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(A man steps on the Moon and the Earth gets smaller. . .) (To all the visionary Moms. . .) |
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Copyright © C.M. Pate 1999 All rights reserved. |
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(A man steps on the Moon and the Earth gets smaller. . .) (To all the visionary Moms. . .)
I was sitting in a tiny apartment in Long Beach, MS during one
of the loneliest periods of my life. I was just out of college,
in my first teaching position and a long way from home and friends.
I had rented some furniture and a TV and had just got it hooked
up as Walter Cronkite--in a choked, cracking voice--reaffirmed that "the Eagle has landed".
From that point on, I stayed in front of that set watching man
reach a goal that transcended all my petty problems. By the courage
and skill of the astronauts and all the people who had put them
there, somehow I wasn't alone any longer. As Neil Armstrong stepped
onto the powdery surface of the Moon, my phone started ringing.
One after another, friends and family started calling me. Some
I hadn't heard from in years. How they found me, I'll never know.
But they did. And the simple fact that they HAD gone to all that
trouble to share that moment with me touched me as deeply as I've
ever been touched.
Suddenly, I had to reach out to other people that meant something
to me so that we could all somehow be connected at this time.
I called a college roommate in Massachusetts, an uncle in St.
Louis, a high school buddy in Texas. We talked as we watched history
being made, storing up memories for my grandchildren and simply
being a part of it all.
Now I have those grandchildren and I have passed on to them my
memories of a time when man "slipped the surly bonds of Earth
and touched the face of God". A time when Americans everywhere
were all a part of a moment in time that can never be duplicated
but surely relived and cherished.
-Nolan Bond
(Dare to dream. . . )
I am 45 years old. I have seen the most powerful images on television
that any generation has ever seen. The Kennedy assassination,
the killing of Lee Harvey Oswald, the assassination of Bobby Kennedy
and Martin Luther King, the civil rights movement, the Vietnam
War, the unfolding of Watergate and . . . the first landing on
the Moon.
I was at a summer camp in the Catskill mountains. There was one
television set in a staff workers room. We were friends, and I
had to see this event, so I broke all the rules and got into her
room to see, "one giant step for mankind."
All of the events I have ever watched on television are measured
by this single event in my life. The tragedy of lost lives, lost
hopes, and broken promises that came before and after the televised
landing on the Moon are held in check by the incredible experience
of actually reaching the Moon, and stepping down to its surface.
America did it . . . in spite of the failures, the lunacy of the
times, the questioning of all authority, the riots, and the race
wars.
It lit a spark inside my 18 year old imagination. Dare to dream!
Don't get sucked into the lie that we can't do it, can't recover
from our mistakes, can't risk failure. Learn all you can about
everything you can. Experience everything you can because no experience
is wasted.
The image on the screen was fuzzy but I didn't care. I knew I
had seen something that would change my life forever. I could
say that I saw it happen!
Now in 1996, I work as a television producer. I help to shape
the images of the world that my children see. They cannot appreciate
the importance of Dan Rather's concept..."the camera never blinks",
because they have seen it all for all their lives. But I saw the
sweeping changes in how we perceive reality through television
. . . from the early sitcoms with perfect families living perfect
lives while using products that could do everything to make your
life better . . . to the reality of real life with its death,
tragedy, courage, victory and realization of dreams coming true.
I saw the first man to step on the face of the Moon!
- Alan Fleming
(A "giant step indeed". . . )
The Moon walk was my walk on that night. I was standing in front
of a large window, staring at the large Moon, listening to the
broadcasts coming from the other room and trying to rock a ten-month-old
infant to sleep. She had a fever, a flu and I had a life-threatening,
black dog postpartum depression that had kept me house bound for
eight months. The thought of venturing outside, past that threshold,
into the world of speeding cars and checkout lines was enough
to incite a panic that took on a life of its own, for hours, as
it robbed me of mine. There was no husband who had stuck around,
no job left to go back to, and no best friend to call since I
couldn't afford a long distance call. Just Buzz Aldrin. The longer
I swayed back and forth with that child and stared at the Moon,
the more deeply and dramatically came the realization that one
of my kind was walking on that mysterious, cold surface. What
a leap of faith. Giant step indeed. I walked out the front door
the next day. Thank you, Buzz.
