FIRST LUNAR LANDING & LONGINGS

I wrote this on the 50th Anniversary of the first lunar landing …

MOON SHOT

Remembering July 20, 1969 …

I was not yet 16 years old. My cousin Dickie was in town and we made about an hour drive down to visit his friend Andy who attended Valparaiso University. As I remember, Andy was staying through the summer to work and take flying lessons. On the day of the moon landing, we visited a small lake on which Andy’s beautiful friend Linda had a family cottage. Linda was dazzling and I was old enough to take notice. With her blonde hair, sky blue eyes, radiant wide smile, healthy tan, and her bright yellow bikini, she was a magnetic vision — with the gravitational force of Venus. She was Bo Derek in “10”, Cybill Shepherd from “The Heartbreak Kid” and Jennifer O’Neill in “Summer of ’42” all in one. And with my parents, especially my mom hovering over me, my kid brother and sister in tow, and my 63-year-old grandma in a beach chair soaking her feet in the gentle surf, I had no chance at being cool. I’d steal a discrete (or maybe not-so-discrete) glance at Linda now and then, and all I really wanted was for one second to be in the same consideration set as the older guys. Fat chance — With my awkwardness and encumbrances, I made Hermie look like Casanova. I even think my skin was breaking out a bit — and my hair was a hopeless tangle of curls in the humid weather. Worse, I couldn’t even steal a sip of beer. But after a picnic on the beach, we retired to the cottage that evening to view the first walk on the lunar surface. We watched on an old portable black and white TV with rabbit ears wrapped with tin foil, and listened to words from a world away garbled by static and eyed images blurred by video snow as Neil Armstrong took his first step and uttered the immortal words, “One small step for man. One giant leap for mankind.” It was an unforgettable day. Celestial bodies and orbs certainly loomed large as themes, as did the contemplation of the new frontiers and explorations that awaited in the not-too-distant future. I had a rocket in my pocket and was already counting down.