Joyeux Anniversaire

I don't remember science class being very interesting, when I was a kid. Actually, I don't remember science class. I think we drew cells in 7th grade biology. And memorized the periodic table in 9th grade chemistry. Or something. High school might have been better, but I didn't make it to high school, for the most part, having already been incapacitated by depression by then.

I did, however, write pages in my journal about the first moon landing, to the bafflement of my best friend. That was really happening! Right then! While I sat on the sofa watching and listening, people landed on the freaking moon!

We didn't have the internet then, twittersnappers, all we had was the TV, and print publications, by way of exposure to the outside world, and space beyond. Which is how I, a landlocked child of the northern Pennsylvania mountains, became enthralled with the world under the sea. Because Jacques-Yves Cousteau brought it to me.

He brought it to me through the TV shows he produced, with their hours of footage of dives he and the crew of his ship, the Calypso, made. He brought it to me through his books, of which I had many, with beautiful photographs and tales of the Cousteau team's adventures in that other world. I loved those books; I loved those TV shows; and I loved Jacques Cousteau for taking me with him, vicariously, on his adventures.

I live a couple of miles from the Pacific Ocean, now, and have for 20 of the last 22 years. I rarely see it; so rarely that when I do, the sight of it still startles me. An ocean is an impressive thing, even from shore. I have never been diving and am not likely to, at this point.

I nevertheless love all those oceans I never see, thanks to Jacques Cousteau. Today is the 100th anniversary of his birth, so it seemed a good time to say thanks. I just re-read, at Gizmodo, Cousteau's description of his very first dive with the aqua-lung he and Emile Gagnan designed, from Cousteau's book The Silent World. It will make you want to take up diving.

So joyeux anniversaire, M. Cousteau, and thank you for bringing the sea so gloriously to those of us who could not go there; thank you for your tireless efforts toward preservation of sea habitats; thank you for the legacy you left us of ongoing work in that area and a family devoted to it.

And I am so, so sorry about what we've done to the Gulf of Mexico.