From the Earth to the Moon

“Ryan, you do know that we have other books on space exploration, right?”

“Uh Huhm, I know,” I said quietly, sharply nodding my head. My brief response was not withheld by intimidation, but distraction. Not unlike a kid in a candy store, I had already begun to ignore the world outside of what was in my hands-- of course, it was actually the result of a kid with an astronomy book.

The library was the best place in the world, and of course it had all the characteristics of the best place in the world. Slight moldiness from decades of collected books, a fine layer of dust on the top shelves of less loved but more remembered sections, and little direct sunlight creeping from the ground level windows would be an adequate description of the Child Street School catacombs. At some point earlier in the century it was decided that books needed to be kept like mushrooms, thus whatever morbid task this long dank chamber used to fulfill was now an archive of knowledge. 

I felt comfortable down in the Library. Isolated from the instruction and oversight of adults during class lessons, or group crafts, and even recess; the Library was where I could always just drop all pretenses and jump into pages of experience my young mind had yet to know. Of course when not doing its day job, the Dewey Decimal System- lined walls was also the cafeteria to second and third grade students who’ve brought their own lunch from home. The room seemed to have no edges, like a nicely worn piece of furniture; the short cut, springy carpet seemed to melt into the dark wood of the bookcased walls, whose secondary purpose was to hold up the ceiling. 

This particular learning establishment, on Rhode Island route 103 in Warren, housed three elementary grades during its operating hours.   By my third year I’d had learned to relish in the time allocated to the Library. Two activities incorporated much of my time there, the first of which was struggling to peel open the pull tab of canned peaches with the pair of my juvenile thumbs without injury. The later slowly became my first love, and one which I would prove to never outgrow. 

Out of all the pages I have read in various books which I was introduced to, only the words in Astronomy demanded to be committed to memory. It was the cover which told me to first grab it, or actually the spine. I had always been gravitated towards non-fiction in my early years, although I don’t recall what started that. Perhaps it was that book. Published in 1959, the cover artwork of Astronomy was boldly colored with bright yellows and reds. At least, my experience told me that it was bright at one point. It was also different than the other books; hard covered in thick paperboard, larger in height, and worn to the point where the edges felt soft like tissue.

For three years my library time always included the habit of cracking open the bound tome labeled Astronomy in science-fiction-space-aged lettering. I didn’t know what the term cover to cover meant, but I regarded the fine print of the publishing marks and the illustrative descriptions of outer belt planets and moons with the same intense respect. After many readings, I learned the book was published in the 1950s, but what did that matter to me I hadn’t any previous knowledge of astronomy or aeronautics. Astronomy, in its ending chapters, introduced the solid-state rocket booster and orbiting satellites as The Technology of the Future!. Artist renderings of what modern scientists thought of Saturn’s surface were that of a blue skied utopian Earth, with green soil, red clouds, eighteen moons, and sleek smooth rings rising over the horizon. Mars was accepted to have lakes and rivers, and Venus primitive plant life. The lack of any prior knowledge in objection allowed me to suck in and be mesmerized by what I read. My curious nature made me crave Astronomy. Of course I read other things on the subject, as the nurturing librarian said: we did have other books on space exploration.

The sprightly jerk of an Uh huhm I uttered back may have been externally brief, but I suppose manners were of low priority in my brain, and were appropriately turned off in lieu of information input. Of course I knew the exact volume she spoke of, and I had the inclination she knew that I knew. 

Large and towering in physical form to myself, the all too familiar librarian projected an attitude of anything but. Her curly black hair and round spectacles balanced out her exuberant smile, which she often employed as she followed my self directed knowledge hunts during my periodic library hours in my three year sentence at Child Street. 

Despite the mutual understanding I had read everything to do with space, astronomy, aeronautics, and science in the dank dungeon did not deter her habitual recommendation to sit with another hardcover on the subject. I assume her goal was to immerse me with less out-dated information-- the publication date of my favorite volume was by no means a proper modal average of the total book population. Frankly however, the NASA book she encouraged did not appeal much to me.

The other astronomy books were filled with high resolution photographs, printed on glossy paper, and filled with astronauts like that flashy popular Neil Armstrong. Also the less exciting, unimaginative space shuttle replaced the colorfully drawn rockets I have since based as my foundation of orbital vehicles. The Hubble telescope photographs captured images of all the nine planets I had come to love, but they were sterile and cold. And the book was a lot smaller, and had less information. It seemed that the more outlandish aspects of extra planetary characteristics were proved inaccurate; however no new discoveries were introduced. I then threw it aside as a novelty. Unimportant. 

Eventually the urge to discover new knowledge and to live curious revealed the out-dated status of my favorite book. It was still my favorite though; a scapegoat or shrine. It was a symbol of what first sparked my imagination and thirst for learning. Because of it, I associated 1950s era science and astronomy as my science or astronomy-- a sense of nostalgia made me view anything later as  somehow less concrete, even if rationally I knew it to be more accurate. 

The closing months of my final stretch at Child Street School eventually dawned. Apparently, mine was to be one of the last third grade class to pass through the doors, and run up and down the lacquered wooden stairs. As the library books were to be then sent to the other district schools, some less read volumes were to be donated or discarded. By unanimous vote, although I have yet to  discover who the ballets were filled out by, I was to be given one of the two copies of Astronomy which belonged to the library. At that point I felt it just, as the thing was pretty much mine anyway. I hate to admit the stamp card on the back cover was used by none other than myself for some time. I recall seeing loan stamps from the 1970s, and maybe one or two before my own-- however I’ll be dammed if that lovely tome was checked out at any point of the 1980s. It’s a shame, really. To think that a partially degrading pile of illustrated paper could move my little mind so. I wonder the feelings and thoughts of those who read it before me; or of the individual who creased open its’ spine for the first time. Was it a librarian? A Teacher? Or perhaps a small school child, who is now well into their age. 

My memory of Astronomy outside Child Street School is limited. It has been more of an ingrained feeling in my conscious mind, hidden in the background of all of my emotions. The last physical glance it met with my eyes was from the edge of a dusty music stand, in my basement at home. I believe I had just liberated it from some storage box, then proudly placed it on display in my own catacomb. By that time, it must have already been three years into the next century. Astronomy had asserted that at that date, a good percentage of the scientific population would be permanently living on the Earth’s only natural satellite, conducting energy experiments. Since the relic itself has yet to be found, I have since begun a hobby of a crusade-- On occasion I search for that specific publication of The Golden Age of Astronomy on various websites over the internet and purchase them. Though the volumes may be the same, I have yet to unearth a copy bound in the same cover. The hunt continues, and if luck shall have it I may rediscover the original some time before we actually colonize the moon.