When my younger son was in high school he wrote an essay entitled, The American Dream is Dead.

This was before Trump. However, it was already evident that he and his brother might not be able to afford a home without substantial help from us. It was also clear that a college degree might not be the ticket it once was. Not only that, but the climate crisis was accelerating with no apparent political will to do with anything about it.

The American dream was always conditioned on white privilege, on inherited wealth, on the color of one’s skin, on where one was born — I’m saying the same thing over and over again, aren’t I?

Still, I think we can agree that we used to live in a country with a thriving middle class where at least some offspring could reasonably expect to do better than their parents economically, could rationally anticipate that they might live longer than their parents, and could expect without resorting to fantasy that they would have a healthy environment to pass on to their kids.

I grew up in the white suburbs in the 60’s and 70’s — a member of the Jones generation (tail-end Boomer with a lot in common with Gen X). Both of my parents were first generation college-goers. Both of them, through hard work and decent educations (and white privilege) surpassed their parents by almost any measure you can devise (except longevity — a story for another time). That I would go to college was baked in. My degree in English (with a focus on medieval literature, of all practical things) garnered me a professional job in radio. That’s what we expected. That’s what we got.

Now? My boys were alive on 9/11. They watched us worry our way through the financial meltdown of 2008. They saw how we had to remortgage the house to afford college. More recently, they’ve experienced (up close) wildfires and drought. Even though my older son makes more money than I did as a first year associate at a swanky downtown law firm in the 90’s, he can’t afford to buy a home. The other son is finishing up his degree in communications and worries how many vocational avenues will be foreclosed by AI.

All of this to say, The Moonwalkers, movingly loud, visually gorgeous, and packed with information was hair-raising and inspiring and made me deeply sad.

I was riven with a painful nostalgia watching a country celebrate the moon landing. I teared up thinking of all the expertise that came together to make such a seemingly impossible feat possible. You couldn’t help but wonder if such a mission would be feasible today. With the GOP’s wanton expulsion of expertise in every scientific field, I’m doubtful. In fact, I’m not sure we can still accurately forecast the weather, for Christ’s sake.

At one point my husband pointed to the glowing exit sign on one of the surround-screens and quipped, “That’s how you know it was fake.” A perfect joke.

Let’s end on an upbeat note, shall we?

It turns out that Tom Hanks, a year older than us, was a real space aficionado as a kid. His recollections added a personal dimension to our shared history — like the time he tried to simulate being in space by grabbing a couple of bricks, arranging the garden hose so he could breathe through it, and sinking to the bottom of their 3-foot above-ground pool. He recounted his devoted position in front of the TV again and again. We could relate.

So much to remember! Those clunky-looking TV’s. How viewing was a shared experience. The trust we had in Walter Cronkite and John F. Kennedy, voices so familiar to those of us of a certain age.

We plan to rewatch Apollo 13 sometime soon.