On watching First Man

Last updated on: November 4, 2018 at 9:20 pm by Jane the Actuary

On watching First Man 2018-11-04T21:20:22-06:00 Jane the Actuary

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Finally got around to seeing this movie today. Here are a couple random thoughts:

It was definitely not the soaring inspirational treatment of the moon landing that one might expect from knowing nothing other than the general topic of the film. Instead the title is to be taken more literally: it was about the “first man,” that is, Neil Armstrong, and may or may not have taken liberties with his life and his personality. I had read that the film is somewhat grim and emphasizes the risks and the fear, so I wasn’t taken by surprise by it, though I did get annoyed with the handheld-camera shakiness in so many situations when it just didn’t seem to be warranted. And the missing flag-planting? There was so little screen time devoted to the time on the moon, and the flag didn’t fit in with the narrative being developed, so its absence wasn’t particularly noticeable.

But to a certain extent my reactions had comparatively less to do with the movie and more to do with personal stuff.

For one, even though the timing wasn’t entirely the same, Neil Armstrong as portrayed in the movie reminded me of my Dad. Yes, only superficially — Dad was a young engineer in the 60s, though the timing is somewhat off, as he only married my mother in 1966. But the Young Neil Armstrong bore a superficial resemblance to old pictures of my Dad from the time. And, heck, Dad wasn’t an astronaut, but he was a Builder in his own way, serving a tour of duty in Germany after college supervising 100 civilian workers at a vehicle repair depot, and, after he returned to the states and married my mom, getting together with a group of friends to build fiberglass 27′ sailboats.

And even though I’m not a child of the 60s, there’s plenty of resemblance between the world of the late 60s and the 70s in which I grew up. Not in terms of war protests, which weren’t my world, but the home environments, the plaid shorts on the children, and what-not. And lately I’ve been thinking about how different the world is, in my adult life, than it was for my parents.

On the one hand, there are so many ways in which we take computers, the internet, and smartphones for granted. When was the last time you planned a vacation without looking for lodging on the internet? (For me, I think this was when we lived in Germany and used tourist offices or travel agents’ booklets.) When did you last call a movie theater to find out showtimes? We check the weather online. Read the news online. Make and monitor our investments online. Heck, there’s no way I would have gotten the idea in my head to be a Freelance Writer and Researcher (whatever that ends up being in the future), but, on the other hand, who can say what pension consulting would look like in the year 2018 had ever-more sophisticated valuation software, and ease of communication, and all manner of other tech-related changes that fed into the decision by one employer after the next to end their pension plans, not existed? And in any case, I wouldn’t have had so many years of working remotely preceding the career change.

But on the other hand, I do wonder what I’d be like, personally, in the world of the 70s. After all, I do feel much more comfortable with writing than having a conversation, and, on the one hand, the world of blogs, comments, facebook, etc., is great for introverts. On the other hand, the world of the 70s might have meant more actual in-person socializing, which would probably be good for me even if I don’t necessarily like it very much.

And third item: the moon landing itself. Folks, I was born — well, I’m not going to tell you my actual birthday, but I was a newborn at the time, and I always felt like I had some sort of special connection even though I know that’s not really true. I imagine my parents rocking their newborn baby to sleep while watching the moon landing. (Confession: I’ve never asked my parents to tell me about their actual memories of the moon landing, that I can remember. I suppose at this point I don’t want to be disappointed — that is, I’d rather imagine that it was just as dramatic for them as in the movies, rather than a prosaic, “well, we were busy with other things at the time.”) And here’s something that is admittedly kind of dumb but still has personal meaning to me: when I first started writing at Forbes, and the post I wrote on Andrew McCabe’s pension took off like wildfire and I got a big fat check from Forbes for my pageview counts, which was basically “found money” at the time (especially since I hadn’t quit my Day Job), I used some of the money to buy a celebratory Saturn V Lego set, which was just something fun at the time but took on significance afterwards as the first step in a Life Change.

And, yes, I am getting older and far more conscious of the Passage of Time. Earlier tonight I was looking at pictures with my youngest son of our last big vacation, back in summer of 2016. He pretty much looked the same then as now. Likewise for my oldest. My middle son? In the space of two years he went from a little kid to a teenager. Yowza.

Image: https://www.nasa.gov/centers/marshall/moonmars/apollo40/apollo11_aldrin.html

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