- Author Unknown
(A teenager grows up . . . )
On July 20, 1969 I was in Hayden Lake Idaho with my sister. Our
parents had left us off with some friends while they took a weeks
vacation in Las Vegas. My sister and I hated everything about
Hayden Lake. It was small, and there wasn't much to do and these
people our parents left us with made us do all their dishes and
drank beer in bed. Not only that, being 14 years old, my complexion
was beginning to look like the lunar surface itself and I was
beginning to think I'd never attract a male as long as I lived.
I remember that everyone was talking about how the Apollo spacecraft
was close to landing on the Moon and it didn't mean that much
to me in light of all my adolescent worries, so instead of staying
at my parents' friends house to view the landing, my sister and
I took a walk around the lake. We were about half a mile down
the road when a man came out of one of the lake resort taverns
and shouted at us. "Hey, you two can't miss this, don't you know
that after today nothing will ever be the same?" My sister and
I politely smiled and tried to walk around him but he gently grabbed
our arms and escorted us inside the tavern.
Once inside, we were confronted by the presence of a lot of people,
young and old, just normal looking family types, sitting around
looking up at the TV mounted on the wall. We watched with them
as Apollo 11 landed on the surface of the Moon and the first astronaut
set foot on the Moon's surface. There were a lot of wows and head
shaking and one lady was even crying. I don't think I even had
an inkling of the awesomeness of the event until I saw how it
affected all those people and realized that this indeed was a
moment in history. All my adolescent angst seemed to dissipate
in the sacred few minutes we sat watching history being made.
Suddenly I was very grateful to the man who pulled us in to watch
the lunar landing, because if it hadn't have been for his insistence
we might have missed it.
After the event was over, the man who pulled us in, (who was also
the tavern owner), opened some bottles of wine and gave everyone
in the room a glass, including my sister and I. We felt so grown-up
and everyone we talked to was nice and told us stories about the
things they'd seen in their lives and how walking on the Moon
topped everything. It was sort of like being at a family reunion.
It was the best thing that happened to us during that entire week,
and after two small glasses of pink wine, we left giggling all
the way back to the house. When we arrived my parents' friends
told us all about the lunar landing and the walk on the Moon like
they were sure we'd missed it. My sister and I just giggled. I'm
sure they wondered about us because we never told them where we'd
really been.
- Author Unknown
(A boy with a passion . . .)
July 20, 1969 I was 5 years old. We lived in Aruba, N.A. My dad
worked at the oil refinery on the north shore of the island. I
remember the night Apollo 11 launched. We watched it on a giant
black and white TV in the living room. Afterwards, I ran outside
with my dad, convinced I would see the trail of fire in the night
sky. He brought out the binoculars and we looked at the Moon for
a long time. I remember him putting me up on his shoulders because
I asked him to get me closer to the Moon so I could see better.
I remember my dad telling me the Moon was so far away it would
take three days for them to get there. The night the Eagle landed
we were glued to that big TV set. I remember my grandmother and
I praying they would be safe. We cheered at the top of our lungs
when Neil stepped out onto the Moon for the first time.
After that, every time there was a launch I was outside at night
looking for the pillar of fire. I kept maps of the Moon from National
Geographic on my bedroom wall. I drank Tang at every meal. That
Christmas my uncle Bobby bought me a Saturn V model rocket, and
my mom got me a "real" astronaut helmet which I wore constantly.
All I wanted was to be an astronaut when I grew up. I cried so
hard when I found out NASA had to cancel the remainder of the
Lunar landings . . . now I would never get to go.
