Major Matt Mason

There were empires to build and it did not take long for wooden blocks and plastic trains to give way to G.I. Joe.  I had several, but that is another story.  Along came another empire - Space!

As a kid, I guess I always knew that we were 'in space' without always understanding where we were in space. President Kennedy had already told us we were going to the Moon before the decade was out, but it took two cousins to help me understand.

Doris and Rita are older than me.  They taught me how to ride a bike.  That's important.  They also ate the same cereal I ate.  Also important.  To promote their involvement with the Space Program, one of the major cereal companies - I don't recall which - included a plastic, coin-like token that had a picture of one of the Mercury Seven astronauts pasted on one side and the name of their Mercury space-capsule on the other. I had one or two; they had all of them and a plastic, two dimensional cut-out to display them on.  I was impressed.

I remember eating a bowl of this cereal on May 5, 1961, when the first Mercury was to be launched.  Dad had brought the television to the table, no small feat in those days, so we could watch as Alan Shepard was launched into space.  We waited and waited, and nothing happened.  Dad went to work and I looked around for other things to do as Mom began her morning house cleaning ritual.  When NASA finally launched Shepard into space, the flight lasted 15 minutes and 28 seconds before 'splash-down' and recovery by the Navy carrier USS Lake Champlain.  I always thought space would be bigger...

Then there was something that Dad sent away to get for me.  Each month a book came in the mail, but the BIG thing I was most interested in was models of the Mercury and Gemini spacecraft.  Every so often a case came along to store the little Space Program books.  I was now a part of the Space Program and I could ride a bike.  Life was good.

As Christmas approached in 1966, Mattel began advertising a new line of toys - Major Matt Mason.  I lived to see the commercials to the exclusion of whatever show was on.  With my birthday on the horizon, I could not wait because I was sure I would get a Major Matt Mason and the Flying Backpack and the Space Sled.  I didn't. Another toy company had produced a cheap knock-off version and Mom and Dad decided that they would try this out to see if I was really interested...  aw come on folks.  I WANTED MATT MASON!

I still have my Major Matt Mason, the lunar space station, and a lot of good memories.

I have run into so many people who have been inspired by Major Matt Mason and the Space Program.  It was a real hope and a real dream of my generation that we would be a space-faring people.  On December 19, 1972, Apollo 17 splashed down in the Pacific Ocean and was recovered by the USS Ticonderoga. We have not been back to the Moon.  Major Matt Mason had already vacated the toy shelves and Mattel had removed him from their line.  America's interests had become internally centered.  There has never been another Major Matt Mason; there has never been so much interest in space.  I am reminded of a quote I heard from an astronaut that goes something like this,

'Single planet species will not survive...'

Remembering Luci

As I sat there alone in the Hospital, staring at the WBNS-TV Transmitter Tower, I could not help but think about my childhood star, Luci.

There was a time when the local television stations had time to fill with local shows; the networks -- CBS in this case -- had little to do with the schedule.  Mom turned on the television shortly before 8 AM.  It was a large wooden box with a dim cathode ray tube that was barely capable of black and white.  It took a few minutes for the tubes to warm up and the picture to start squinting on the screen.  It was time for Captain Kangaroo.  It was also time to pull out my toys and begin building today's empire.  I had wooden blocks that came from Lazarus, from which I learned some basics about Geometry, pre-LEGO bricks with building plans, a pre-Thomas the Tank plastic train with track, and Tinkertoys.  This was all I needed to build the various structures of my railroad empire.

For the rest of the morning, somewhere between the morning television and my empire, I passed the hours.  I also learned.  I still have that jingle from the good Captain run through my head from time to time, "All good doggies say thank you too, just like all good people do."

But mostly I wondered what happened to Luci.

I yearned for those days, when at 9 o'clock, Luci's Toyshop came on.  Luci's world was simple, a talking tree who seemed to sleep through most of the show, Pierre Poodle, Stanley Mouse, the Dragon, George Giraffe, the Walrus, Chan 10 - the Chinese Guy, Wonder Witch, Lamb, and Gumby.

