Shoot the Moon<\/p>\n
1.
\nI was four years old the summer
\nwhen astronauts landed on the moon.
\nMy brothers and I
\nknelt close to our black and white screen
\nfor hours.
\nI was excited because they were excited.<\/p>\n
But the actual moon walk took place
\nafter midnight local time.
\nI couldn\u2019t stay awake.
\nand was so pissed that no one woke me up to see it.<\/p>\n
2.
\nLater my family was discussing a trip
\nwe had taken to the zoo.
\nMy little brain mixed up the words
\n\u201czoo\u201d and \u201cmoon.\u201d
\nSoon I was picturing tunnels under
\nthe surface of the moon
\nfilled with cages of tigers and zebras.<\/p>\n
For a long time, I was convinced,
\ninside my own head,
\nthat I, a four-year-old child,
\nhad been aboard a mission to moon.<\/p>\n
3.
\nIn school
\nthe teachers would roll out
\nthe big television sets on carts
\nwhenever something big was happening
\non one of the missions to the moon.<\/p>\n
One time we got to watch a splashdown.
\n\u201cSplashdowns are my favorite part,\u201d
\nI assured my first-grade teacher.<\/p>\n
As a teacher now
\nI realize
\nthe TVs were not for us
\nor for any educational value.
\nThe teachers just wanted to watch it themselves.<\/p>\n
4.
\nMy brothers were into model rockets.
\nThey built them from kits, inserted engines,
\nand shot them off.
\nI was always part
\nof the ground recovery crew.<\/p>\n
One year we took a trip out west
\nin our old station wagon
\npulling a camper trailer.
\nWe saw a sign for the Estes Factory,
\nthe very kits my brothers made.<\/p>\n
My dad pulled into the lot,
\nand they gave a tour
\njust for our family.<\/p>\n
At the end, we got to shoot off a rocket.
\nThis time,
\nI got to press the button.<\/p>\n
At least, that is how I remember it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Shoot the Moon 1. I was four years old the summer when astronauts landed on the moon. My brothers and I knelt close to our black and white screen for hours. I was excited because they were excited. But the actual moon walk took place…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1047,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-57588","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-miscellaneous"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57588","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1047"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=57588"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57588\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":57606,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57588\/revisions\/57606"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=57588"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=57588"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=57588"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}