Those nights affected my whole life. When I was 14, I painted
my entire room black and hand painted stars on the walls and ceiling.
(Thanks Mom! ) I am still an avid science fiction reader. I carry
a meteorite as a lucky charm and my prize possession is a pair
of Flight Commander Wings with the NASA symbol on the shield.
I follow the space program closely to this day. My home page has
a link to www.nasa.gov. One of the best books I've ever read about
the Apollo missions is "A Man on the Moon" by Andrew Chaikin.
When the movie "Apollo 13" came out, I was overwhelmed by the
emotional impact of all the memories that it brought back. I cried
and I cheered and I remembered it all. I always will. And someday
I will get to go . . .
- Author Unknown
(Her mother's story . . .)
My mother, Mary Caswell Walsh, was twenty when the first men landed
on the Moon. She lived with her parents and four brothers in a
large farm in Sebastopol. Sebastopol was a small town in California
which was full of orange poppies and swaying grass. There were
orchards and vineyards, a town which seemed to be frozen in an
earlier century.
Many families, like the Caswells, did not own a television. There
were only a few houses with televisions, and these houses were
very crowded on the night of July 20, 1969. My mother had gone
over to her grandmothers, after a day of teaching English at the
local school. Soon the rest of her family came. They prepared
to watch the first lunar landing.
My great-grandmother's house was a merry scene that night. The
smells of her concoctions cooking on the stove drifted into the
living room where the family sat. The air outside was still and
quiet, as if it too felt the anticipation of the coming events.
As my mother watched Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin climb down
from the LEM, she felt determined to learn more about the technology
that had brought those men to the Moon. The technology from which
her small town seemed disconnected. Viewing the lunar landing
awakened in my mother the excitement and love of stars which grows
in everybody.
She passed this on to me, and encouraged me in all ways possible
to learn about what I love best: space. That is why I now want
to be an astronaut.
What events would have been changed if she had not watched that
lunar landing so long ago? She could not tell me. All she could
say was that it was one of the most thrilling experiences of her
life, and she will never forget it.
- Author Unknown
(A little girl is launched . . .)
I remember very vividly being six years old, watching black and
white television, transfixed with my parents to the screen. We,
and the world were watching.
Apollo 11 was everywhere, newspapers, radio, TV, on the neighbors
lips, news floating throughout the air. Literally!!
But what I remembered that has burned in my memory is a very special
pride that I felt later that summer. My father was a research
scientist and my mother a doctor, and they took me to Cape Canaveral,
Cape Kennedy Space Center, in Florida, and we toured the facility.
I remember the area where they showed us mission control. I remember
the feeling of the enormity of the hangar. How could any building
be so big! I remember the gigantic computers. And then, there
was the solid concrete building facility that they brought us
to, outside the hangar, outside the main building. This thick
gray solid building, with blue-gray stairs, all concrete and metal,
that they took us into and upstairs, was the building that contained
the systems that initiated the Apollo 11 launch. There were about
15 people in our tour group. The computer systems were roped off,
so we could look but not touch. I was fascinated. In tremendous
reverence, the tour guide explained what we were looking at. Then
he motioned to me, and asked me to come forward. I was wearing
a red, white and blue hot pants outfit that was very patriotic.
He was impressed with my young patriotism and interest and he
asked me to press the red button which had been the key that initiated
the Apollo 11 launch!! Never had I dreamed I would see or touch
something so significant. A connection with space, with flight,
with dreams. A simple touch of a key can turn dreams into reality.
I was so proud! A little Asian girl with a china doll haircut
who's only colors she could see were red, white, and blue--to
be able to touch, I thought, a link from the Earth to space.
That fueled my passion for computers, technology, and aerospace.
Now, I am an aerospace structural engineer!
- Author Unknown
(She made a decision then . . .)
