I find more than a little ironic that today is the 110th anniversary of the first official flight of the Wright Brothers … at Kitty Hawk, North Carolina.

110 years ago today: Wilbur and Orville Wright made four brief flights at Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, with their first powered aircraft.

This photo was taken as Orville piloted the Wright Flyer on its first flight of the day, which lasted 12 seconds and covered 36 m (120 ft).

The fourth and final flight, with Wilbur at the controls, covered 255.6 m (852 ft) in 59 seconds. The Wright brothers had invented the first successful airplane.

And something like sixty-six years later, Man was on the Moon. An American Man, to be specific.

It was something we did. Something we set our minds to … and accomplished. Take a few minutes now … to sit back, reflect, be proud.

Now stop.

Or more specifically we stopped. Pretty much put the old “going into space to the Moon” thing on the back burner.

Flash forward another almost forty-five years.

Holly is sitting in her now snowbound house … a lot … playing on Facebook, writing her socks off … and pretty much ignoring the world at large.

When suddenly, while doing my radio shift last night there comes the comment “Well, ever since China landed on the Moon the other day …”

Wait. What?

China landed on the Moon?

As in China has a full-fledged space program (which I think I had heard about a while back) … and they actually launched a successful flight … to the Moon … and landed … On the Moon?

And I didn’t hear about it?

No, I’m still not planning to expand my introductory satellite TV package … or turn the television on for background noise … or listen to the local news.

But I’m thinking I really need to get out more.

Related articles

• Photos: Wright Brothers take flight (cnn.com)
• Flying Into History (reneeduke.wordpress.com)
• Dec. 17 in history: It’s a bird, it’s plane … it’s really a plane! (reporternews.com)
• It Started December 17, 1903 (newgrandmas.com)