Posted on 07/20/2019 7:06:19 AM PDT by Skooz
My dad was USAF, stationed at Minot AFB, ND.
I was a 9 year-old space nerd. Most of my friends were also space nerds and we followed the Apollo program closely.
During the summer, the housing area was crawling with kids all day until the sun set about 10:00 pm. Every house had at least one kid, and most had 2 or 4. The winters were harsh, so we took full advantage of the summers and stayed outside as much as possible. GREAT place to grow up. The best.
The evening of July 20, 1969, I was playing with some friends and one by one they headed home to watch the moon walk. I walked home and sat on my dad's Ford Falcon, head down and listening to the news cast on a transistor radio my grandma had given me.
After 30 minutes or so I looked up and was amazed. The neighborhood that a few minutes before had been overflowing with people -- kids playing, moms gathered in groups chatting, dads washing cars--- was a ghost town. Empty. Not a soul. Not even a cat. Nothing. It was still and void. I had never seen it like that. I felt like the last person on earth.
That was when I went inside and sat down in front of the TV with my family. And like everyone else, watched Aldrin and Armstrong walk on the moon.
Perhaps that was a portent of things to come.
Now it’s fifty years later, Muslims and communists dominate the House of Representatives, and the Rocky and Bullwinkle Show is still canceled.
University of Iowa Student Union.
My dad was alumni and took my brother and I in just moments before the first step on the moon.
Sebastopol is a cute town in a beautiful area. I’m sure it was nice fifty years ago.
Was working at a bank before my senior year in high school. My 100 year old grandmother was staying with us. It was such a historic moment. This little tiny woman went from riding horses to seeing a man walk on the moon.
We launched from a marina close to London Bridge. My friend, who owned the ski boat, had a house just up the hill from there.
Fort Ord California, Marina
Us Army - Advanced Individual Training
I learned this morning on FoxNews just how much time has passed since Mary Jo suffocated in the Kennedy death car:
For the first time ever, I heard her name pronounced “KopeCHne” like `check’, instead of decades of “KopeCKne”.
New generation.
Philo T. Farnsworth , the inventor of electronic TV, watched it with his wife. Bitter at RCA having stolen most of the profits from his invention never the less realizing people were watching this event live from moon because of his invention said to his wife: I guess that makes it worthwhile after all .
My family watched the event at our summer home on Lake Beulah in East Troy , Wisconsin. We were about 40 miles from the TV stations antenna yet in the analog TV days it was no problem.
Back in the days of the white rocket and not having your every single movement in flight monitored. Low levels must have been a real blast to fly.
I was a toddler running around my parent;s trailer off of PK avenue between Auburndale and Winter Haven Florida. Too young to know, or be aware, or care. I didn’t get the space bug until 1972 with the Apollo 16 mission.
I was living in Lemont, Pennsylvania. I suppose my parents got us up, but I was sitting on the floor of their bedroom watching their small (15”?) b&w TV. I was enthralled, and after that I wanted to be an astronaut. When I was older I realized my short height and poor vision would keep that from happening. Very disappointing.
Vivid, profound and concise.
Funny how good things can happen for some of us isn’t it?
Nice essay!
My dad worked on the Saturn V project in Huntsville and was understandably proud to witness the launch and the subsequent moon landing. As with your family, mine was huddled around the boob tube, breathing in every moment.
What a great time to be alive!
5 years old, and only barely recall watching on B/W TV . I know it was close to 11pm
Sadly, were was Ted Kennedy ?
Where was Charles Manson & family?
11 days old.
I was the only one in the family to stay up to watch it.
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