I was 20 years old, a self described "hippie", your basic college
dropout, trying to decide what I was going to do with my life
at the time man was about to step on the Moon. As a woman, I wondered
why there weren't any "female" astronauts at the time. The love
of my life had just been drafted but, fortunately, at the height
of the Vietnam War which was raging at that time, he was sent
to Anchorage, Alaska for 18 months! It might as well have been
Nam or Siberia or whatever; Anchorage was an awful long way from
Winnetka Illinois where I was spending my summer as a "Summer
Girl" with a family with four little girls who were my charges.
On the night Buzz stepped out onto the Moon we were all up in
the middle of the night watching the event on television and we
were all in awe! I remember walking outside and looking up at
the sky and marveling that the United States was represented in
person up there! I think, after watching all the reports on TV
that it put a bug in my head that led me to the broadcasting field.
Right after that event I signed up for a course in radio broadcasting
at a small Chicago school and that led to a career in radio that
has lasted over 25 years!
Now I'm the one reporting on the space program over radio stations
in Southern California where I'm an anchor and reporter for Shadow
Broadcast Services. Last year while on a trip to Florida I toured
the space center and once again felt the pride in our nation's
space program. At our broadcast facility in Los Angeles, we always
tune into CNN in our operations center whenever there is another
shuttle liftoff and it never fails to thrill us, as we are all
"fans" of the space program and anything to do with flight for
that matter. The closest I'll get to stepping on the Moon is a
commercial airline flight or one of the many helicopter flights
I'm on when I'm covering a fire or other disaster, but it is fun
to follow the space program through all the films and television
reports we get to see in this great age we live in.
-Nancy Plum, Radio and Television Announcer
In 1969 Deer Park, Texas was a small town. The country still existed
with cattle and rodeo grounds. The Plants were moving in but they
had not taken over the beautiful land out by The Battle Ship of
Texas and the San Jacinto Monument.
Life was simple back then. The ideal date was driving down Center
Street at night and meeting people at Pizza Inn. The summer of
'69 was a hot Texas summer. My mom had us stay at home and watch
the updates on the astronauts.
Ever since I can remember she would have us watch anything that
had to do with NASA. She said they were the future of America.
So we must have watched Kennedy give his speech a million times.
From that day on any space adventure was tuned into at our home.
Mom rushed home from work and we all watched in our living room.
All 5 brothers and I had a pillow on the floor watching the historical
event, while my parents were sitting next to each other, mom with
her rosary praying for the astronauts. When they landed we couldn't
believe we were seeing the real Moon. It was not "Lost in Space!"
We had real American's there. I remember how proud it made me
to be an American, and a Texan! Our whole family was cheering
and my mom lit a candle for the astronauts as a sign of Thanksgiving.
Dad got out the champagne for him and mom and took a drink for
the boys in space. We had Kool-Aid. Oh well.
I remember my mom and I stayed up all night and watched the landing
over and over and over again. We talked about President Kennedy
and how happy he was in heaven smiling down on the boys. We said
a prayer for his kids because I was always sad that they didn't
have a daddy. It was a time for the family to be together and
share a spectacular moment in history, as a family. Today as a
mom it warms my heart to share this event with my children. How
smart my mom was to make it a family time. I will always believe
watching the news and growing up near NASA played some role in
me being a visionary today. . .to have seen the impossible happen
as a child, and now to be a pioneer in education. To see the impossible
and make dreams become a reality is my battle cry. Thank you Buzz
and your crew. All of you touched lives in ways you can not ever
imagine. I know because you touched mine.
- Diann Boehm
On July 20, 1969, I was 100 years in the past portraying a young
woman of Wichita, Kansas at our historical Old Cowtown Museum.
As a member of the Wichita Area Girl Scout Council, the Girl Scouts
have been providing the "population" of the historic town each
summer for the past 49 years. We wear costumes authentic to the
time and place, we take on a personage of someone who would have
lived in Wichita at that time and complete the daily tasks young
women performed.
