It's that time of year again, when almost every newspaper and news program recounts the lists of famous people who died this year. CBS Sunday Morning did a particularly good job with theirs (truthfully, they do a good job with almost everything) and, as I watched it, I came to a sudden realization.
I teach fifth grade and part of what I teach, whether my supervisors like it or not, is explorers. Columbus, Magellan - the guys that roamed the seas in search of what was really unknown. My kids come to know Columbus through stories, paintings and porrly animated shorts. Same for the others - merely pictures in an otherwise useless textbook.
But Sunday I finally took notice of Neil Armstrong. Not that I wasn't aware of who he is or what he did. But I came to think of him as an explorer - just as significant as the others that came hundreds of years before him. The last man to truly be the first to set foot on a completely foreign land - or planet for that matter. And, thanks to technology, future generations won't have to rely on distorted paintings or bad animation. They will have the real deal - Neil Armstrong himself - to tell the story and to be celebrated.
We celebrate so many things - we remember so many people - that I think it gets harder to separate the truly important from the far-less-significant. Not that anybody's life is insignificant, especially to those that love them. But to be blunt, when I see a celebration of Whitney Houston's life - a life not cut short through illness or accident but rather a life consciously thrown away - and I don't see the star-studded celebration of the life of Neil Armstrong, I have to come to the conclusion that we've lost all historical perspective.
One hundred years from now, when perhaps there is a colony living on the Moon, perhaps one of their holidays will be Neil Armstrong Day to mark that day in July when their home was "discovered." Celebrate with a parade and a day off from work and school. Remember Armstrong for the significance of his achievement - much like those explorers that came before him.
By then, I figure, both Whitney Houston and I will have faded from memory. And that, perhaps, is how it should be.
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