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First Man — Context and Discussion

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In Category - Space Future

Authors: Brown, Clyde, Wood, Wallace, 1927-1981 [Illustrator] Digital Source: Project Gutenberg Gutenberg Release Year: 2010 First Publication Year: Not confirmed

Key Word: Science fiction; Short stories; Space flight to the moon -- Fiction Target Reader: Readers of public-domain and historical texts

Book Edition: Project Gutenberg digital edition Book Language: en

Edition facts

Words 10,113

Reading time 44 min

Text sections 2

For First Man — Context and Discussion, the stored edition analysis reports 10,113 words, 44 min estimated reading time, and 2 detected text sections.

The text analysis averages about 11.7 words per sentence, while the detected sections provide another way to judge how the source is divided.

Project Gutenberg metadata also associates the work with “Science fiction,” connecting these edition facts with the source record’s subject description.

Source: Project Gutenberg record #32281

In Clyde Brown's 1958 story, two neighbors—reluctant Harold and ambitious Orville—compete for the title of first man on the Moon. The narrative contrasts mundane suburban life with space travel, using precise details like a thermos jug and a garbage can to ground the extraordinary.

Editorial Edition Score 4.5/5

★★★★★ ★★★★★

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Description quality20 pts
Title & short description10 pts
Source metadata20 pts
Text length15 pts
Chapters / structure15 pts
EPUB file integrity20 pts

Total of 100 points, scaled to a 2.5-5.0 range. Editions with an empty description or a missing EPUB file are not scored.

Edition quality

File: pg32281

Read the Text

What was going to happen?

Harold would probably crack up completely, but this evening that thing would still be standing there, solid as the Washington Monument.

Nevertheless, Orville's wife Polly was going to her sister's, across town. _She_ wasn't going to stay there and be blown up! While she was getting ready, Orville picked up a package by the sink and carried it outside to the alley and dropped it in the garbage can. He wore his double-breasted fall suit. He strolled to the boundary fence and leaned against a post.

A reporter was taking angle shots of the spaceship. Flashbulbs were scattered over Harold's garden.

It really does catch the eye, Orville thought. Smarten the ship up a little, put some stripes running down from the nose, a few pieces of chrome around over the body....

Poor old Harold came off his back porch carrying a thermos jug and six loaves of bread.

"Morning, Harold," said Orville.

"Oh--morning, Orville." Harold flinched. Another reporter had come out of the shed and taken their picture.

"What's your name, mister?" the reporter asked Orville.

"I'd rather you left me out of this," Orville said.

A loaf of bread had broken open and slices were falling out. Harold put down the thermos jug and picked up the slices and stuffed them back into the wrapper. The first reporter came over.

"It's got Vitamin D." Harold grinned wretchedly. "Costs two cents more a loaf, but I thought, what the heck--"

"How about a shot of you and the missus saying good-by?" the first reporter said.

"Why--she left me," Harold blurted. He tried to get away, but the reporters hemmed him in.

"Was she scared?" the second reporter asked.

"Look, boys!" Orville put his hands on the top rail of the fence and climbed across. He was getting his shoes wet in the weeds in Harold's garden, but he didn't care. "The man has work to do. Can't you leave him alone?"

He picked up the jug and took Harold by the elbow and led him into the shed.

There, resting on some concrete blocks on the dirt floor, was the base of the ship. In the semi-darkness, it looked harmless enough: like a tank, six or eight feet across, reaching up through a jagged hole in the roof.

"Harold, you could make a good thing out of this," Orville said. "All this publicity."

Harold was climbing a rickety ladder to the roof. Orville followed.

"Mount this thing on a trailer. Take her around to fairs and carnivals."

Orville waited on the roof while Harold climbed another ladder to the small oval door in the side of the ship. Harold called down: "You never saw the inside. Want to look around?"

"Well...." Orville glanced into his back yard. Polly wasn't ready yet. He climbed up and handed the jug to Harold and stuck his head in.

"Huh!" There wasn't much to see. Just a small compartment with some pipes leading from below into the nose. "You got to fix this up," he said. "Some Rube Goldberg contraptions."

"The works are all up here." Harold climbed a ladder and disappeared through a hole overhead. "C'mon up, I'd like you to see this!"

Orville looked down again into his yard. "It'll take her forever! Polly, I mean. Okay, I guess I got time for a look." He stepped in and climbed until his waist was through the hole.