I remember I had just walked into the Delmonico's Restaurant for
my break thinking how odd I felt to be representing 1869 and seeing
an almost futuristic event on the TV in 1969 of man walking on
the Moon.
It reminded me of the hardships, courage, dedication and quest
for adventure the American pioneers had to venture into the unknown.
Much like the pioneers of the era I was representing that day---many
had ventured out of the known "world" into another---the desert
of the plains---to begin a new life, a new era for mankind. "One
small step" helped people to set forth on the Oregon or Santa
Fe Trails. Neil Armstrong placed a similar "step", of adventure
and awakening of the frontier spirit we Americans are so fond
of calling our own, on a distant Moon a mere 100 year later. Some
say the Moon is a desert, yielding nothing but the sun's reflection.
I believe it has become a symbol of adventure to the human spirit.
That day, no . . . that moment, will forever be remembered by
me.
- Author Unknown
I was eight when Apollo 11 landed on the Moon. I have only vague
memories of Tinker Toy machines, Lincoln log houses, and train
sets, but I remember the Moon landing very clearly. I watched
little TV: Batman was too violent (at least my Mom thought so
and wouldn't let me watch it), I did not understand the body counts
on the news, and I had not yet discovered Star Trek. However,
Mom and Dad let me stay up well past bedtime to watch the Moon
landing. We all crowded the front porch in near darkness, expectantly
watching the TV. For ages, the picture showed only a still life
of the outside of the lander as the astronauts inside prepared
to exit. Again and again, I would look up at the Moon then back
to the TV. Finally, the astronaut came out, climbed down the ladder,
and stepped on the Moon. I kept on wondering, if he is right there,
who is taking the picture?
I never realized how deeply the Moon landing affected me until
years later in college. After several false starts, I finally
decided to study engineering, but what kind of engineering? The
image of Neil Armstrong on the Moon flashed in my mind. Of course!
I'll study aerospace engineering! I've never deviated from my
chosen path. After graduating, I worked for NASA on the Space
Shuttle then the Space Station. (Years later, I finally figured
out that they used a remote controlled camera to film themselves.)
On the twentieth anniversary of the Moon landing, a disc jockey
in a shopping mall asked a crowd of teenagers, "What happened
on July 20, 1969?" The DJ laughed as the teenagers spewed forth
a stream of strange and often bizarre answers. I turned, pushed
through the crowd, and said "That's when we landed on the Moon."
The DJ's smile faded and the crowd went silent. "How did he know
that?" one whispered. "I work for NASA," I replied. As a prize,
the DJ gave me a foam "Moon rock" that I still keep on my desk.
- Kevin Schaefer, Aerospace Engineer
Lake George, N.Y. July 1969. My rock & roll band, which went under
the unfortunate name Mocha Chip, was on the road in upstate New
York, playing at roadhouses and resort town bars. At the time
of the Moon landing, we were engaged at a joint called the Airport
Inn, which had an actual airplane hanging from the ceiling as
decoration.
On July 21 it happened that a meeting was scheduled with the owner
of the club, to discuss possible future bookings. We met in the
afternoon and the club owner spent the whole meeting complaining
about the Moon landing, how everyone had been home watching it
on TV and therefore not spending money at his bar. His comment,
now that the historic event was over, was "Thank God it's back
to business-as-usual."
I remember being struck speechless by this viewpoint, and marveling
at how the concerns of a human being can be reduced to such petty,
self-interest. This short statement came to be a large influence
on my personal politics and philosophy, and as you might imagine,
I did not turn out to be one of those Baby Boomers who becomes
giddy over the upward surges of the Dow Industrial Average.
- Jeff Costello, Musician
I was 9 years old when Apollo 11 landed on the Moon. I remember
it vividly. I recall writing in a diary the time Neil stepped
out from the LEM, which foot he planted first on the Moon, and
Walter Cronkite nearly speechless on TV. The event made such an
impression that I, like many others my age, wanted to become an
astronaut when I grew up. But, I also wanted to be a surgeon.
