Moon globe

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Sometime around 1969 or 1970, after the first few moon landings, I bought myself a moon globe at the Fred Meyer on Fourth Plain in Vancouver, Washington.

It was nicely detailed, like a world globe, with all the lunar seas and oceans and craters labeled. It stood on a simple acrylic frame.

I loved it, and I can’t even tell you why. It was so simple: gray and stark and beautiful. It stood next to the world globe I’d received for my seventh birthday – it was the same size, but seemed somehow more modern, with its jazzy clear-plastic stand.

I think it sang to me, a little bit, about the future, and outer space, and the universe, and how all the science-fiction books I’d ever read were going to come true, and that we were going to be living in outer space any time now.

I left my moon-globe in my mother’s house when I left home in 1978. After her death, I didn’t collect it; I put it aside, and I left it in a big box in my brother’s garage back in Washington state.

Maybe it’s still there, and maybe not. Maybe it’s covered with mold. Maybe it’s been thrown away.

Oh, I think about it sometimes. I miss that stupid globe. It was so lovely.

Recently I went online and bought a little Replogle “Wonder Globe” of the moon. It’s small – only six inches across – but it’s lovely too. It serves to remind me of my original moon globe, and it sings to me (very softly) of the same dreams I had when I was a kid.

Softly it sings: someday we’ll live among the stars.

Well, maybe not me.

But, kids, maybe you will. If you want to.


And now, Benny Goodman:

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