White House to Moon…Hello? July 20th 1969
It’s July 20th, 1969. After four days of traveling 238,857 miles at 17,400 miles per hour the earth to moon bound rocket ship trip has miraculously been accomplished. Live images of the first two, of the twelve men, to ever waffle stomp the moon are being broadcast on nearly every Television on earth.
This TV tube is tuned into channel 4 to see mankind’s most memorable and monumental big adventure. Shown quarter-screened is President Nixon ready for his close-up with phone in hand calling the original moonwalkers to say hello. While doing so he sets the record for longest distance phone call.
The three astronauts aboard are fashionably dressed for their eagerly awaited and uber exciting outer space trip in smart and sensible sci-fi style jumpsuits each fit with a matching backpack filled to capacity with a portable high-tech life-on-the-moon support system. They astronauts needed it. Temps on the moon can be quite brutal. Daytime highs reach a burning hot 243 degrees Fahrenheit. Hope they didn’t forget their sun block! At night temps can plummet to a beyond freezing 387 degrees below zero. Brrrrrrrr!
More than anything else the first man on the moon trip was a high-tech photo op. After about two hours of kicking up moon dust and looking for pretty rocks to weight down the rocket ship for the four day ride home, the astronauts get back on the rocket, spend the night, then blast off in the morning for their four day rocket ship return trip back home to big mama earth. They are considerate not to litter the moon with empty Tang jars or peanut butter flavored space stick wrappers. But before they tell the moon, “thank you and goodbye,” they raise an American flag and leave it behind as a patriotic and political parting gift.
The monumental adventure ends quite successfully when the rocket ship splashes down in tropical waters smack in the middle of the ever-so-Polynesian Pacific Ocean and the three astronauts emerge with all vital signs of life intact.
Out of the three daredevil astronauts that were lucky enough to be chosen trio to take the trip, I feel sorry for the guy that had to wait on the rocket while the other two got to get out and play. Was he a bad boy or something? Imagine going all that way – farther than any men had ever gone before – on the greatest adventure in the known history of the universe, then not to be able to get out of the rocket to at least take a deep breath and stretch your legs once you got there. What a rip off! I sure hope he at least snuck out in the middle of the night for a walk in the earthlight or something. I wonder if the earth was full that night.
Speaking of man on the moon, recently my mother said to me “Do you remember where we were when Neil Armstrong walked on the moon? I thought about it for a minute and realized I had no recollection of that wondrous moment in time. Which is a pity considering I was six and a half at the time. I said, “No I don’t.” She looked at me with somewhat of a puzzled look and said Yoooou don’t remember? How could you forget? We were in Tomorrowland at Disneyland watching it on big screen TVs.” Then she said, “Guess what we did after that. We got in line for Mission to Mars. Do you remember mission to Mars at Disneyland? “Of course I remember that,” I said, “How could I ever forget… 5…4…3…2…1…BLASTOFF!
Here’s to moonwalking, the astronaut that had to wait on the rocket and YOU!
hey Charles, I remember running out to shake astronaut Bean’s hand during the rose parade while he sat on the back of a convertible riding down Colorado blvd. CBS news showed great footage of the disneyland goers watching the moon landing the other night. I looked for you in the crowd .
One Hundred & STUPID DEGREES!!!
Outside our house in Las Vegas IT FELT LIKE THE BLISTERING SURFACE OF THE MOON THAT JULY EVENING THE SUMMER OF ’69.
Mom was waiting tables at Caesar’s. Sister Sandy was out looking to get stoned again. I was mindlessly wasting my free summertime hours & life… YET AGAIN! It disgusts me how stupid I was for not trying to get anything more than my nickle & dime, miserable lawnmowing job (“Wow! American boys MOWED GRASS BACK THEN?!). I wasn’t LAZY then (pushing, pulling, shoving, wrestling, maintaining, & cleaning Dad’s lawnmower was proof of that!). I WAS SIMPLY CLUELESS & IN NEED OF A LITTLE WARD CLEAVER-LIKE GUIDANCE. I JUST NEEDED THE OLD MAN TO DRIVE ME DOWN TO MAMA MIA’S OR MACAYO VEGAS TO APPLY FOR A BUSBOY JOB… LIKE SOME OF MY CLASSMATES LATER TOLD ME THEY HAD DONE. But that would have meant “time away from the bottle” (“Oh, whine,whine, little baby!”).
It was JUST ME, MY BEER-DRINKING, NEWSPAPER READING DAD… & MR. WALTER CRONKITE.
I was lonely missing the company of my vacationing best-friends Michael Englund & Philip Neal Chance.
