They say the moon, which is 225,745 miles from earth – give or take an inch or two – never gets any closer, despite the fact that on nights when it’s rising and it’s full, it often looks like it’s only a little ways off and you could almost reach out and touch it. How does it do that?

We don’t have too many nearby neighbors in this part of the universe, so, as our closest neighbor, the moon has always been pretty important to us.

I remember as a kid there were several people – usually the same ones who recorded the high and low daily temperatures at their place as well as the wind direction and velocity – who always knew exactly what the moon was up to.

These people, usually farm people, made it their business to know if the moon was in its new phase or its waxing crescent phase. What’s more, they even knew the precise moment it went from one to the other.

I could never use phrases like “quarter waxing moon” or “gibbous full moon” in a sentence, and I bet you can’t, either. But these people sure could and often did – when you least expected it, too.

They’d look at the calendar and say, “Well, it’s a waning gibbous moon tonight so maybe we should put off that boat launching for a while.”

I’d shake my head and wonder, “What did he say?”

Now I’d more than likely ask people to explain themselves if they’re throwing around terms like “gibbous full” and “waning gibbous,” but back then I’d probably say, “Oh, right, the waning gibbous moon.”

Come summer, my grandparents would often talk about things like June’s “strawberry moon.” July they called the “hay moon” and August was known as the “corn moon.”

It’s been years since I heard anyone talking like that. If people know any of the moon’s names they might know September’s, the “harvest moon.”

In school we used to figure out our weight on the moon. I think my lunar weight was about 24 pounds. Today I’d weigh about 31 in lunar pounds, which would make me a candidate for a lunar weight-watchers program.

Back in my school days I learned that the average daytime temperature on the moon was 273 degrees F., knowledge that made me feel a little cooler when the temperature in the classroom went over 70, which it often did on warm spring days.

And it always seemed a little cozier around here in winter after I learned that the overnight temperature on the moon often drops to 250 degrees below zero.

“Stoke up that parlor stove, Mother, she could go down to minus 300 tonight.”

Just like here on earth, it probably gets even colder in those low-lying moon areas.

Back in the 1950s and ’60s, when we wanted to launch our boats for the summer, Sherm Atwater always knew precisely when to do it. My father would ask Sherm and he’d say, “Let’s see, she’s in her waxing gibbous now so she should be about full by Saturday and high water is just before 7 in the morning. Why don’t we all meet down by the water a little after 6 and we should be ready to roll them in one after the other.”

In summer I paid more attention to the moon than I did the rest of the year. On moonlit nights as a kid I liked to sneak out and go rowing around the harbor. It wasn’t like I was sneaking around out there, because folks could hear my oarlocks rattling from clear across the harbor. You also had to be careful because lobsterman who had traps in the harbor were always a tad suspicious of any nighttime activity on the water and rattling oarlocks were often an indication that someone might be up to mischief.

As I write this I have no idea what the moon is up to and, what’s worse, Sherm isn’t around anymore to tell me. I just know it’s up there where it’s always been, going through its paces.

John McDonald is the author of “A Moose and a Lobster Walk into a Bar,” “Down the road a piece” and “The Maine Dictionary.” Contact him at Mainestoryteller@yahoo.com.