So there are a few historical signposts in history for every generation where you remember where you where when you heard the news. The biggies for my father's generation there was the bombng of Pearl Harbor and V-J Day. For my grandparents it was all defined by a larger event, The Great Depression. My generation remembers where they were when Kennedy was shot, The Beatles on Ed Sullivan and watching Neil Armstrong set foot on the moon.
When JFK announced the space program it was thrilling to a boy of seven years old. When John Glenn orbited the Earth, I was transfixed. I didn't miss one launch from Cape Canaveral (nee Kennedy). Walter Cronkite kept me posted. I read all about the astronauts, did book reports on them. I was transfixed by every thing about them as was everyone I knew. We'd get in the little yellow and red tepee in the backyard having ditched our Indian headdresses for empty cardboard ice cream buckets we'd scavenged from Baskin-Robbins and spray painted silver to use as helmets.
I was 12 years old and a child of the 60s when Apollo 11 set off for the moon. We had been dropped off at Green Oak Ranch Boys Camp in Vista, California for another summer time week of archery, horseback riding, making lanyards, studying nature and tormenting our camp counselors. But the first thing we did was run to the mess hall to watch television as Neil Armstrong took those historic steps. Of course, at the time we would never doubt the validity of anything we'd seen on TV.
Why just a couple of years earlier I was appalled when I was at the West Hollywood Sheriff's station where my father was Captain and I saw them bring in some "hippie protesters". One of the more vociferous among the young placard carrying, colorfully clothed "trouble-makers" was Bob Denver from Gilligan's Island. I was very upset that they had arrested him since I didn't even know he'd finally made it off the island. But I digress...
But the moon landing fueled our imaginations. It made us see the Earth from space for the first time and something in me felt a little scared. Finally, for the first time in my young life was I aware of the fragile nature of existence as I knew it. I was beginning to think of bigger questions than who had to pretend to be astronaut Michael Collins and stay in the tepee when we played Moon Landing in the backyard.
Here's the NYTimes Obit of Neil Armstrong
Below is a 51 minute special report on the APOLLO 11 moon landing from YouTube:
photo of Neil Armstrong: NASA. Original photo of moon over the mtns. from Rt. 38 outside of Redlands, CA (c)2011 Brad Riesau
When JFK announced the space program it was thrilling to a boy of seven years old. When John Glenn orbited the Earth, I was transfixed. I didn't miss one launch from Cape Canaveral (nee Kennedy). Walter Cronkite kept me posted. I read all about the astronauts, did book reports on them. I was transfixed by every thing about them as was everyone I knew. We'd get in the little yellow and red tepee in the backyard having ditched our Indian headdresses for empty cardboard ice cream buckets we'd scavenged from Baskin-Robbins and spray painted silver to use as helmets.I was 12 years old and a child of the 60s when Apollo 11 set off for the moon. We had been dropped off at Green Oak Ranch Boys Camp in Vista, California for another summer time week of archery, horseback riding, making lanyards, studying nature and tormenting our camp counselors. But the first thing we did was run to the mess hall to watch television as Neil Armstrong took those historic steps. Of course, at the time we would never doubt the validity of anything we'd seen on TV.
Why just a couple of years earlier I was appalled when I was at the West Hollywood Sheriff's station where my father was Captain and I saw them bring in some "hippie protesters". One of the more vociferous among the young placard carrying, colorfully clothed "trouble-makers" was Bob Denver from Gilligan's Island. I was very upset that they had arrested him since I didn't even know he'd finally made it off the island. But I digress...
But the moon landing fueled our imaginations. It made us see the Earth from space for the first time and something in me felt a little scared. Finally, for the first time in my young life was I aware of the fragile nature of existence as I knew it. I was beginning to think of bigger questions than who had to pretend to be astronaut Michael Collins and stay in the tepee when we played Moon Landing in the backyard.
Here's the NYTimes Obit of Neil Armstrong
Below is a 51 minute special report on the APOLLO 11 moon landing from YouTube:
And as is always of interest to note, there are always other theories...here is a smattering of them from gawker.com.
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