I didn't know it at the time but I was a space junkie. On a hot Sunday afternoon in July 1969, my father determined it was a good day to take the family on a picnic. I was horrified. Was he living in a hole? Four days earlier Apollo 11 had set off for a rendezvous with the moon. This was no time to be out of contact with mission control!
Now, as we traveled further and further from home, I was convinced we were going to miss the biggest moment in space history as reception on the AM radio faded into static.
The entire afternoon I was glued to the car radio trying to tune in whatever bit of news I could find and as the Eagle touched down, we were 50 miles from home... and I was on my own personal dark side. I pleaded with the old man for a retro-rocket burn. Finally, as Armstrong and Aldrin made preparations for their historic journey, our trip home had just begun.
As we re-entered the AM zone, the two astronauts were going through their checklist and I was glued to the back of the front seat straining to hear.
We pulled into the driveway just about the time they were opening the door to the lunar lander. I raced into the house to warm up the Philco just in time to hear Armstrong describe stepping out onto the ladder to begin his decent. When he reached the final step he kind of hopped down and stumbled through his historic remarks.
I watched every Apollo lift off after that, including the ones early in the mornings. Toward the end of the Apollo missions, the TV wasn't even covering them anymore. I guess we had done what we had set out to accomplish and walking on the moon was closure for both our collective space goals and the fulfillment of Kennedy's dream.
For me, Armstrong became a hero, in a time when heroes were so rare.
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