Back When Neil Armstrong Walked on the Moon

Dad will tell you that man walked on the moon before the road he lived on for the past 54 years was paved. I’m not sure why Dad uses mankind’s milestone instead of saying the road wasn’t paved until 1973. Something always fascinated him about historical achievements whether it was George Washington dragging cannons through the snow from Ft Ticonderoga or the Race to the Moon. 

Back in those days when the United States entered the race my parents had an eight party line because it was cheaper than a private line. The phone was a basic issue rotary dial, jet black in color and hung on the kitchen wall.  That was technology.  Whenever we made the rare but necessary long distance phone call to Sears in Albany or grandparents in New Jersey the operator asked for our number before putting the call through. That was so the call could be properly billed. Back in those days no one would lie about what number they were calling from. But that didn’t prevent my brother or me from softly picking up the receiver to catch a conversation about someone’s constipation or pregnancy.  

It was also a time when only universities and the government had computers that ate punch cards and spit out data in equally complex code. The men who operated such equipment had buzz cuts, Buddy Holly glasses, wore starched white cotton shirts with short sleeves and pencil thin neck ties.

On the evening of July 20, 1969 when Neil Armstrong took that first step on the surface of the moon rabbits grazed in the narrow path of grass that grew down the center of the road. Mom, never one to be impressed with modern marvels, had gone to bed. So too had the rest of the family leaving Dad and me in the flickering blue-hued light of the consoled television set.  We waited for what seemed to take forever.

 I grew up watching the space program assembled in the school cafeteria at Dorothy E Nolan. The teachers always wrangled the six grades together to watch the return of our astronauts, our heroes.  I learned any thing that had to do with space took time.  A decade to get to the moon and a boringly long amount of time to pluck returned space craft from the ocean. Nevertheless, we sat glued to the black and white TV screen listening to Jules Bergman and Walter Kronkite explain something in nautical miles. There was just something that captured our imaginations back then. The wonder of who we were back when things were amazing.

I was fifteen years old that night. As a teen I don’t remember doing too many things with my Dad. Watching Neil Armstrong step to the surface of the moon was one event I never forgot. I don’t remember if I stepped outside that night to stare up at the moon. It would have been a waxing gibbous just as it was the night Neil Armstrong died.

Truly, may a hero rest in peace for he was one of twelve who saw His glory from the surface of the moon.