What We Don’t Do
“My life for the last twenty-eight years is tied up with this like it was for eighteen years being an astronaut or eight years before that being a Navy pilot. I believe in doing what you can, cause I’ll be gone in another ten or fifteen years. Your listeners need to think about this, they’re only going to be here once. Sometimes we think there’s other people around that will make up for what we don’t do. Sure they can. They can mow a lawn. They can drive a car. They can take a job and write an article or something. But they cannot do what’s in the heart of each of your listeners. And if they don’t do it, it will never be done again until time ends. Who knows when that is?”
~ Alan Bean, the fourth man to walk on the moon, from “Moon Artist,” PRI’s The World, July 8, 2009.
- “An Astronaut Goes From Walking on the Moon to Painting It,” by James C. McKinley, Jr., The New York Times, June 24, 2009
