The Daily Dose/December 13, 2019
By Gaylon Kent
America’s Funniest Guy
Leading Off
Notes from around the human experience…
HERE WE GO AGAIN: Today is the 47th anniversary of the last time we humans walked on the moon. Today in 1972 Apollo 17 astronauts Gene Cernan and Harrison Schmitt made their third and final excursion on the lunar surface. All told, they spent 21 hours exploring the moon.
Now, the Apollo missions didn’t answer our most fundamental questions about how we came into being and whatnot, but that’s OK. Apollo astronauts did what our great explorers have been doing since time immemorial: they went where no one had gone before and found what was there.
Quote That Sucker: Before he left the moon for the last time, Cernan, the mission commander, talked about how the challenges of their era provided our destiny for tomorrow, a quote featured below. The words were every bit as momentous as Neil Armstrong’s “one small step” line when man first stepped on the moon in 1969.
USA! USA! At the time the sky, literally, appeared to be the limit for manned space travel. The moon was old hat and putting man on Mars seemed entirely achievable.
Fly In The Ointment: America, however, has stopped going where we’ve never gone before. After Apollo we lost interest. Congress canceled two other missions and while we probably could have had humans on Mars in the 1980s had we really wanted to, we really didn’t want to and now America cannot even send men into space anymore.
Exactly why is – thankfully – beyond the scope of this column but it is fair to say this was about the time television became the focal point of American life, an activity that now consumes roughly one-third of an average American’s waking hours.
Thank You Mary Sunshine: Our loss. Looking back, it really marked the beginning of the end of the American Century.
And You Wonder Why You Don’t Get Invited To More Parties: America has since stopped exploring, stopped reaching, stopped moving. America is now a shell of her former self, a fractured and bickering mess of a country that will collapse, perhaps before this half-century is out, unless something is done about her perpetual wars and mindless spending.
FunFact: Apollo was so long ago that only four of the twelve men who walked on the moon are still alive and any substantive benefit from going to the moon has long been withdrawn.
USA! USA! Redux: But Apollo has one more mission: to inspire us to once again see how far us humans can go. Perhaps one day we will let it accomplish that mission.
Today At The Site
The Diary of a Nobody: Sparrow calls the credit union that is financing his new ride. Today’s Diary.
In other new ride news, I called the credit union that is financing it because we haven’t heard hide nor hair from them and the first payment is due in a couple of weeks…(The Wife’s new car is financed thru the same people and she recalls going thru this, too)…My first attempt got me disconnected, despite the fact I pressed the right buttons…On the second try, I said “operator” every two seconds and while I still had to press a couple of buttons soon enuff I was in the cue for a human being, a wait that was only 15 minutes long.
It’s Sparrow, an average man passing an average life.
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On This Date
In 1972 – Apollo 17 astronauts Gene Cernan and Harrison Schmitt complete their third and final moonwalk, the last humans to walk on the moon. Apollo 17, which also included Command Module Pilot Ron Evans, had become the sixth mission to reach the moon on December 11, had lifted off from Earth on December 7 and would return on December 19. Their final excursion on the moon had lasted over seven hours.
In 1936 – The Green Bay Packers defeat the Boston Redskins 21-6 at the Polo Grounds in New York City to win the NFL title. It was the fourth NFL title for the Packers and the third of four titles they would win that decade. The game had been scheduled for Fenway Park in Boston, however the Redskins moved it to New York and a few days later announced they were moving to Washington, D.C. They had been formed in 1932 as the Boston Braves.
In 1969 – Steam is at #1 on Billboard’s Hot 100 for the second and final consecutive week with Na Na Hey Hey Kiss Him Goodbye. The song remains the group’s only Top 40 hit, making Steam one of the few groups whose only Top 40 hit went to #1 – a follow-up peaked at #46 – and the song also peaked at #20 Billboard’s soul chart. Like some #1 songs, Na Na Hey Hey Kiss Him Goodbye was recorded at the end of a recording session, intended to be the B side of a record.
Quotebook
America’s challenge of today has forged man’s destiny of tomorrow. – Gene Cernan, Commander, Apollo 17 and the last human to set foot on the moon
Answer To The Last Trivia Question
The first president of the United States elected without a majority of the popular vote was John Quincy Adams in 1824. Andrew Jackson won the popular vote, no one got a majority of the Electoral College votes, and Adams was elected by the House of Representatives on February 8, 1825.
Today’s Stumper
The Trivia feature will return.
