Neil Armstrong R.I.P. How we watched the landing.

I was just out of the service. I still have the yellowed newspapers from that week. Ted Kennedy was lucky Chappaquiddick happened at that time, because the drowning was drowned out by the huge moon landing headlines.

I was 8 when Armstrong got out of the lander. We were in Colorado Springs on vacation. We watched on a block-and-white TV. The picture was bad, even by the standards back then, but it was from Luna so not exactly a shock.

I remember that my Dad kept waking me up to make sure I saw it. I wanted to see it too, but was so tired it was difficult staying awake. I remember my Dad telling me, “Someday you’ll thank me for keeping you up to watch this”. I was amazing to watch.

Many years later, a few months before my father passed away, I got the chance to thank him for 2 things. The first was letting me have my first dog and the second was keeping me up on that July night in a motel room far from home so that I could watch one of the biggest moments in mankind’s history.

Saw it on television and went to an interview in London the next day for Bendix Aerospace.

Took the job and moved to the US (Ann Arbor) and worked on the Apollo 17 Lunar Experiments.

Many years later, a few months before my father passed away, I got the chance to thank him for 2 things. The first was letting me have my first dog and the second was keeping me up on that July night in a motel room far from home so that I could watch one of the biggest moments in mankind’s history.

Aw, that's a nice story. The landing was remarkable indeed! (And how many dogs have you had since then?)

I was young — 5 years old, but I do remember it quite well. I was at home in NYC (Queens), and my parents, me, my little brother (he was 4), my Nana, Aunt Ree and the Italian neighbor family were all packed into our living room because we had a fancy-dancy 26in. COLOR TV console (a Zenith).

Since I was already kind of a geek, madly in love with Captain Kirk, I had no trouble staying awake. It was just like Christmas Eve!

We’d been to Mass earlier in the day, to pray for the safe journey of the astronauts and waited with baited breath while the LM decended to the surface.

Outside, the City was eerily quiet; there were few cars on the roads, and the normal sounds of a summer evening were absent except for the periodic screeching of the Number 7 subway El.

When the module landed, the room burst into cheers, only to go silent again to watch as Mankind took its first steps on another world. Oddly, there was no cheering then; it was almost like being back in church. Daddy cried — an EXTREMELY rare occurance.

We were so proud to be Americans that night, and so happy that the astronauts were safe. I went outside to see if I could see the “rocket,” using the little binoculars I got from the Mets’ “Binocular Day” earlier in the year. Yeah...sounds silly, but hey, I was only 5!

What a night that was. I doubt I’ll ever forget it.

I’m surprised at how hard I’m taking Neil Armstrong’s passing — it’s almost as if a part of my youth is gone now, too, along with the optimism our nation had on that day.

But there is hope! When I told my kids (16 and 14) of his death, they too felt a sense of loss, but in my eldest’s eyes I saw something I’d never seen before: a determination to DO SOMETHING that would be remembered as both Great and Good. I don’t know if he’ll ever pull it off, but I was glad to see the spark.

Regards,

I was in Idaho at the National Scout Jamboree. Most of the 40,000 of us got to watch the landing on TVs better than the one we had at home with better reception! Many of us knew each major equipment component and each portion of the mission in some detail.

We left for Idaho from Tulsa in three busses (three troops) and were gone a month. I worked to save the money to go and my parents pitched in and I know they had to sacrifice to help me go on the trip of a lifetime. The fee was something like $1,200 plus a lot of expensive Official Scout Clothing. There were no bake sales and no fund drives to get others to pay our way. That was just not done. We rode MKO busses and I sat on the bus steps by the driver for my first view of the Rockies rising from the Plains as we drove west from Lamar, Colorado.

Someone said the United States was at the apogee. Close, we boys had older friends leaving for vietnam, the ‘68 riots were just behind us but we were still the Unites States of America. Burl Ives led singing and Kate Smith still sang “God Bless America” (I think Martina McBride does an even better job of it though) and I tear up every time I hear or sometimes even think the words.

If it was not the apogee it was close and maybe more like a plateau that ran from the Second World War until about the First Gulf War. Both wars were just causes that formed book ends of the period. We were aware of the Cold War and of course Vietnam since the body count was paraded before us every evening. We knew that the Democrats controlled congress and there were political fights about this and that. There was racism but it was fading. Poverty was with us but people didn’t have to go hungry. There were drugs but I never was around them People had differences but didn’t try to force their views on others so much or try to find absolution for their wrongs by making others recognize and approve of their wrongs. We were still trying to live-and-let-live. We thought we were still ALL Americans and most of us were proud of it... we aren’t all Americans now.

We are a multi-cultural, politically-correct, effeminate mongrel mix of warring factions each with their own selfish agenda pulling us apart at the seams. Our principles are corrupted and our enemies have figured out how to use them against us to destroy our foundations from within. We have become so open minded and inclusive that our brains and our core values have fallen out and been destroyed. If ever the phrase, “you have to stand for something or you’ll fall” applies it does now. We stand for nothing because we allow everything.

It is a pleasant morning here in SE Texas. The birds are singing, humming birds are back and fueling up for their trip across the Gulf, squirrels are bugging me for peanuts and the deer are browsing out back. The bucks are bulking up and getting aggressive. A quiet Lord’s Day morning. I am ever hopeful but sadly not expectant of better days to come. In my mind’s eye I see a tent full of boys watching, amazed, not saying a word as Neil Armstrong set first foot on the Moon. I wonder where they all are now?

Best witty bit on the Internet:

“R.I.P. Lance Armstrong. He is now playing his trumpet in heaven.”

Neil Armstrong probably would have liked the gag.

...”now we wear bicycle helmets.”

Too many “bad trips”?