A childhood dream and goodnight moon
Tue 07 July 2009
Lynne Green, Communications
NASA gave me the moon as a present for my seventh birthday.
Three days later, Neil Armstrong walked on the moon.
It was an exciting concept, resembling an episode of Doctor Who.
After Adventure Island, Doctor Who was my favourite show.
All the television programmes and books I liked best were fantasies or science fiction.
I was the central character of my own fairy tale, the girl who owned the moon.
However, by Monday July 21, I was over all the lunar fuss.
Once I had seen men walking on the moon, I lost interest.
There was nothing else to see except the astronauts hopping around, there were no trees or animals or aliens.
How boring.
It was then I discovered the downside of the moon landing.
When I sat down to watch Adventure Island, I was presented with more scenes of blurry, bouncing astronauts!
How horrible.
Watching the astronauts bounding higher than Skippy was fun, but not as much fun as Clown, Mrs Potts, Liza, Panda or Fester Fumble.
Worst of all, I was missing my dose of the Book, the Book With Every Story In The World.
What to do?
Action had to be taken!
Somehow, I had this idea I would ring up and ask the nice television people for a favour.
Or would I ring up to complain?
Either way, the situation needed urgent attention.
So I took my birthday money out of my piggybank and, after asking for permission to go to the shop, wandered up the street to the corner shop.
We had no home phone, which was considered a luxury in the 1960s.
Most local shops had a phone booth out the front, and our shop was a typical example.
As soon as I reached the phone booth, it became obvious I would never reach the phone or the phonebook on my own.
Physically, I was small for my age.
I was a fairy, not an Amazon.
However, the shopkeeper was a friendly man, and I knew he would help me, so I went and asked him if I could borrow a chair.
He asked me why.
I told him.
Now, I was encouraged when the shopkeeper did not laugh at me, or even hint that he was amused by my sheer cheek.
Instead, he offered to ring the number for me, and then hand down the phone for me to speak.
What a good idea.
The shopkeeper would not even take my birthday money, telling me that he would be honoured to assist in my mission.
I was so impressed that he was treating me with the respect of a grownup.
Then again, I was now seven.
That is so much more grown up than six.
Five minutes later, I was chatting to a lovely man from the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) in Brisbane.
He was very sympathetic, and promised that he would be telling all at the station about my plight.
He could not promise that Adventure Island would return until near the end of the week, but he would see what he could do.
Satisfied I had done my best, I thanked him politely.
The shopkeeper hung up the phone for me, smiling broadly.
I thanked him for all his help, and he told me it was his pleasure.
I went home to wait for the return of Adventure Island, and more readings from the Book.
I guess the shopkeeper or the television man must have rung a journalist, as there were short paragraphs about my adventure in the Queensland Times and the Courier-Mail.
My mum was mortified, and I could not understand why.
My father decided it was a necessity for our family to get a household phone.
In December 2006, I went to the Powerhouse Museum for the first time.
Museums have always held a fascination for me, as treasure houses of old bones and dusty relics and, most importantly, stories.
When I discovered the “On the Box” exhibit I was thrilled, as I had watched way too much television as a child, and the exhibit covered some of the high points of my childhood memories, like Aunty Jack and my all time favourite Adventure Island.
It was a shock to see Panda’s costume, empty of life, like some sort of gruesome trophy animal.
Then I caught sight of the Book, and all thought of Panda was gone.
It was the Book!
The Book With Every Story In The World!
Oh, how I had longed to own that book, and have all the stories to read.
The pirate stories, the horse stories, the science fiction stories, the fairy stories and folktales, the myths and legends from every country and from all times.
Every story ever written or told or sung, every one.
Now, the thinking part of my brain knew that the book was just a prop.
And yet my inner child was howling to the moon, screaming at me that I had to have that book or die.
That shrieking werewolf child wanted me to put my elbow through the front of the glass case, snatch the book, and run!
Me!
The woman who cannot even lie without blushing.
I do not know how long I stood in front of that book, with my eyes tearing up and my heart thudding.
The museum was full of people, but no one wanted my spot in front of a dusty, battered, boring prop from a television show that only a few would or could remember.
I just know that a stood there for a long time, looking upon the single most important book from my childhood, the imaginary book I could never have owned.
But it was the embodiment of an ideal that I have loved and sought all my life.
Stories.
I still want to read every story in the world; an ambition as impossible as owning the moon.
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