This column was originally published December 24, 2013.
By: Mark Glennon
Had I known 45 years ago that someday I’d be introducing my son to Jim Lovell, Christmas Eve that year would have been still more magical than it was.
As a kid that night I was mesmerized along with pretty much everybody on the planet with a TV. The first people ever to leave Earth’s orbit circled the Moon and Jim Lovell, along with the rest of the Apollo 8 crew, delivered an extraordinary broadcast. If you never saw it, or want to relive it, a video link is here.
My son, like most of his generation, knew of Jim Lovell from Apollo 13, the movie about the subsequent failed lunar landing. Tom Hanks plays Lovell, and it’s a magnificent story in itself. When Scott was about five, after he’d watched Apollo 13 for probably the tenth time, my wife and I took him to Lovell’s restaurant in suburban Chicago to meet him. After lunch Lovell stopped at our table to shake Scott’s hand and chat. Lovell is a gentleman of the finest kind, and he was as gracious as he could be.
As we left I called my dad, handed the phone to Scott and told him to say who he just met. “Tom Hanks,” Scott said!
Apollo 8, too, seemed to conflate fiction with reality. 1968 had been an awful year — assassinations, riots, and Vietnam. But it ended with such a splendid triumph of human determination and scientific endeavor. I still remember the feeling of wonder I had laying in bed that night, thinking about what I’d just seen and heard.
Thanks, Mr. Lovell — and all Apollo Program alums. As the Apollo 8 crew said just before crossing over to the far side of the Moon, into radio silence and darkness:
“We close with good night, good luck, a Merry Christmas and God bless all of you — all of you — on the good Earth.”
Expect no retraction or apology. This what they do.
The state’s existing buyout program for its own pensions is the precedent for Chicago, which should be a warning: Look out for similar exaggerated claims and shoddy analysis.
Beautiful sentiment.
And another Lovell story about a really fine human being. I was at Lovell’s restaurant with a friend from law school whose son at the time was a Marine Corp Captain visiting Chicago. Lovell sat at our table and talked with us– really to the captain– for over a half hour. And he opened up one of the locked cabinets that held some of his Apollo 13 memorabilia for us, describing a little bit about the famous flight. A truly great gentleman. And by the way, the great painting that Tom Hanks bought for Lovell’s restaurant is now at the… Read more »
What a wonderful story in many ways. We met Lovell at his restaurant too, and he really was a true gentleman as you say. God bless his memory and men like him. RIP.
I love this article! read it three times. Especially like what your son said.
Beautiful. Hope you send it to Lovell.