One Final Wish for Neil Armstrong

I’m going to hazard a guess that you already know I’m a nerd. After all, I was the one who started the whole Sprocket Ink zombie/face-eating/bath salts reportage of 2012. I’ve, thankfully, never been embarrassed by my nerdiness. I wear it like a badge of honor. It’s an attribute I’ve been happy to pass along to my children.

By now, you’ve likely heard that Neil Armstrong—the first man to walk on the moon—made his final voyage from our small planet on Saturday, at the age of 82. His death, while not exactly a surprise– given his age– was still a shock to the world at large. This man, who spoke more than one infamous phrase and kept the globe riveted to their televisions and radios for the nine days of the Apollo 11 mission, was a larger than life figure in the world of nerds.

Last June my husband and I took our sons to the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. There we watched a rocket launch, toured the buildings, glimpsed the Atlantis space shuttle in the Rocket Assembly Building, and generally nerded out. It was one of the best days of my life; watching my younger son touch a moon rock, experience what it is was like when the rockets took off– from the original Mission Control– and stare up in wonder at the assemblage of a Saturn V rocket. The one man, a quiet engineer from Ohio who was loathe to be in front of the media and never profited from his fame, whom my son has decided to worship on our trip was Armstrong.

You really cannot pick a better man.

Another tidbit of news which may or may not have reached your ears this weekend was that on the very same day, last Saturday, Snooki went into labor. It’s now been released that Snooki gave birth to a very healthy baby boy: Lorenzo Dominic LaValle.  Lorenzo was born in the early hours of Sunday morning and weighed six pounds, five ounces. Everyone appears to be over the moon and doing just fine.

We can only hope that Snooki takes to motherhood like she would take to… well, I got nothing. I’ve actually never watched Jersey Shore. You see, my husband is actually a real Italian-American, and he’s banned it in our household. I have no idea what she’d take to.

I do know one thing, however. I have this nagging little feeling. A disquieting feeling. It’s based on the timeline of these two seemingly unrelated events. I’m afraid of the implications.

Which is why I’m sending out a special plea to the universe today. To whatever supreme deity or natural force may be in charge of such decisions, I have only one small request: Please, please, PLEASE do not let the soul of Neil Armstrong be reincarnated into Snooki’s baby. Please. I don’t know many people who would deserve to be her offspring, but Mr. Armstrong—one of America’s heroes, who will likely be known for centuries to come—does not deserve that fate.

Please.

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