Newspaper Columns Written by Malcolm “Mack” Gibson
TRIP TO MOON CHANGES VIEW OF WORLD
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BEAUMONT ENTERPRISE
February 4. 2019
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I used to celebrate each new year by pondering what lay ahead. Now, as I struggle to remember where I left my glasses or parked my car, my focus has shifted more to where I’ve been than where I’m going. But such a perspective is not all bad.
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I was reminded of this recently while watching a Public Broadcasting documentary about the three astronauts of Apollo 8 who were hurled into lunar orbit on Christmas Eve 1968. Their mandate was to map the moon’s far side while testing new technologies needed to put a man on the surface.
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ANGLERS KNOW FISHING IS ABOUT MORE THAN CATCHING
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GALVESTON DAILY NEWS
NOVEMBER 11, 2018
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Running the west beach in the early morning, the most interesting people I encounter are fishermen. They frequent the pocket parks where they can drive to the shoreline to unload their gear. My fascination derives less from their sport than their demeanor.
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They stand for hours in the surf rhythmically casting, or sit on the beach alongside rods anchored in the sand, lines splayed into the gulf.
PUBLISHED
OCTOBER 21, 2018
BEAUMONT ENTERPRISE
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In the 1991 World War II movie classic, “Memphis Belle,” a battle-damaged B-17 limps home from a bombing run. The pilot (Matthew Modine) struggles to keep the plane out of the trees while his crew tends feverishly to “Danny” (Eric Stoltz), an injured gunner.
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The airfield in sight, Modine hears his men doing the only thing left to help Danny hang on. Off-key and choked with emotion, they’re singing to him: “Oh Danny boy, the pipes, the pipes are calling; From glen to glen and down the mountain side; The summer’s gone and all the roses dying; ’Tis you, ’tis you must go and I must bye.”
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When I watched the film again recently, it brought to mind another story —this one real life.
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WE MISSED SOME KEY LESSONS OF THE GREATEST GENERATION
ON COLUMBUS DAY, REMEMBERING AN INSPIRING NATIVE AMERICAN
PUBLISHED
October 14, 2019
BEAUMONT ENTERPRISE
CAPE COD TIMES
PITTSBURG BETTER TIMES
Growing up, Columbus Day was simply the day we celebrated the arrival of Christopher Columbus in the Americas. Today, the focus is changing to the havoc wrought upon indigenous people by this European influx and their subsequent struggle for equality. As I was considering this new point of view, an unexpected arrival of a different kind came to mind.
On this date 55 years ago, on the Olympic track in Tokyo, Japan, an unknown Native American named Billy Mills passed two predicted winners over the last 30 yards to arrive first at the finish line of the men’s 10,000-meter race, issuing a halcyon call to the world about racial equality. One of the biggest upsets in Olympic history, Mills completed his epic run in an Olympic record time of 28:24.4. However, I recently learned by reading his book, “Lessons of a Lakota,” that his journey to Tokyo was anything but swift. In fact, it took a lifetime.
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ONLY HARD WORD REVEALS HEROS
PUBLISHED
BEAUMONT ENTERPRISE
I do not like TV commercials. When I try to dodge them, I often end up on the NASA channel. On one recent visit I came across a documentary with a message still relevant for our time.
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The date was September 12, 1962. The place, Rice Stadium, Houston, Texas, when and where President John F. Kennedy announced that the United States intended to put a man on the moon by the end of the decade. As a fourteen-year-old Explorer Scout, I remember being enthralled by the President’s proclamation. It even topped my adventures of the previous two weeks when ten of us had canoed one hundred fifty miles in nine days, portaging between lakes that straddle the U.S.–Canadian border, west of Lake Superior.
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