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mokenamessenger.com sound off
the Mokena Messenger | February 21, 2019 | 13
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TJ Kremer iii
tj@mokenamessenger.com
This year marks the
50th anniversary of
the Apollo 11 moon
landing, the first time
humans broke their earthly
chains and set foot on the
rock orbiting some 240,000
miles above us.
A man named Jim Gibbons,
an amateur historian,
gave an insightful and
delightful presentation at
Mokena Community Public
Library District this past
weekend on the events
leading up to that historic
milestone. (You can check
out that story on Page 19.)
But Gibbons did more
than just retell the same
story we can read for ourselves
in scores of books
and textbooks; he made the
history come alive in a fun
and engaging way, digging
deeper to get at the “why”
instead of the “how.”
And he brought up a point
that I think is worth sharing
here.
Gibbons talked about
how, in 1968, our country
was pretty well divided and
in a serious state of discontent
over issues including
the ongoing Vietnam War,
civil rights for African-
Americans and equal rights
for women.
In Chicago, in particular,
during that fateful summer
of ’68, the Democratic
Convention was held at
what was the International
Amphitheatre. A large group
of protesters gathered just
down the way in Grant
Park, and it wasn’t long before
tensions between those
protesters and police sent by
then-Mayor Richard J. Daley
boiled over and resulted
in the infamous, brutal clash
that was captured live and
viewed by Americans all
across the country.
But, just one year later,
Chicago would once again
be on the national stage
when it hosted a ticker-tape
parade for those astronauts
of Apollo 11 — Neil
Armstrong, Edwin “Buzz”
Aldrin and Michael Collins
— but, this time, there were
no riots, no violent clashes
between police and civilians,
and no upsetting video
being broadcast around the
country.
Chicago had shown the
country a picture of unity.
Where just a year prior there
was hate and division, there
was now joyousness and
camaraderie.
How did we manage such
a remarkable turnaround?
The answer might seem
obvious. Instead of collectively
focusing on
issues that divided us, we
finally had something that
galvanized us as a nation,
something we could all get
behind and support. We had
accomplished something, as
a country, that no other had
done before. And it was a
reason to be proud.
Gibbons talked about
learning from history or being
doomed to repeat it. So,
what can we learn from the
Apollo 11 moon landing?
What nuggets of information
are there, just below the
surface, that might give us
insight to how we can learn
to be united in these United
States?
A popular theory is
that we collectively come
together after some great
tragedy, and, generally
speaking, we do, for a time.
But, inevitably, those feelings
of neighborliness and
those acts of human kindness
get left behind as the
tragedy becomes a launch
point for political squabbles
and soapbox grandstanding
among our nation’s civil and
political leaders.
Tragedy can no longer
be used (if indeed it ever
should have been used) as
an effective means to rally
the troops around a particular
cause and hope that will
bring us closer together.
No, what we really need
is something that will uplift
us via the virtue of the deed,
not something that will
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slightly elevate our basic,
nurturing human emotions
of sympathy and protection,
only to have that same event
bring us crashing back even
further down than where we
started.
What could that something
possibly be? I don’t
know. I’m not sure any of
us has a clue right now. But,
whatever that something is
will have to be at least to the
level of putting humans on
a distant space rock because
without that galvanizing
event to rally all of us
together, we are certainly
doomed to keep repeating
the same, sad, hateful history
we’ve become almost
numb to over the years.
We must push further. We
must aspire to be better. We
must do it together. Maybe
that’s what we learn from
Apollo 11.
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Illinois, 60467. Fax letters to (708)
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