I went to elementary School about 30 miles south of cape Canaveral in 1963. We would be marched out into the playground to watch launches. My dad worked for Radiation Inc., now called Harris Corp. building dishes for satellite communications. Of course back then a dish was about 80 feet across, or larger. He would let us know about launch times, and we would make sure we were looking towards the cape at that time. Night launches were the best. I was lucky to watch Mercury, Gemini and the Apollo launches. Apoolo 11 launched on my brothers birthday, and we always joked that he got the biggest birthday candle. Back then it seemed a satellite or test launch was happening almost every week. Good times. dad used to go fishing in front of patrick afb. We would go climbing on the missile exibits. I've actually crawled out onto the nose og the snark ( the red one). Back when kids could build, forts, climb trees and just have fun.
