unburden my soul.  (As Poe would put it.)

I had grown up with that sideboard; it had been in every house I remembered (I was then in my fourth house and had only just turned 12), and it was a main feature of our living-room.  Several years and yet another house later, either when I was out at work one day or living down in Southsea for a few months, my parents acquired new display units for either side of the fireplace and gave the sideboard to a relative.  When I returned it was gone - without me ever getting to bid it farewell.


A  couple of years on, we moved to yet another house, the first I'd ever been in without the sideboard.  Four years later, we returned to the house from which we'd flitted, and - six years after that - I bought the sideboard back from the relative and installed it in my back room, where it now sits just to the side of me as I type.  (That's why it's called a sideboard.)  At around the same time, I also acquired a replace-ment Airfix Lunar Module, and you can be sure that, when I finally get around to building and painting it, I'll display it on top of the afore-mentioned item of furniture - just as I did those many years ago.

However, believe it or not, I didn't start this post with the intention of discussing sideboards, regardless of how enthralled by the topic you may be.  (No?  What's wrong with you?)  It was astronaut NEIL ARMSTRONG's passing that prompted me to put digit to keyboard.  In 1969, the year that Neil first set foot on the surface of the moon, he was only a relatively young man of around 38 or so.  (That's quite a bit younger than I am now.)  40-odd years later, the man is gone and I find myself amazed at just how recent the events of 1969 suddenly, for the moment, appear to me.

One day, when I finally build that LEM, I'll no doubt recall three things.  Firstly, Neil's historic achievement back in 1969. Secondly, that particular New Year's Eve of 1970 and my original Lunar Module sitting atop the sideboard.  And, thirdly, just how fleeting time is and how, nowadays, there never seems to be enough of it.  I've still got quite a few unbuilt model kits to assemble before I'm ready to take that "giant leap" into "the final frontier".

I suppose I'd better get started on them pretty darn soon.

******

In memory of NEIL ARMSTRONG.
August 5th, 1930 - August 25th, 2012.

8 comments:

  1. Two things - Firstly, they don't make sideboards like they used to! They used to be works of carpentry art - real wood, dovetail joints, they'd last you your lifetime and beyond. Today's flat pack chip board kits cannot compare.
    Secondly, all that effort to get to the moon. How come they never went back there?

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    1. Didn't they? I thought they had. Shows what I know.

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  2. The anomaly of time is because the past is an illusion - we can only live in the present moment and there is no "past" or "future" just an endless series of "nows" - the mind stores previous "nows" and each one is no older than another so 1970 can seem as vivid as yesterday. This is mind boggling stuff - time is divided into sections called Planck Lengths and in every second there are a billion, trillion, trillion, trillion Planck Lengths - each one is a "moment " in time. When Neil Armstrong died somebody on the radio said that he was the only person who'd still be remembered in 10,000 years from now. I had an Airfix model of the 1976 Mars Viking Lander.

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    1. That's right, CJ - take all the mystery out of it! Seriously 'though, I've said pretty much the same thing myself in previous posts (on Crivens!) about there being really only one big 'now', but you know me - I like to ponder the life out of things.

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  3. Kid, I forgot to mention that when John says they never went back to the moon I think he means after the initial 1969-72 period. You are right that they went back after the first Apollo landing. You should put your previous thoughts on time on this blog, that would be very interesting.

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    1. They're on posts about specific comics 'though, which I'm trying to leave out here.

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  4. You could always write a new post on the subject, Kid, bringing together all your ideas on the subject.

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    1. I never really went into it in any great detail, CJ. I merely speculated in passing that perhaps there was no past, present or future, merely one big 'now'. Pretty much the same as you said, but without the science.

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