Earth Rise

Dad is in the garden tending to his turnips, He’s almost hidden by a tall crop of Sunflowers; I imagine the large yellow heliotropes turning toward an invisible moon like satellite dishes. I was watching the Apollo 8 mission. Mum was grumbling that ‘she was sick of turnips’. Back then, our T.V. signal came in black and white. Dad came back-in and switched the set to a soccer match. When the Ander’s color photograph of ‘Earthrise’ made the cover of ‘Life’ magazine, I dreamt that the turnips began to cry; they vowed to each other, ‘that they would never leave this wonderful planet again’. Who knew they were an alien vegetable? Later in life, William Anders (astronaut and baptized Catholic), declared that the world did not revolve around the Pope! I always meant to write to him about the turnips, but he probably knew anyway.