I feel better already...maybe
By Jim Thompson
HCP columnist
I was 22 years old the last time we sent humans to the moon. I got all warm and fuzzy Wednesday evening watching Artemis II blast off.
Even though these astronauts are only circling the moon, to again have humans in its vicinity is something.
The last time we went, the Apollo program, all sorts of technology was spun off. When the last Apollo rocket took off, there were no personal computers, the predecessor to the Internet had 3 nodes and a television was the size of an office safe (and weighed that much, too).
If humans can look at this with the awe-inspiring vision we had back in the late 1960s, early 1970s, that alone will be worth it.
I fear, however, that we will look at this with a jaundiced eye. I came along when all of this technology was a surprising event. A freshly minted 22-year-old today may not look at the trip around the moon with the same feelings I had back then or have now.
And there is the problem of how we accept new technologies going forward. There is a great possibility that we will continue our cynical view of the world.
Back in those days, we thought of our problems as race relations and poverty. We were not paying much attention to the environment. We still used leaded gasoline, and it cost about 25 cents a gallon. Our cars had seat belts, but we didn’t wear them.
The Cuyahoga River had caught fire in 1969, but that was the other side of the state and was viewed from southern Ohio as a comedy, not a serious matter.
The dark spot of the day was the Vietnam War. I had a Vietnam veteran visiting me this past weekend. I told him, that compared to today, the way they conducted the Vietnam War (he was an officer and has a silver star) was closer to the way General Grant conducted the Civil War.
He agreed.
With all this talk about technology, I have to make a comment about my dear Mennonite friends. Look around you, we have not handled the technology very well. The Mennonites (and the Amish) just may have the lifestyle that is the most peaceful and the closest to God.
Jim Thompson, formerly of Marshall, is a graduate of Hillsboro High School and the University of Cincinnati. He resides in Duluth, Ga. and is a columnist for The Highland County Press.