A Distant Memory--Reflecting on Christmas Past

Earthrise

This past couple of weeks I've been revisiting Christmas favorites, including attending a local movie theater to see the classic, "A Christmas Story," and a fantastic stage production of Charles Dickens' "A Christmas Carol." Here's my favorite personal Christmas recollection from when my son was a boy, written a few years ago.

A Distant Memory

 “Earth: a distant memory seen in an instant of repose, crescent shaped, ethereal, beautiful.” --Alfred Worden

While growing up, Steve especially treasured Sunday visits with his grandparents. We all relished Grandma’s fried chicken and buttermilk biscuits, but for my ten-year-old son the real attraction was the color television Grandpa had installed in their bedroom. Steve doted on “Walt Disney’s Wonderful World of Color.”

In those days, only about a quarter of the homes in the U.S. boasted color sets. The rest of us dragged through our evenings watching the “Smothers Brothers,” “Mission Impossible” and “Mannix” in dull, drab, dreary black and white. By 1968, though, color television technology had improved, and some manufacturers had even reduced prices. Magnavox, Philco and Zenith competed in advertising their latest stylish consoles. And all three networks now broadcast prime time shows in color.

Over the past few years we’d been paying off some old education loans, but now my husband, Bob, and I had a little extra tucked away in our savings account. Bob even had read an article in “Popular Mechanics” that predicted this would be the breakthrough year for color, with one manufacturer actually offering a smaller model for $200.

For us even this price remained steep, so we debated whether we could afford the splurge. This hadn’t been a happy year, with the assassinations of both Martin Luther King and Bobby Kennedy. Plus thousands of Americans continued to die in the war in Vietnam. We did agree we needed to do something special for Christmas, something that would cheer us up.

“Let’s go for it,” Bob decided, shortly after Thanksgiving. “Let’s get a color TV.” We both grinned. This would be a huge gift for our family.

The Saturday morning before Christmas we broke the news to Steve. I’d seen his Christmas wish list earlier. He hoped for some Beatles albums, a renewal of his subscription to “Sky & Telescope,” and some rolls of coins to search through in hopes of completing his Roosevelt dime collection.

He certainly hadn’t asked for a color television set. I think that possibility seemed as remote to him as men orbiting the moon seemed to me. But he accompanied us when we shopped for the set.

We all preferred one polished oak cabinet that housed a 23” diagonal screen. Steve liked its shelves for storing TV guides, and I liked the doors to shutter the screen when we weren’t watching. Bob liked its size…not too domineering, just right to position in a corner of our minute apartment living room, he’d pointed out.

That year Christmas fell on a Wednesday. Though Steve enjoyed a two-week holiday vacation, I’d have only Christmas day off. Bob, a police officer, worked swing shift, leaving home each afternoon around 2, and returning shortly after 11, with Sundays and Mondays off.

Steve and I would wait up for him Christmas Eve. We always selected one gift to unwrap on that night. Then we’d all get to bed by midnight. We’d wake early on Christmas morning to open everything that Santa had left, and then head for the grandparents’ house for a noontime turkey feast topped off by Grandma’s traditional German apple pie.

This night we’d been promised a special treat. With his avid interest in astronomy, Steve a few days earlier could hardly wait for the historic first manned flight to leave the Earth’s orbit. On Christmas Eve the three American astronauts aboard Apollo 8 were scheduled to broadcast live photos from nearly a quarter of a million miles away as they orbited the moon. We’d heard that this might be the largest TV audience in history so far.

“And to think we’ll see it in living color!” Steve confided. “I’m so happy we have the new set.”

Christmas Eve night Steve switched on the Christmas tree lights, and we settled down to enjoy our new television while we waited for Bob’s late return. Since the set had been delivered a couple of

days earlier, we’d already delighted in catching seasonal old favorites such as “Mr. Magoo’s Christmas Carol” and “White Christmas,” marveling at how much we’d missed in previous years when we’d watched in black and white.

The broadcast began. But because of the drabness of the moon, all the footage came to us in simple black, white and subdued shades of gray. Our celestial companion looked to be a dark and unappetizing place indeed.

“Are you disappointed?” I asked, turning toward Steve. “This would have looked just the same, I’m afraid, on our old black and white set.”

My son, though, seemed mesmerized. His gleaming eyes were glued to the shimmering screen. He held up a warning hand. “Listen!”
I turned back to the TV. At this moment, astronaut William Anders began to speak.
“We are now approaching lunar sunrise and, for all the people back on Earth, the crew of Apollo 8 has a message that we would like to send to you. ‘In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.’ ”
He continued to read from the opening chapter of “Genesis”. “And God said ‘Let there be light!’ ” Jim Lovell took over next. We listened, enthralled at how the ancient words resonated against the backdrop of the moon…and a rising Earth.
Frank Borman read the final few of verses, and then concluded, “And from the crew of Apollo 8, we close with good night, good luck, a Merry Christmas – and God bless all of you, all of you on the good Earth.’ ”
When Bob came home Steve and I were watching a recap on the late news. “See anything great in color” he asked.
I shrugged. “We watched Apollo 8. The images were kind of grainy and in black and white.”
Then my astronomy-loving 10-year-old spoke up.
“It’s the most amazing thing I’ve ever seen, Dad. What a Christmas gift.”
“The color TV?”
“No!” Steve chuckled. “The Earthrise! And it’s true. It’s really round…just like a marble.”
The next day, after finishing a meal with the grandparents, Steve for the first time didn’t bound off to the bedroom. He hung around the table, content to stay close to family, as we indulged ourselves in another dollop of pie.
“Don’t you want to watch TV?” Grandpa asked.
“We have a color TV of our own now,” Steve replied, shaking his head.
“See any ‘Wonderful World of Color’ on it yet?”
“I’ll have to wait until Sunday for Disney. But last night I saw something better.”
“Better than Disney? What’s that?”
“The Apollo 8 orbiting the moon. I saw our very own wonderful world, in black and white. I saw the Earth rise.”
Nearly half a century later, I’m still appreciative for the gift those astronauts, those three wise men, provided in choosing to read from “Genesis” on Christmas Eve. I’m also grateful for my son’s gift in sharing his rapture in watching that astonishing historic scene. What a heavenly night indeed.
I still can smell our old pine-scented little living room. I still can hear those faraway astronauts’ crackling voices. And I still can see that little polished oak cabinet, the twinkling tree, and my son’s wonderstruck expression…all in radiant, living, breathing color.   --Terri Elders

Apollo 8 launched from Cape Kennedy on Dec. 21, 1968, placing astronauts Frank Borman, James Lovell Jr. and William Anders into a 114 by 118 mile parking orbit at 32.6 degrees.