Everyone's Gone to the Moon

Since I revamped the website (JoeCuhaj.Com) and teased about a new book I am currently researching and writing titled "Everyone's Gone to the Moon", I’ve received a lot of comments and questions about it. I thought that today I’d go into a little more detail about what the book will be about.

As we all know, there has been a lot written about the legendary flight of Apollo 11 and mankind’s first steps on the moon. Many of those writers poetically describe how the Earth virtually stood still during the epic voyage of Neil Armstrong, Michael Collins, and Buzz Aldrin but that was a fleeting moment. In reality life went on and the world kept spinning as wars raged, people fought and died for equality, and every day people just tried to make it through life one day at a time.

That is what "Everyone’s Gone to the Moon" will be about. It will focus on the entire month of July 1969 one day at a time covering not only the preparations for and the eventual historic first landing on the moon but also dig deep into life here on Earth during the month and the events and pop culture that ran parallel with the lunar landing that shaped who we are.

It will cover the major space events of the month as the U.S. space program was hitting its stride not only with the lunar landing but other space feats as well while the Soviet Union’s space program was crashing (literally) and burning. It will cover the continued fight for Civil Rights, the Vietnam war that relentlessly raged on, and violence in the Middle East that was escalating exponentially.

The book will also relive the pop culture that helped shape the world and the attitudes of both young and old: "Monty Python" was born, the Who releases the album "Tommy" while David Bowie sings of a fictional astronaut, and "Midnight Cowboy" becomes the only X-rated film to win an Academy Award.

Finally, the book will take the story literally down to earth with tales of ordinary people and their lives in July 1969, their struggles and what the landing meant to them. They may be workers at one of the countless NASA facilities around the world, a teacher in a poverty stricken neighborhood, or simply a family relating what life was like in 1969. 

I’ve already started on the enormous amount of research for this title and will be asking for YOUR help soon! In January after the holidays I’ll be asking for your own unique story about the historic month of July 1969 to include within its pages.

By the way, the title of the book, Everyone’s Gone to the Moon, was the title of a 1965 song written and recorded by Britain’s Jonathan King which I felt summed up the tone of this book quite nicely.