You can’t deny it was palpable. It was in the air. We did incredibly stupid things – Vietnam and race riots, someone killed off the Kennedys and Dr. King, we did have Nixon – but we did some amazing things too.

We went to the moon! JFK challenged a bunch of math geeks and engineers and some guys with ”the right stuff” and we went to the goddamn moon.

It was like that then. Everything was a mess, but we still did some amazing stuff.

We were a dysfunctional family on our best day, but we we could do cool.

That sense, that thing in the air, has been missing.

Even the ”radicals” back then, if you talked one on one; the ones who opposed the system at every level. The guys who said the money could have been and maybe should have been spent to feed hungry people, or a million other causes, even those guys – I was one of those guys – had to admit these rocket men were pretty smart, amazing.

Again, and often, it was argued all that brain power could have been and maybe should have been better directed at more earthly causes. More human and humane causes.

But it was cool…

And the cool has died

Until the other day.

THIS is American greatness. Moving us forward with humility and humor.

The red Tesla circling the sun playing Bowie forever.

This is stuff that made us great.

Not lies and denials.

Not self-aggrandizing.

Not division and hate.

I watched that rocket take off and I felt something that was missing.

For a brief, fleeting moment I remembered what it used to feel like to be an American.

It was fucking great!

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