Moon Landing

The other night at a fast food place, I told the young man who was taking my order that I would appreciate receiving the senior’s discount. Calmly, I said, “I’m so old I remember the moon landing when it happened live.” He, who was probably born right at the end of the 1990s, nervously grinned. (Was he thinking, “No way! No one is that old!” Which would be better than, “No way! People have never been to the moon! What planet are you from!”)

I remember it very clearly. It was on a Sunday night, and late. My father “made me” stay up and watch it happen on TV. Refused to let me go to bed, insisting that I plop down in front of grainy black and white transmissions from outer space. (How did they broadcast that, by the way?! Trying to wrap my head around that science still blows my mind.) I was leaving for church camp the next day, with at least an hour and a half drive ahead of me, and I wanted sleep. I don’t remember anything else about that day of July 20, 1969 in my eleven year-old life; I assume we went to church that morning, and probably had returned at night as well, and that I had spent a humidity-filled South Alabama summer afternoon playing baseball with my friends.

Then it happened! Neil Armstrong stepped off the Eagle landing module and on to the moon’s surface. Some probably guessed that at least a short, memorable speech was forthcoming, but I was too young and too inexperienced with big events in life to predict it. And I confess I don’t remember Armstrong’s famous words quietly entering our living room, “That’s one small step for man; one giant leap for mankind.” I hear the replay of those radio transmission exchanges now, and the words which get to me the most are actually the ones from Capsule Commander Charles Duke back in Houston when the Eagle touched down on the moon, “Tranquility [base], we copy you on the ground. You got a bunch of guys about to turn blue here. We’re breathing again. Thanks a lot!”

We live now in Huntsville, Alabama, one of the main NASA Space Centers in America. As you enter the city from the west, a reconstructed Saturn 5 rocket greets you. It is magnificent! Much of the planning and engineering of the Apollo space trips took place here. The city looks back with pride on its contribution to the greatest scientific achievement of humanity up to that point in history. In the events surrounding the moon landing and walk, folks remember that in Huntsville dancing broke out in the streets downtown when the moon walk was broadcast. Talk about a party! I can only imagine that folks were out of their minds with excitement and jubilation.

I’m glad my father insisted that I stay up and watch TV! (Kind of funny to write those words; don’t parents usually want their children to do the opposite: turn off the TV and go to bed?!) He was a history lover, and a former high school history teacher, and he knew this ‘first’ was so epic, I would never forget my personal experience of witnessing men crawling out of a space craft after a 240,000 mile journey and taking steps on the moon’s surface. (Rocks from that expedition were gathered and taken to schools for children to see them. I remember that clearly as well; the moon rocks looked like, well, rocks, but who had ever seen one of those before?)

As a post-script on this fiftieth anniversary of that once-in-a-lifetime event, I’m glad in an odd sort of way that one of my personal, quickly-recalled markers from the turbulent 1960s was not just about bad news. We had plenty of it. It seemed to keep coming. Yes, I remember where I was when I heard that JFK had been shot in Dallas. Ditto on MLK in Memphis. I remember when Bobby Kennedy was shot, and also George Wallace. I remember watching the Watts riots in LA on TV, and the daily report on Vietnam. And so on. (Lest depression mounts, I should temper all this with a lighter note, that I remember the first Super Bowl, and when World Series baseball games were only played in the daytime!) When I think of the 1960s, I’m glad that I think of the moon landing, fulfilling JFK’s pledge to put a man on the moon “by the end of the decade”. Unparalleled achievement.

One way the moon landing has impacted our family to this day is when one of us lands at an airport. One of us might text, “The Eagle” and the ones waiting for us text back, “has landed.” I’m glad that event is part of my personal history, and the history of our nation. And, in at least a small way, it’s a living event in our family history.

Thank you, Fast Food Guy, for giving me the senior discount. So glad I qualify for it, thankful that to be the age that I am, a veteran of black and white television transmissions from the moon!