Chasing the Moon - three wonderful evenings of watching films telling a story of the US Space Program on Public Television
My daughter Karen and I were sitting in front of the television watching the video films leading up the launch of Apollo 11 - going to the Moon. We were touching base with memories about that evening they launched. One commentator said, “I never realized you can smell fear.”
The launch was breath taking...soaring straight up, up, up out of our sight to the moon. Karen tells me that she does remember sitting on the floor in our rec room watching in 1969. Karen., Jimmy and Robin were with me and Jim – it was something everyone wanted to see - and we didn't want our children to miss it.
That evening Jim talked about his memories of being stationed at Brooks AFB, San Antonio, TX where the main topic was "getting to the moon". Jim was sent to Cape Canaveral during several smaller launches.
Everyone, men particularly, were excited, fascinated and proud of what the USA was doing. What it meant for the US. Here in 1969 what President Kennedy had predicted in 1962 – we would reach the moon.
The program ignited vivid memories for me - especially the morning they lobbed Alan Shephard up into space and retrieved him safely. Shephard became known as the first American into space.
And the storm of memories I was experiencing opened me to the fact that history you live through - even from a distance
is a part of your story. Ahhhhhh!
1 comment:
How funny, I was just writing a blog about my first apartment, and watching the moon landing with a neighbor!
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