Dear Michael Collins,
Is there any place you’re scared to go? I know you’re not scared of going into space—which I would certainly be scared to do—in something my dad refers to as “a tin can” because otherwise you wouldn’t be doing it. But isn’t there someplace in the world that does scare you?
I will let you in on a little secret that no one else knows about me. Before today, I was scared of the library. There are all those books, so many that I practically never know where to start. Plus, I worry that the librarian will laugh at my selections or, if not laugh, give me the kind of look that will make me feel dumb. It’s not really anything that’s ever happened there. It’s just how I feel. Overwhelmed.
Of course Buster wants to go there all the time, but this isn’t about him. My mother goes to the library every single week to get new books for her and my dad, and sometimes she has me go with her and then I get books, too. My parents are both big readers. In fact, everyone in my family is a big reader. I’m not sure how much reading Eleanor’s doing since she moved out. And Bess isn’t so much anymore, not since she started dating Vinny. But before that? From the time I was real little, Sunday excitement at my house was, after church and Sunday dinner, my dad lying down on the couch going one way, my mom lying down on the couch going the other, Bess and Eleanor taking comfy chairs and me lying down on my stomach on the floor. What was everyone doing? Reading. Since they all did it, I felt like I should do it, too.
But here is the thing. They all turn the pages so quickly. One time, I measured this. At the top of the hour, my mom was on page forty-seven of her book. And when I checked again over her shoulder, after the minute hand had made a full sweep of the clock? She was on page ninety-seven. Ninety-seven, Michael Collins! In just one single hour, the woman had read fifty whole pages! There’s no way I could compete with that, no way I could compete with any of them. So I would turn the pages of my book, not as fast as they did, but more quickly than I could possibly read them, so that they would think I could sort of keep up and was not just some slow person who’d been accidentally dropped into the wrong house.
Sometimes—again, when I was little—I would use this technique in school. Like when the teacher would have us read a chapter quietly to ourselves. At school, I am what is known as a slow reader. There I’d be, reading at my own pace and still pages from the end of the chapter, and there everyone else would be, all done. So I learned to skim, sometimes turning pages without reading what was on them, just so I wouldn’t be last. It’s hard being last at a thing because when you finally finish and look up, everyone else is looking back at you as if to say, Why are you so slow? and We are getting tired of waiting for you. Of course, it is also not easy to answer questions about the story when you have not read all the words.
One day, though, Bess caught me. This was last year. Earlier in the week my mom had made me go with her to the library to get a book. I picked a Nancy Drew mystery, The Password to Larkspur Lane, because I liked the title and the cover. So there I was on the floor, doing what I usually did with books, when Bess said, “You’re not even reading that!”
“Am too,” I said, looking at the page number I’d managed to flip to. “I’m on page fourteen—says so right here.”
“Fine.” She snatched the book away from me. “Then tell me what the story is about.”
I thought about this, remembering the title. “It’s about a street called Larkspur Lane.” I paused. “And there’s a password involved.”
Surprisingly, Bess didn’t say anything about that. She just flipped the pages back until she got to the first one and then she placed the book on the floor in front of me, open.
“Start at the beginning, Mamie,” she said, “and read all the words. This isn’t a contest here.”
I looked up to see if my parents or Eleanor would have anything to say about this. Not only was I not as quick a reader as everyone else, but now I’d also been exposed as being a cheat-reader. Thankfully, their noses were still buried in their own books and they hadn’t noticed a thing.
With no other choice, since Bess was staring at me, I began to read the story again, every single word and at my own pace. And you know something? That book was good! If you ever need something entertaining to take your mind off things, Michael Collins, you could do worse than Nancy Drew, which I highly recommend.
Right then and there, I vowed to myself never to be a cheat-reader again. I realized that doing things the way I’d been doing them before, not only was it wrong, but I was also running the risk of missing out on some of the good stuff—even if it made me the last one to finish reading at school.
But even though I liked the Nancy Drew mystery, I was still scared of the library. Given my past—the shame of being exposed as a cheat-reader at a young age, even though I am no longer one and never will be again; feeling bad at school for being a slow reader—it is a lot for one person to overcome. And being in a library? Surrounded by wall-to-wall books? It can bring those feelings all crashing back. Who knows where fear comes from? It doesn’t always make sense.
But here is what I discovered today. The library? It is a spectacular place! If you go there because there is something you really want to know about, then Buster is right, it can be pretty much the most amazing place in the world.
Before today, I would only go with Buster as a favor to him, because that is what you do if you’re lucky enough to have a good friend: sometimes, you do what they want to do, simply because they want to do it.
But today?
Buster strode right up to the front desk and said, “Hello, Miss Penny.” He said it to her like she was a close acquaintance, just like he always does.
“Hello, Buster,” she said. Her glasses slid down her nose and then she peered at me over the tops. “I see you have Mamie with you today.”
“Yes, ma’am,” Buster said. “We were wondering if you could help us.”
“I can certainly try,” Miss Penny said.
I immediately liked that about her. She didn’t outright offer any guarantees, but at least she was willing to make the effort. It made me wonder some why I’d never asked for her help picking out books before. Maybe in the past, I should’ve just given her a chance to do her job.