I remained focused on the latter goal and now practice as a neurosurgeon
in Northern Virginia. The dream of space flight remained with
me though; I even wrote to other astronaut/physicians to see how
they managed to do it. Unfortunately, many have given up their
medical careers for space flight, something I was not willing
to do.
We should realize how much medicine benefited from the space program
of the 60's and 70's. Many of the instruments and metals, implants
and polymers we use in modern surgery today were developed in
the Apollo program. The computers and telemetry machines used
during the mission were the precursors to what you see in the
intensive care units of today's hospitals. We owe it to ourselves
to renew the spirit of the Apollo program by supporting more lofty
goals of future manned space flight. In that way, other 9 year
olds will be stimulated to pursue scientific careers that will
be of benefit FOR ALL MANKIND.
- James W. Melisi, MD, FACS
The landing of Apollo 11 in the Sea of Tranquility is my first
memory in life. I was born on February 10, 1967, so I was only
about two and a half years old. My parents had a little, orange,
love seat. I was sitting on the love seat while they got ready
for church (I assume for evening services), and I watched the
landing coverage on a black and white, portable television set.
It was a defining moment of my life. I told my parents I wanted
to be a spaceman, and it was no passing fancy of a child. I spent
my childhood learning about flight, and building and flying model
rockets and model airplanes.
When I was twenty-three I was accepted to Naval Air Officer Candidate
School in Pensacola, Florida to become a naval aviator. I thought
I was on my way. Two weeks later Congress cancelled the funding
for the flight program under which I was accepted. For a number
of years it became nearly impossible to become a new military
pilot, so I was never able to.
At that point my life changed, and I am quite happy with it, but
that is just how impressed I was with the landing. As it happens,
I am very active in high power rocketry (which is the adult version
of the model rocketry that fascinated me as a boy), and I work
at NASA. I am not an astronaut, but I am glad to be on the team.
I currently teach computer courses at a small college in the Silicon
Valley, and I am a network administrator at the NASA Ames Research
Center. Several of my friends and I are eagerly watching the X
Prize competition for civilian space flight with the hopes that
we will someday be able to personally travel in space as tourists
. . . and who knows, maybe we will get to walk on the Moon ourselves
after all.
- Daniel S. E. Cascaddan, Instructor, NASA Ames Research Center
At the age of 6 (1960) I first uttered the words "I want to be
an astronaut." I figured maybe I should learn to fly first. Almost
all the astronauts were military, so that seemed the direction
to go. It was later obvious, to even a 10 year old, that I was
too late for the Moon and the space station program that would
surely follow, but I'd be there for Mars! Well, politics threw
a wet rag over the space program and I ultimately went on to other
things, but the inspiration was not wasted.
Those first astronauts are the only real heroes the second half
of this century brings to mind. They set standards for courage,
intellect and professionalism that may never be achieved again
in our life time. Yes, I actually received a degree in Aerospace
Engineering and went on to become a Navy Pilot. Now I captain
a Boeing 727 airliner. How many of these and other personal achievements
of mine and countless other Americans wouldn't have been made
if not for the heroes, the accomplishments, and the wonders of
our Mercury, Gemini and Apollo programs?
On the evening of July 20, 1969, while sitting with most of my
family in the "rec room" of our semi-suburban New York home, we
waited. My family and I (now age 15) watched in amazement as Neil
Armstrong stepped off the Lunar Module and onto the Moon's surface.
We . . . had . . . actually . . . done. . . it. That single moment
brought into stark focus the unbelievable improbability of overcoming
all those oceans of obstacles. In awe, I opened the bottle of
champagne I had ferreted away from my cousin's wedding years before
(just for this occasion); toasted my family and quietly took another
step toward my future. But I had changed . . . just a little.
- James Moscardini, Pilot
Copyright © C.M. Pate 1999 All rights reserved.