I walked outside between my home and that of Linda O’Brian’s. The only sounds heard were dozens of furiously humming air-conditioners and those poor short-lived & noisy cicadas.
I focused the S & H Green Stamps binoculars (that Mom “licked up & stuck in books” to get for us: Sandy & Me) up and onto the near full face of the moon. It was low in the southern sky.
I forced myself to stop breathing in order to stabilize the image inside my cheap but preciously appreciated binoculars.
I COULD RECOGNIZE THE SAD AND SOMEWHAT PAINFUL SMILE OF “THE MAN IN THE MOON”. I remembered ‘what’ “that man” was: The Sea of Tranquility, Mare Tranquilitis, and a half-dozen other names of mystery and intrigue.
Tycho, after Tycho Brahe the 16th century nobleman astronomer (nearing the E N D OF M Y L I F E . . . I too now call out in my mind, “Ne frustra vixisse videar!”, “Let me not seem to have lived in vain.”).
The ONE QUOTE I REMEMBER FROM CARL SAGAN’S “COSMOS”. DO YOU REMEMBER THAT GROUNDBREAKING PBS MINI-SERIES?!
Oh. Then there was Evil-Tycho!
He was another arch-enemy, evil-genius, villain for President Ullyses S. Grant’s “Jack Bauer” like agent… James West to subdue & capture (after amusing Artemus Gordon hidden in one of his amazing disguises & then of-course, “getting a little appreciation” from the bad-guys misguided & always beautiful villainess’. Wasn’t “The Wild, Wild, West’s” ‘other evil dwarf’ called Tycho?
I’m sure ALL US BOYS, REMEMBER WHO OUR ALL TIME FAVORITE EVIL-GENIUS WAS BACK THEN: DR. MIGUELITO LOVELESS! GOD BLESS YOU MICHAEL DUNN. WE LOVED YOU BUDDY (AND ROSS MARTIN: THE COOL GUY EVERY KID WISHED HE HAD AS AN UNCLE!)!
With naked-eye alone, I stared up and out at the moon… ABSOLUTELY ASTOUNDED, THAT TWO MEN WERE WALKING AROUND UPON AND BROADCASTING BACK TO US!
I remember how “ANGRY” I WAS ABOUT HOW DAMN LONG IT TOOK THOSE ASTRONUTS TO DECOMPRESS THE LUNAR MODULE SO THEY WOULDN’T HAVE JUST BEEN BLOWN OUT EXPLOSIVELY AFTER OPENING THE HATCH.
God, I was such an impatient little teenager.
Just me and my old man. It was like we were the only ones on Earth watching…
…ON THAT LONG, HOT SUMMER DAY 40 YEARS AGO.
I remember sitting in the living room of our Fullerton house with my best friend Jody who was a lowrider – I considered myself a hippie – we were 15! Somehow we made the friendship work and watched the world’s first Moonwalk together. Good times.
I recall an interview with Michael Collins, who said he was okay with remaining in the command module, as he thought there was a good chance that Armstrong and Aldrin might not make it off the moon when the time came to leave. I can’t imagine any “degrees of safety” during that mission. All these men truly had “The Right Stuff.”
In Eleanor Vallee’s bio of her husband Rudy Vallee, she mentions that they went to the Nixon home San Clemente in 1979 to commemorate the 10th anniversary of the first moon landing. Any excuse for a party I guess!
During summer school, were there classes on a Sunday, July 20th? Probably lots of kids watched the Wednesday launch, or some part of the mission, on TV (depending on time zone.)
My mom had just started a Sunday job the week before, and my dad said we might go to an Angels baseball game on Sunday the 20th. But he changed his mind because of Apollo 11. I was a space nut, but I was still a little disappointed to be staying home.
Actually, the third astronaut–Michael Collins in the case of Apollo 11–never even made it to the surface of the moon. He continuously orbited the moon in the command module while Neil and Buzz were getting exercise on another world.
Also, the Disneyland attraction later known as Mission to Mars was still Flight to the Moon until 1975 when it got its distance upgrade.
I was excited about the space race and wanted to be an Astronaut and had photos of the Gemini and early Apollo missions from NASA press releases (I think I still have them in a binder). On July 20, 1969 I vividly remember being at Brocton Ave Elementary school (reluctantly enrolled in Summer School) with my eyes glued to the TV watching the moon walk. I also remember later going to the Farmer’s market and reading Life magazine’s pictorial spread on Neil Armstrong. There was one photo of him in the pool–that house and backyard remind of the house later shown in the movie Capricorn One.