“I would like,” Buster said, “to see anything that you have on rocket ships. Specifically, I’d like anything on Apollo 11.”
Miss Penny, finger tapping against lip as she considered our request, took her glasses the rest of the way off her nose and dropped them. I figured it was a good thing she had her glasses attached to a string of beads that ran around her neck. Otherwise, that would be a very dangerous thing to do with eyeglasses.
“I think our best bet would be periodicals,” Miss Penny said.
I liked that she used the word “our,” too. It made me feel like we were all in this together.
“Why don’t you and Mamie take a seat at the table over there,” Miss Penny suggested, “and I’ll see what I can find.”
Our bottoms had barely touched the chairs when Buster called after her, “And Michael Collins! Bring anything you can find on Michael Collins, too!”
Miss Penny stopped and turned.
“Not Neil Armstrong?” she asked.
Buster shook his head.
“Not Buzz Aldrin?” Miss Penny asked.
“No, ma’am.” Buster shook his head again. “We’d like to see what you’ve got on Michael Collins. You know, he’s the best one.”
Once her back was turned again, Buster looked over at me and grinned, and I grinned right back. How could I not?
When Miss Penny returned, her arms were filled with the periodicals she’d promised us, all kinds of newspapers and magazines.
As Buster began reading to himself about rocket ships and Apollo 11, I began reading about you.
And let me tell you something, Michael Collins, that you may not know about yourself: there is a lot more to you than meets the eye.
You are thirty-eight years old and you were born i
n Rome, which is in Italy. Rome, in Italy! Your birthday is Halloween. Isn’t that something? I know there must be people born every day of the year, even November 22, the day President Kennedy was assassinated. Even though I was only four at the time, I still remember the sadness in our house that day with my older sisters and my mom crying and even my dad’s eyes getting wet when he came home early from work. That must be a tough day to have a birthday, because the country has not stopped being sad about him dying. But I have to say, I’ve never known of anyone who was born on Halloween before. That must be quite a thing.
The reason you were born in Rome is because your father was stationed over there with the U.S. Army. Because of your father’s work, you moved around a lot. Before you were even eighteen, you’d lived in Oklahoma, New York, Puerto Rico, Texas, and Virginia. Wow, Michael Collins. I’ve only ever lived in one place before, and that place is right here in Connecticut, which you have probably figured out from my return address.
Instead of doing what your mom wanted you to do, which was go into the diplomatic service, you decided to do what your father did and join the military. Seventeen years ago, you graduated 185th at the United States Military Academy from a total of 527 cadets in your class. I hope you don’t mind me saying this, Michael Collins, but I was a bit surprised at that. I would have thought someone selected to go to the moon on Apollo 11 would have done somewhat better in school. I would’ve thought you’d have graduated much higher in your class. Like first. Or at least third. On the other hand, it gives me hope. If someone like you who did mediocre in school could still get so far in life, then perhaps there is still hope for a slow reader and onetime cheat-reader like me. Was reading a problem for you, too? I suspect not. I suspect you may have had other challenges, as do we all, challenges that kept you at 185th.
You once had to eject from an F-86 plane because of a fire near the cockpit. Were you scared? I would’ve been. Fire, to me, seems a good reason not to do a thing again if you are lucky enough to survive. And yet even after that, you remained a pilot.
After seeing what John Glenn did on the Mercury Atlas 6, you decided to become an astronaut, too. You did not get accepted into the NASA program right away, and yet you just kept on trying. Over a year after first trying, you were accepted.
You have gone into space once already, on Gemini 10, and you even got to stick your head out of the hatch. That must have purely been something, much better than riding in your basic convertible, which I have yet to have had the thrill of experiencing for myself.
It was you who had to tell Martha Chaffee that her husband, Roger, died in Apollo 1 along with Gus Grissom and Ed White. I bet that was even harder than ejecting from an F-86 because of a fire near the cockpit.
Last year, you had to have surgery to fix a physical problem and you had to spend the three months afterward in a neck brace. This meant you couldn’t go on Apollo 9, as had been planned. After the fire and everything else you went through, I’d have been relieved to have an excuse to stay right here on Earth, where it is so much safer. But I suspect you did not feel that way. If you did, you wouldn’t be planning to go into space again.
Because of your previous space flight experience, you were selected just this January, along with Neil Armstrong and Edwin “Buzz” Aldrin, Jr., for Apollo 11.
Wow, Michael Collins, just wow. From 185th in your class to this.
Your wife’s first name is Patricia, but people like to call her Pat, just like our First Lady. I had to laugh when I read that, because at first I wondered if Mrs. Collins your wife was named after a First Lady, just like my parents named me and my sisters. But then I had to laugh even more, this time at myself, when I realized that of course this couldn’t possibly be true.
You have a daughter, Kate, who was born the same year as me, as well as two other children.
I wonder what all this must be like for Kate. If she is excited. Or scared. I can’t even begin to imagine what it must feel like having her dad go off one day to do something and not knowing if he will ever come back. I also wonder: Is it hard for you to leave her? Is it hard for her to let you go?
