Where Were You On July 20, 1969?
Peter Robinson ·
August 25, 2012 at 11:04pm
Ricochet member Fred Cole posted such a good suggestion under "Neil Armstrong, RIP," below, that I thought I'd repost it right here.
Fred Cole
I think this would be an appropriate place for everyone (who remembers it) to mention where they were when humans first walked on the Moon.
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Comments:
May '10
Re: Where Were You On July 20, 1969?
at my home in Wisconsin. Just got home from a swim meet and watched it in my living room with big picture windows all around, thinking someday, when I was grown, I would vacation up there.
yea...right. Now NASA exists for muslim outreach.
Aug '12
Re: Where Were You On July 20, 1969?
At home. Glued to the television.
Re: Where Were You On July 20, 1969?
I'd just returned to our home in Vestal, New York after a week at Boy Scout camp. (I'd earnrf a merit badge by swimming a mile around the lake, partly by holding on to the rowboat in front of me when the troop master on the dock wasn't looking.) My dad commanded me to join him and my mother in front of the television. It was one of those moments that meant more to the grownups than to me, and as we watched I kept glancing at the face of my father, who was rapt and moved.
Edited on August 25, 2012 at 11:19pmJan '11
Re: Where Were You On July 20, 1969?
I can start this. I was at the 1969 national jamboree outside of Spokane Washington with 50,000 other Boy Scouts watching on a battery powered TV one of the troop brought just to watch the first moon landing.in real time. That night we saw a big screen replay in the amphitheater that held all 50,000 of us. Even in that remote location it felt lkike I was joined with Armstrong in what may someday be considered the greatest event in human history.
Edited on August 25, 2012 at 11:22pmJul '10
Re: Where Were You On July 20, 1969?
The family bought our first color TV for the occasion, and then all the Moon shots were black and white. It didn't matter. The absurdly impossible was made real, and it was my country that did it. The adults did not even try to enforce bed time, they were watching the whole way, too. There is no resemblance between the NASA of 1969, which had to accomplish what had never been accomplished with the whole country watching, and the NASA of 2012, which has no manned space program to speak of, just astronauts.
You should get Buzz Aldrin to post. I bet he would.
Re: Where Were You On July 20, 1969?
I was busy being 6.
Jul '12
Re: Where Were You On July 20, 1969?
A twinkle in my Father's eye.
Mar '11
Re: Where Were You On July 20, 1969?
In front of the TV in my grandmother’s house near Houston. The moon landing was my first experience of the epistemological problem of authorities in conflict: my grandmother made rather dismissive comments about “those men jumping up and down on the moon,” whereas my teacher at Lutheran kindergarten said that “there were four astronauts on that mission,” God being the fourth.
Jul '11
Re: Where Were You On July 20, 1969?
I was 3 in San Diego. My dad was in a mash unit. My mom says we watched it.
Nov '10
Re: Where Were You On July 20, 1969?
I wasn't even that far along. My parents were barely old enough to even have twinkles at that point (12 and 14.)
May '11
Re: Where Were You On July 20, 1969?
Still gestating at the time. I had to catch the video later...
Jun '10
Re: Where Were You On July 20, 1969?
It was the summer after my high school graduation. I was home for the weekend from a construction job near Durango, CO. I watched it with my parents. I was so proud to be an American.
Armstrong was the definition of a real man.
Mar '11
Re: Where Were You On July 20, 1969?
I was only nine, but I read every word in the newspapers and TIME, LIFE, and Newsweek about the mission. I knew the exact time of the landing, but stayed playing in the basement of a friends house, just assuming that all would go well, because (a jaded nine-year-old!) I knew that there would be no video until the EVA.
Hours later, I had to sit on a hard-backed chair from the dining room- all the other members of the family had grabbed the good seats. We all watched the small step via NBC on our black-and-white Zenith.
My, that's a lot of detail from 43 years ago. Dang- it was clearly an important moment.
May '10
Re: Where Were You On July 20, 1969?
I woke up at about 4am ET without an alarm clock at age 6 to watch. Just amazing and still is. And it's sad how little fame requires these days when compared to those who truly deserve it. How many people under age 30 or even 40 knew the name of this man. Did most people? I doubt it.
Feb '11
Re: Where Were You On July 20, 1969?
I remember the flight the Christmas before much more than the landing itself. Being able to get there, fly around the moon, and get back safely made actually landing anti-climactic to me. That plus one flight is at Christmas when it's too cold to go outside and the other is in July and wasn't watching it live. Plus there was no follow on. OK. We're there. Now what? And the space program has been down hill since.
Nov '11
Re: Where Were You On July 20, 1969?
Family livingroom, Ramstein AFB, Germany.
The Sundays did a song about it, Monochrome:
It's 4 in the morning July of 69
Me & my sister
We crept down like shadows
They're bringing the moon right down to our sitting-room
Static & silence & a monochrome vision
They're dancing around
Slow puppets silver ground
& the world was watching with joy
We hear a voice from above & it's history
& we stayed awake all night
& something is said and the whole room laughs aloud
Me & my sister
Looking on like shadows
The end of an age as we watched them walk in a glow
Lost in space, but I don't know where it is
They're dancing around
Slow puppets silver ground
& the stars & stripes in the sand
We hear a voice from above & it's history
& we stayed awake all night
They're dancing around
It sends a shiver down my spine
& I run to look in the sky and
I half expect to hear them asking to come down
(oh) Will they fly or will they fall?
To be excited by a long late night
Edited on August 26, 2012 at 12:27amJun '12
Re: Where Were You On July 20, 1969?
I had just turned 1 - my parents got it via a Chinese newspaper - in Singapore
Edited on August 26, 2012 at 12:23amDec '10
Re: Where Were You On July 20, 1969?
In England, with Dad, Mum sister and 15-month old brother, introducing him to the grandparents and great-aunts and uncles. We rented a television (black and white) for the event. I remember being up in what seemed like the middle of the night (because it was) to watch. Because it was the only television in our little part of the world, neighbors and friends came from far and wide to see it, making for quite the party.
A couple of years ago, my sister sent me the CD's she'd had made from Dad's slides after he died (he was an avid photographer, and loved those carousel things that got stuck, had the slides in upside down, jammed, and generally ruined one's photo experiences in the 70's and 80's.)
While breezing through the hundreds of slides captured to the CD, I came across several weird ones. Black backgrounds with a white orb more or less in the middle. Nothing else.
What was THAT? I wondered.
Then I remembered. Dad, like a kid in a sandbox, running outside to take a picture of the moon at the moment Neil Armstrong set foot.
Dad, I remember.
Jan '11
Re: Where Were You On July 20, 1969?
I was nine; the perfect age to be when the US won the space race.
Of course, don't ask this question of Marilu Henner ...
Mar '11
Re: Where Were You On July 20, 1969?
I was nine years old and sitting in my parents' den, undoubtedly in my pajamas (it was well past bedtime, even though school was out). I had sent away for the Revell model and had already assembled it, and read everything that had any information about the program. I knew the names of all the various parts of the spacecraft, and if Mission Control had needed a backup Mission Director, I was loaded and locked.