Rod Meloni: Farewell, John Glenn

Astronaut hero dies at age 95

Remember Tom Hanks in the movie Apollo 13? Remember his HBO miniseries From Earth to the Moon? Those classics came about because Hanks and Ron Howard (Opie on the Andy Griffith show) were sons of the space age who felt compelled to memorialize those glorious days.

They’re a few years older than I, but all of our childhoods were energized and animated by the space race. In those days, seeing the real rockets lifting off from Cape Kennedy, (as it was called at the time) was a national spectator sport.

When the television coverage started, America ground to a halt. Millions would stop to watch the spectacle; collectively awestruck. Hearts swelled with pride, too.

I was just a little guy of 3 when John Glenn became the first American astronaut to orbit the earth. Still, I absolutely remember watching the launch and realizing what an amazing feat it was for someone to fly three times around the earth in less than an hour. It all seemed so amazingly impossible.

For my younger brother and me, the "gee whiz" and the "whiz bang" of rocket flight gave us hours of joy-filled play. We would imagine what it would be like to sit upside down in a bulky suit, helmet and sunshade pulled over, atop a giant rocket ready to blast into space. Back then, the moon was as distant as Mars and getting there an unknown fraught with danger. So convinced were we that we would becoming legendary space travelers, my parents bought us matching, green corduroy jump suits much like Glenn’s.

They had utility pockets and patches and I vividly recall one patch on the left breast zipper pocket had Glenn’s famous line about how the Mercury mission went. It read "A-OK!" We watched every launch because it was drama of the highest order. It wasn’t always successful. Young boys have a hard time wrapping their brains around what it really meant to see a fatal launch pad fire.

Our entire family and community held their collective breath when Apollo 13 looked like it might not make it home in April 1970. That they did was a catharsis that far exceeded what the movie could portray. Astronauts were the can-do, make-it-happen guys. They were courageous heroes who buoyed a nation!

In 1979, I was a junior in college. Tom Wolfe’s The Right Stuff came out. Though about 800 pages, I devoured it in a couple of days. I couldn’t wait to find out the true stories. The book was a revelation and I found myself feeling like that little kid again watching liftoffs in my parent’s living room. I won’t deny it was a bit of a disappointment to learn John Glenn was thought of as a "prig" by his fellow astronauts.

I always chalked that up as jealousy. But in my old age, having a better understanding of group dynamics, the characterization was no doubt correct. But in my eyes, it didn’t change the fact he was the trailblazer and the star of the show until Neil Armstrong came around. The book gave me every reason to want to meet these guys. Little did I know my career choice would avail that opportunity one day.

I met John Glenn in person while working my second television job in Portland-Poland Spring, Maine. Glenn was running for the 1984 Democratic presidential nomination and came to town with then-Maine Senator George Mitchell. Though I worked nights, I jumped at the chance to get up bright and early and be the one to get an interview. It was one of those moments in the news business you have to learn to stay calm outwardly no matter how your insides are jumping around.

You may greatly admire the person you’re speaking with, but you still have a job to do. So, I didn’t tell Glenn I was so giddy I could have been twins. Instead, I kept a stiff upper lip asking him questions about his qualifications for the presidency and such. He’d been in the Senate for nearly a decade by then and he had the Washington-speak down. He didn’t actually have much to say and was surprisingly uninspired and lacking charisma. I didn’t care.

I told myself it explained why, despite his hero status, he lost the nomination to Walter Mondale. Yet, I smiled a little smile that night on the way home in the car and pinched myself. I shook John Glenn’s hand! Can you believe it?

Later in the 1984 presidential campaign, an incident happened few will remember but stuck with me always. While the Glenn team was walking to on the tarmac to the campaign plane, one of his young aides was talking and looking back, not paying attention to her surroundings. She was two steps away from the spinning propeller when Glenn, pilot experience intact, grabbed her by the arm and pulled her away. He’d saved her life. Once a hero, always a hero!

In the early 90s, astronaut James Lovell -- who Tom Hanks played in Apollo 13 -- came to Saginaw, where I was working at the time. I thought back to how I was with Glenn to keep from jumping out of my socks. I admit, I asked him if he understood he was a hero. He said he wasn’t.

I corrected him. You’ll forgive my lapse in journalistic decorum. Years later, while working for WDIV, I ended up in Kill Devil Hills, North Carolina, for the 100th anniversary of the Wright Brothers' first successful flight. There, I had the honor and the pleasure of interviewing the true legend, the unsung hero of the space age and star of The Right Stuff, Chuck Yeager. He was as cranky and irascible as billed and I loved every minute of listening to him talk about experimental flight.

Then, as if I’d won the lottery, minutes later I interviewed Apollo Astronaut Buzz Aldrin. Holy cow, I thought to myself, I’m interviewing the second man to walk on the moon! My boyhood dreams had come alive before my eyes. Before the evening ended, I had spoken with the NASA guys who made it all happen as if having breakfast with my buddies.

To casually chat up the heroes that brought the moon so close we could touch it was something of an out-of-body experience. Though I couldn’t tell them or even my boss at the time, I am eternally thankful for the access this job gave me. I’ll take these memories to my grave.

Buzz Aldrin had to be airlifted out of the South Pole last week in a medical emergency, a lesson to us all about the fragility of this life, hero and daredevil or not! When the news of John Glenn’s passing came out in the newsroom today, I did a double take. He’d only gone into the hospital this morning, something I’d noted in my morning reading before heading out. Whenever any of the Mercury 7 or Apollo astronauts came up in the news, I made a mental note.

I mentioned in the newsroom I’d once interviewed John Glenn and there was no reaction whatsoever. It saddened me to think astronauts passing barely registered beyond another headline. It is understandable though, considering most of the inhabitants of newsrooms across the country are barely old enough to think of astronauts as anything but people you read about in history books or who had schools named after them. These kids certainly are not old enough to understand the impact guys like John Glenn had on this country in some very trying times. In fact, it was a twinge of sadness in that moment that prompted this piece.

We cannot and should not forget the likes of John Glenn. He and the men and women of NASA lit up a lot of childhoods with the lessons of dreaming big, working hard, simultaneously failing and succeeding spectacularly and making history. They proved we could do the impossible. John Glenn had that daring heart and pilot’s swagger accompanied by a calm-under-fire we all aspired to. Farewell John Glenn.

You were more than A-OK by me and my brother and the grateful nation that still fondly remembers your heroism. Godspeed sir; meeting you was a distinct honor!


About the Author:

Rod Meloni is an Emmy Award-winning Business Editor on Local 4 News and a Certified Financial Plannerâ„¢ Professional.