There are certain events in one’s life where we remember exactly where we were and what we were doing. JFKs assassination, 9-11, the Challenger explosion, and of course the first Moon landing and subsequent first step taken by Neil Armstrong. In my case I had recently graduated from High School, and was getting ready to go off to college, glad that I wasn’t going in to the Army, and subsequently getting sent off to fight in Vietnam.
My parents, my father’s brother Ed, and I were at my parent’s house in NY watching the fuzzy images as they were broadcast. I had never experienced anything up to that point that made me more proud to be both an American and a member of the human race. I fully expected that we would soon have bases on the Moon, then Mars, and would continue to explore the solar system and beyond. Needless to say I was wrong.
Rest in Peace Neil. You will be remembered by millions of people who witnessed what you, Buzz Aldrin and Michael Collins did.
Oh! I have slipped the surly bonds of earth,
And danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings;
Sunward I’ve climbed, and joined the tumbling mirth
Of sun-split clouds, –and done a hundred things
You have not dreamed of –Wheeled and soared and swung
High in the sunlit silence. Hov’ring there
I’ve chased the shouting wind along, and flung
My eager craft through footless halls of air…
Up, up the long, delirious, burning blue
I’ve topped the wind-swept heights with easy grace
Where never lark or even eagle flew —
And, while with silent lifting mind I’ve trod
The high untrespassed sanctity of space,
Put out my hand, and touched the face of God.
John Gillespie Magee, Jr