I do realize that you already know these things about yourself. But let me tell you, it was news to me. I suspect that this would also be news to all those people who think Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin are the best ones. I further suspect that, sooner rather than later, Buster will tell me everything he learned about rocket ships and Apollo 11 today.
Sincerely yours,
Mamie
Dear Michael Collins,
“Holy moly!”
That would be Buster saying that. “Holy moly!” is Buster’s absolute favorite thing in the world to say when he is excited about something, and if you haven’t come across those two words before in my letters to you, that’s only because Buster hasn’t had anything to go “Holy moly!” about until now.
I know you must be getting busier and busier preparing for the trip. But if you read my last letter, then you may recall I promised that Buster would likely tell me everything he learned about rocket ships and Apollo 11 sooner rather than later.
Well, sooner is now.
When I arrived at Buster’s this morning, instead of Mrs. Whitaker answering the door, it was him. He looked like he hadn’t even bothered to take the time to comb his hair—he was that excited for me to arrive, practically yanking my arm off as he pulled me into the house and down to the basement.
He had a surprise waiting for me. Two, actually.
The first surprise was some liquid he’d poured into two glasses. The liquid was orange but by no means as thick as orange juice. I must confess to being a bit scared by this turn of events. In the past, Buster has tried to cook a thing or two for me, and the results have been something less than desirable.
Buster handed me one of the two glasses and kept one for himself, from which he took a huge long glug.
“Aren’t you going to try it?” he asked, wiping the back of his hand across his mouth.
“What is it?” I said, raising one eyebrow as I gazed at the contents of my glass. If you want the truth, that particular shade of orange was not inviting.
“It’s Tang.”
“Tang?”
“Tang! You know, like the astronauts drink? Haven’t you seen the commercials?”
Figuring that if this is something you drink, Michael Collins, then it would be okay for me to drink it, too, I closed my eyes tight and glugged away. Immediately, I understood why Buster had wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, because this was not a taste a person wanted to linger over. In its defense, it was tangy.
I figure maybe it’s the kind of thing a person needs to get used to.
Having satisfied Buster with my glug, I gave him my glass back, and he set both mine and his aside.
Then it was time for his second surprise.
“Ta-da!” he said, waving his hands toward the card table like a magician showing off a lady split in two or something.
For all his excitement, you’d have thought he’d sent away for the Apollo-Saturn rocket he’d shown me in that magazine, and had it shipped real extra quick. But no. The same Erector set version we’d worked on together still sat there, unchanged.
“I’m sorry, Buster,” I said. I didn’t want to hurt his feelings. “But how is that ‘Ta-da!’?”
“Not that,” he said. “This.” And that’s when he held up a bunch of papers from the table that I hadn’t noticed lying there.
I still didn’t want to hurt his feelings, so that time I didn’t say what I was thinking, which is that a bunch of papers was even less “Ta-da!” than our Erector set model.
But my lack of any visible enthusiasm didn’t dampen Buster’s.
“Look!” he said. “Based on everything I read at the library yesterday, I’ve drawn some illustrations, and now I can explain to you how the rocket ship works and how things are going to happen!”
Oh. Oh!
I figured that if I understood more about eve
rything than I did before, then maybe I would feel less scared for you, so I pulled up a folding chair for myself, and one for him. I even took another glug of Tang, which I regretted almost instantly. Then I parked my elbows on the table and my head in my hands, preparing to be educated.
“Okay, as you know,” Buster said, “Neil Armstrong is the commander, Buzz Aldrin is the lunar module pilot and Michael Collins is the command module pilot.”
“Buster, I don’t know any of that, except for the part about Neil Armstrong. What does that all even mean?”
“Maybe I started in the wrong spot. Here, let me explain about the rocket to you.” He held up one of his illustrations, which bore a fair resemblance to pictures of rocket ships I’d seen in the news—a long cylinder with some stuff at the bottom of it and some other stuff on top.
“The whole thing,” Buster said, “is three hundred and sixty-three feet tall.”
I tried to imagine a height so big, and couldn’t.
“Picture a thirty-story building,” Buster said. “Most of it just holds rocket fuel, and the whole thing weighs six and a half million pounds.”
Buster stopped talking and looked at me, waiting. Those sure were big numbers to grasp. But after a long minute, I nodded for him to go on.
“The long cylinder part is the Saturn V. That’s the actual rocket.”
“Wait. What about Apollo 11?” I said.
“The whole thing is called that, but they need names for the individual parts; otherwise, how would anyone know what anyone else is talking about? I’m sorry,” he said, perhaps seeing my look of confusion. “Maybe this kind of thing is just interesting to boys.”
I resented that. So I made him explain everything until I thought I mostly got it. The whole mission was called Apollo 11 and the entire ship was called that, too, but it was composed of parts: the Saturn V rocket to power it; the Columbia, the command/service module, where the astronauts would be for the flight and which would be the only part returning to Earth; and the Eagle, the lunar module, which would detach from the Columbia, carrying Armstrong and Aldrin down to the moon’s surface and then back to the Columbia.
I Love You, Michael Collins Page 4
