May 31, 2020 – I’m not much for reruns. I am not the person who re-watches some TV show out of nostalgia for what once was. No Friends binge-watch for me. Even my love for Game of Thrones is no exception. I don’t like seeing old episodes of that show either. Okay, maybe Star Trek. Actually, yes, Star Trek. I like reruns of Star Trek. But how about reality? Are there reruns of reality? Apparently. Yes.

I was a young woman in 1992. I remember the announcement of the acquittal in the Rodney King case, but there was no way I could have anticipated what would come next. I worked in downtown. That particular day, I had to go to Alhambra to a factory there to prepare for some work stuff. We were holed up in that factory, not really aware that a war had broken out in the city. At about 4:30 p.m., someone from the office came in to tell us we needed to get home, that it was getting bad. Apparently, someone had a TV on, but I never saw it. They told me the travel routes to my home would be dangerous. Alhambra is an easterly city. My normal route to my then-home would have been the 110 to the 10 freeways, then up a street called La Cienega. I was told all were on fire. The alternative-route side streets were worse; any street going westbound goes through scary neighborhoods, and those were all on fire. It’s hard to comprehend what the news meant by all on fire, but I did take it seriously. From Alhambra, I first drove north to get to the 101, a freeway I live near now, but which was very north of where I lived then. My plan was to go down from the north into the Fairfax neighborhood where I lived. So that’s what I did. The 101 is a relatively elevated freeway; I suppose the geography is elevated there. I took the hill route, pretty much down through where I live now, Mulholland being one of the streets I drove on. Mulholland is an elevated street, with a view of pretty much the entire city. By the time I got there, there were almost no cars, and it seemed like it was getting dark, not that it should have been for that time of day. I was too scared to cry, but what I saw was horrifying, so horrifying that now, tears will still come to my eyes if I tell the story in too much detail. The city, in every direction I looked to the south, was on fire, not the entire thing, that would be impossible, but thousands of fires, with black smoke covering the sky. The black smoke was what was making it dark. I made my way to the top of Sunset, drove south down La Cienega, all with fires only maybe three blocks south of where I lived then. When I got inside, there were fires out every window I looked. And we stayed in our apartments for the next few days.

A few nights ago, we had a rerun, at least in Minneapolis. I watched this one on TV, although seriously the first night I had such PTSD, I couldn’t actually watch more than a few minutes. The second and third nights, I watched the footage for a long time. I do remember when they let us out in 1992. My drive to work was through a particularly hard-hit neighborhood; no, I probably shouldn’t have driven on Venice then, but it really was a fast way to get to downtown. I remember the National Guard just driving the streets. But the footage of Minneapolis was pure chaos. The people were running wild, literally chasing the police away. No police. No National Guard. No rule of law. Nothing, but anarchy. I won’t make any political statements. I won’t make any statements about the law. The only thing I want to say is I don’t want to live that rerun again.

Last night I got an emergency text about the 8:00 p.m. curfew in Los Angeles. I couldn’t find any news on our protests, or riots and looting, mostly because I don’t have local channels, but I woke up to find Los Angeles also suffered riots yesterday, and that those were basically right where I used to live – the Fairfax District. Oh and at the Alexander McQueen store on Rodeo.

I don’t know how this will end, but I do know it needs to. The panic needs to end. The fear needs to end. Racism needs to end. And using these events to cause chaos and fear needs to end. It’s like I want to say Godspeed to the country on this crazy rerun. But that brings up the other rerun of this weekend — the successful return of American spacecraft to Low Earth Orbit. The riots, and yes they are riots, are overshadowing that news, but this space flight really is a crowning achievement on many levels.

I didn’t start out being an Elon Musk fan. In fact, I still think sending that Tesla into orbit around Mars was completely and unflatteringly egomaniacal. But I give credit where credit is due. And that credit belongs to Elon Musk. Yes, teams and teams of people made it possible. People much smarter than Elon Musk did the actual work. But I really think we would have languished in a continuing decline of our space program had he not decided to take his money from selling the entity that became PayPal, and instead of spending it on wine, women and song, decided he, himself, could be the space program. He built something, a business, a team, and many, many spacecraft, when it made no sense to even try. We had already been to the moon. People’s sentiment was that it was all a colossal waste of money, something done for nationalism and military might that is not necessary in our advanced time. Even I think we should focus on the problems of the planet, but perhaps the planet is better for us, momentarily, leaving. I know I was.

I made a lunch – spaghetti and meatballs, not something I normally eat, but it was fun. At T minus 7 minutes, I sat with my lunch waiting for the launch. I had the TV really loud so I could hear the commands on the NASA channel. I really do love the commands. I was thinking the entire time that the Falcon 9 looked really sleek; that the capsule Dragon looked like a science-fiction futuristic version of the Mercury capsule, that the two astronauts, and the mission, was the equivalent of Gemini. I’m not old enough to remember Mercury, not even old enough to remember Gemini. It was just talked about in advance of what I am old enough to remember – Apollo, all of them really. Sure I could point to Apollo 11, but I loved each and every one of them equally. Honestly, if I have a favorite, it was Apollo 13. I was never so enthralled about anything as I was about Apollo 13.

There’s a store in the junky northerly part of Laurel Canyon, I guess it’s North Hollywood there. The store sells scrap from the rocket program. They have the actual instrument panels in there. I’ve seen them. They are really switchy, like full of hard-core switches. I loved the images of those switches, so in my adult life, I have to tell you, I spent about twenty minutes just flipping random switches in that store. In my childhood, my dad had a box, very metal, with an ultra-violet light in it, and a viewer; this box had flippy switches on the front. You put a rock in that box and check for glowing properties; that was the point of box, but that box and its switches was one of my favorite things to play with when I was a girl. It made for an excellent rocket control.

At about T minus 25 seconds, I had to stand up. I was too excited to sit. At the call for lift off, and for about the next five seconds, I jumped up and down, cheering. I wondered if the neighbors could hear. No, the Falcon 9, Dragon and the astronauts are not going to the moon; their mission is that of Gemini in a capsule that looks like the Mercury capsules, like I said, a sort of modern, stylish, sleek version of Mercury. It is another rerun. It is a rerun of shows I really didn’t see. I didn’t get to see the exploration to Low Earth Orbit the first time, just to the moon, but for the first time since I was a little girl, I think we are going to get back to the moon. This is a good rerun, like Star Trek. But the backdrop of this rerun is freaky.

When I was a little girl, there was much unrest. The Vietnam War. There were riots then too; I didn’t know of them, and had I known of them, I would have considered Watts really far away. I would not have understood Kent State. But think about it. All of this is a rerun. It’s a rerun of Los Angeles in 1992. It’s a rerun of the 1960s, so much so, America is going to space as news right along with news of riots. It makes me wonder though, will it be different now? You see, now, we have individual citizens who are effecting change. Perhaps there will be more Elon Musks. I think we need them.

I want to end this on a positive note, because, to me, this is a positive time, so I say congratulations to Elon Musk. I wish I had just a gram of your determination. I mean, really, who says I’m going to build a real life rocket, like a NASA rocket, and actually does? You really did the impossible. Keep going, Mr. Musk. Keep going. The world needs you.

Words to live by, people:

When something is important enough, you do it even if the odds are not in your favor.

Elon Musk

We have far to go. May our reruns take the good, leave the bad, and forge the world into a better tomorrow. It is important.

Continued Godspeed to the crew of Dragon.