1965: To the Moon, Robert

By Corinne H. Smith

1965:  I turned eight years old.  I was in Mrs. Jenkins' third grade class at Farmdale Elementary School.  Daddy was 36, and he worked as a research chemist at Armstrong Cork Company in Lancaster, Penna.  Mom was a stay-at-home Mom.  We lived on Hathaway Street in West Hempfield Township.  The #1 song on the radio on my eighth birthday was “I Hear a Symphony” by The Supremes.  Mom snapped this photograph.

     In 1962, President John F. Kennedy challenged the American space program to reach the moon by the end of the decade.  His dream would become a reality that, unfortunately, he didn’t live to see.

     By the time I was in third grade, a number of Mercury and Gemini spaceships had begun to lay the groundwork (so to speak) for the ultimate journey.  People were getting very excited about the possibilities that lay ahead.  Including one of my fellow classmates in Mrs. Jenkins’ room.

     Robert Mattern remains a mystery to me, in hindsight.  He was in my third grade class.  He and I spent a fair amount of time talking during recess.  I didn’t know then that he was merely a temporary traveler on our educational path to Hempfield High School.  If he was enrolled in our school before third grade, I didn’t run into him.  If he stayed at our school after third grade, I didn’t see him much at all.  I assume he moved into our area for only one or two school years; and then just as quickly, he moved away.

Robert Mattern, as pictured in our third-grade classroom photo

      One day Robert Mattern explained to me that he was building a rocket in his backyard.  He was quite animated about the details of the machinery.  When it was ready, he would take off and head to the moon.  And he wanted me to go with him.  Actually, he expected this.

     I was shocked.  Not at the fact that a seven- or eight-year-old was building a space craft.  That part of the story, I accepted without question.  I was upset at the me-going-along part.  I never said that I would accompany him.  And for some reason, I found him difficult to argue with.  I didn’t have the courage to admit that I had no desire or intention of going to the moon.  In my mind, I pictured us riding on the back of the rocket as if it were a round-bellied horse, speeding toward the unknowns held by a star-filled sky.  (How would we breathe without an atmosphere?  I never considered this dilemma.)  We would travel like an intergalactic “Born to be Wild” duo, years before Steppenwolf even recorded that song.  This was scary stuff.

     Mom used to tell this story, too.  She said that I came home from school one day, frantic.  I told her then about Robert Mattern and his plan to take me to the moon.  And I moaned to her that I didn’t want to go.  She probably had to stifle laughter as she assured me that I had no need to worry.  She and Daddy would never give me permission to make the trip.  I must have felt relieved.  Memories of the rest of this vignette have therefore faded.  I don’t recall if I ever officially turned down Robert’s offer.  Maybe Mom convinced me to “just wait and see,” and to deal with the decision when the rocket was finally ready for launching.  Naturally, that day never came.

     So many people pass in and out of the course of our lives.  Some leave traces that linger.  And sometimes a casual remark, an image, a sound, or a smell will take us back to a past moment and to a random interaction with another person.  And we’ll be curious.  Where did that person go, who was with us for only a short while?  What has he been doing?  Who did she become?

     On occasion, I search online for Robert Matterns.  I look at photos of fifty-year-old men, scanning their faces for some resemblance to the boy I once knew.  I wonder what happened to him.  Did he keep an interest in space, or was it just a passing fancy?  Was it instead the building of the thing that intrigued him, the mechanics involved?  Does he ever think back to those days at Farmdale Elementary School, when he chatted with that girl with the white-rimmed glasses?  Does he ever look at the full moon and smile?