The nose of the ship was dark. Harold was shining an extension lamp around. There were parts of a junked car and some old plumbing fixtures and Orville recognized the wheels of a lawnmower he'd left by the alley for the trash men to pick up. This didn't look like the inside of a spaceship. It looked exactly like a corner in Harold's basement.

"Oh, Lord," Orville said.

"I call this my scope." Harold was shining the light on a shaving mirror, on a long arm that could be swung and tilted about. "How about that? Pretty neat, huh?"

Neat was hardly the word for it. "Look here, Harold! The neighbors are getting an injunction. Why don't you play it smart? Fight it out in the courts. There'll be a lot of publicity--"

"They are?" Harold was hurt. He was shining the lamp in Orville's eyes.

"Yeah. Now while you're fighting it out in the courts--"

"Do you call that neighborly?"

"They're scared. They're afraid you'll blow the whole neighborhood to pieces."

"Well, hell with them!"

"While we're on that subject, ain't that my trouble lamp you're holding?"

"Yeah. Guess it is. Need it right away?"

"Just want you to remember where it came from."

Continue Reading →

The story opens not with a launch countdown but with a newspaper article that gets the facts wrong, calling Harold's homemade spaceship a "rocket ship" and treating him like a sideshow act. This mismatch between the grand ambition of spaceflight and the petty, small-town reality sets the tone for the entire narrative. Orville Close, the neighbor who "obstinately wanted no part" in the lunar goal, becomes an unwilling participant, while Harold Ferguson, the builder, is portrayed as a hapless figure carrying a thermos jug and six loaves of bread. The mundane details—a broken loaf of bread, a garbage can, a double-breasted fall suit—anchor the fantastic premise in a recognizable, almost banal, setting.

Two Neighbors, Two Responses

The contrast between Orville and Harold is established early through their reactions to the same event. Harold is flustered, his wife leaves him, and he flinches at reporters. Orville, by contrast, remains calm, strolls to the fence, and even helps Harold by carrying the thermos jug. Yet Orville's calmness is not altruistic; he is detached, refusing to be drawn into the spectacle. The story uses small gestures—Orville picking up a package and dropping it in the garbage can—to hint at his later role as the one who discards what is unwanted. Harold, meanwhile, is defined by his physical awkwardness: he drops bread slices, grins wretchedly, and is hemmed in by reporters. These details create a vivid, almost comic, tension between the two men that persists throughout the journey.

The Spaceship as Junk and Wonder

The ship itself is a study in contradictions. It is built from "junk from the city dump," melted in a forge made from an oil drum, and rests on concrete blocks in a shed. Yet it is also capable of reaching the Moon. The narrative emphasizes the ship's humble origins: it looks "like a tank, six or eight feet" in diameter, and its interior is cramped and cold. Orville's thoughts about the metal's potential uses—for almost anything—suggest a practical, almost commercial, view of the achievement. The ship is both a marvel and a heap of scrap, reflecting the story's refusal to romanticize space travel. The journey itself is described in terms of discomfort: freezing cold, darkness, and the need to improvise, as when Orville uses a flashlight to search for a souvenir.

The Prize and the Record

Orville's obsession with being "first man" is a recurring motif. He insists on credit, checking Harold's official report to ensure his priority is recorded. Yet the story undercuts this desire with irony: Orville's fantasy of a banquet with the President is interrupted by the reality of sharing a cramped ship with Harold. The report Harold writes is full of exclamations—"Boy, what a sight!"—but Orville cannot even read his handwriting. The souvenir Orville finds is a package of refuse he had thrown away, a symbol of how the grand achievement is tied to the trivial. The story ends with Orville feeling drowsy, having eaten peaches from a jar, while Harold sleeps. The competition for the record fades into a mundane, almost anticlimactic, routine.

Readers should pay attention to the small, concrete details that Brown uses to ground the story: the brand of bread, the double-breasted suit, the luminous watch dial. These elements create a texture that resists the pull of melodrama. The story's humor and pathos arise from the gap between the characters' ordinary lives and the extraordinary event they are part of. The ending, with Orville's daydream of fame, leaves open the question of whether the achievement will change anything—or whether it will be as disposable as the trash he threw away.

I keep thinking about that thermos jug in Clyde Brown’s story, how the ordinary anchors the impossible. Harold’s lawn next to the rocket feels truer now than ever. There’s a quieter ache in The Holes Around Mars — Edition Insights, something about distances we measure in chores and disappearances, that lingers like a familiar street at dusk.