Do You Recall Apollo 11?
If you’re under 55 you probably have no memory of the event. You were put in your pajamas and off to bed long before Neil Armstrong took the giant leap. I barely remember the moment. My Family was at the house of a next door neighbor family. The Makarowski’s living room was packed with people. The younger children, and I was among them, were seated on the floor.
For a few glorious moments during the summer of 1969 we forgot our differences. We were awed.
It was a struggle to keep my eyes open. I was still a few months shy of my seventh birthday. A month before I was still in 1st grade. But we knew the moment we were about to see was the greatest of all human endeavors. Then Armstrong stepped off the ladder.
During my time in elementary school the space program was the one thing that proved to the children that we were living in the greatest nation. Ever! In many ways, when the Apollo program ended it signaled an end to the belief anything was possible.
For a few glorious moments during the summer of 1969 we forgot our differences. We were awed. We had evidence there is something greater than the next town, which until that point was about all I had seen beyond my small town. The one with brick streets, a three story building the tallest in the village and a hayfield behind the house I thought was the edge of the world.
If you can remember, where were you when a man walked on the moon?