Pierre Poodle went through the list of birthdays, Stanley Mouse was a sidekick, the Walrus helped recite the Pledge of Allegiance, the Dragon, though amiable, grew to enormous size when mad, you get the idea. Everyone had a job, everything was predictable.  Some crisis happened, puppets reacted, situation resolved, we all learned something.  Perhaps the most iconic for me was Lamb, who taught the ABC's to everyone in central Ohio.

I was all set to go to Luci's Toyshop on the morning of June 3, 1965. You see, Luci had a live audience, and I, I would be there!  We were in the television studio and ready for the show to begin when CBS interrupted to broadcast the first U.S. Spacewalk.  We would have to return another day...

That day came and went.  Then in August, we were invited to return.  At the time, I could not believe that someone would walk in space the very day I was supposed to see Luci's Toyshop.  I got over it, but when we saw the show in August, it just didn't seem as important.  By September, I was in school, and before long, I didn't think about Luci much anymore.

Now, in the middle of the night in Doctor's North Hospital in January 2001, I desperately wanted to know what happened to Luci.  I wanted my world to be good and right.  Luci made it a safe place.  No one ever got hurt or sick in Luci's Toyshop.  Luci was now nothing more than a fading echo and I felt very alone in the world.

On September 21, 2003, Lucile Ethel Gasaway Van Leeuwen passed away.  God Bless You, Luci.

The Day the Devil Lost His Bet

It was the early morning hours of Saturday, January 6, 2001.  I sat at the end of the hall at Doctor's Hospital and looked out the window.  The immediate effects of anesthesia and morphine had worn off and after sleeping the previous night, exhausted, and spending most of the day in Surgery, unconscious, I really wanted to be awake for a while.  I was living in the moment, but the moment was not the Now, it was a flood of images, memories, and recollections reeling through my head like some mad YouTube video...

I had endured the last three weeks and having spent a night at Doctor's Hospital three weeks ago, I was ready for this night.  I had just discovered the show Stargate playing on late-night TV and I loved it.  Now I looked out the window at WBNS-Channel 10's transmitting tower and like old TV shows transmitted from the past, I recalled my life.  You see, on December 22, I learned three things.

First, I had cancer.  The surgeon had been wrong, and he was perhaps more surprised than I. My surgery was immediately scheduled for January 5th.  I went home and cried like a baby.  That's when my new regular doctor - Jay - called me.

Second, you don't normally receive phone calls directly from a doctor, especially one you had seen only a couple of times.  He wanted to know how I was feeling, and I believed he had also just found out about my cancer.  He hadn't.  I told him.  He responded by telling me to keep lying down, uncurl from the fetal ball I had wadded myself into, put my feet up, and to have Deb call him immediately.  Deb was on her way home.

After a moment together, I told Deb to call my doctor.  She was immediately patched through, and the doctor summoned from the patient he was currently seeing.  Jay wanted to talk to her, and this made me more scared.  Before I knew what had happened, I was on my way to the emergency room.  A test had revealed that earlier in the month I had had a stroke.  The emergency room took me immediately and before I knew it, I was being examined by the ER Physician.

Third, while Jay had instructed me to remain calm and motionless with my feet up, and before Deb got home, the Nursing Home called.  If I wanted to see my mother alive, they told me, I should come now.

Christmas was really sad that year.  Mom lived for Christmas, loved Christmas, and always delighted in seeing the girls unwrap gifts and (secretly) enjoyed preparing a Holiday meal for the family.  We saw her Christmas day.  She now laid there, demented.  We took the girls out in the hall because they were young and we didn't want them to remember Grandma Edith like this.  Deb and I would visit again, by ourselves, for the last time, on New Year's Day.

New Year's Day was just on Monday, and in that week, I had buried Mom and had surgery for cancer.

It was at the funeral for Mom that my cousin Lisa approached me.  In one sentence, in one brief moment of clarity and wisdom, she revealed to me a much larger picture. She said, "You realize you are living the life of Job."

I was living the life of Job.

My health, my mother, and seemingly my future, were now gone.  I still had a house, but I faced the prospect that it would be a house without me.  I visualized the gentlemen from the funeral home removing my body in a black bag while Deb stood crying and holding the girls. My future had turned into a carousel ride, but the ride moved in slow-motion, the music direful, as the ride slowly spun into blackness.

But the Devil had lost his bet.