Shakesville - Latest Comments in On This Date

Re: On This Date

Tracey — Mon, 21 Jul 2008 18:05:33 -0000

I wasn't born. But it was the day my Dad came back from Vietnam.

Re: On This Date

vache folle — Mon, 21 Jul 2008 16:12:51 -0000

I was on the 5th floor of the Hotel Dalton watching the black and white TV with my father, whom I was visiting (my parents were in the midst of the ugly divorce). I was 11.

Re: On This Date

shoutz — Mon, 21 Jul 2008 11:40:30 -0000

That was the day a space geek was born in my parents' house, to join the two who were already there. I was 4. We'd gotten maps of the lunar surface from somewhere - my mother thinks National Geographic, but I don't remember that. She sent my father and me into the backyard to get fresh blueberries and she made blueberry muffins we ate while we waited for Armstrong to come out of the module. I, too, remember the gaps in radio communication between the moon and Misson Control. I remember my parents near to tears. I also remember poring over the maps to find out where they'd landed and, foolishly, if we'd be able to see them. (That was my contribution to the discussion, I'm sure.) For years afterward, I had a crush on Neil Armstrong, and thought I'd grow up to be an astronaut.

Re: On This Date

TinaH — Mon, 21 Jul 2008 11:09:18 -0000

Al Gore has proposed something I find equally exciting in his 10-year challenge to wean our culture off oil. I hope it is as successful as the race to the moon.

The race to the moon was the first thing I thought of when I heard about Al's challenge.

Re: On This Date

mrmobi — Mon, 21 Jul 2008 10:59:08 -0000

I was 22, and living with my girfriend in Chicago. We all stayed up. The picture was terrible (it was relayed from Australia) but it was a moment I'll never forget. Whenever I think about what America can be, I think of that achievement, and the great leader who challenged us to do something fantastically difficult.

Al Gore has proposed something I find equally exciting in his 10-year challenge to wean our culture off oil. I hope it is as successful as the race to the moon.

Re: On This Date

Mustang Bobby — Mon, 21 Jul 2008 09:48:31 -0000

As for me, the one who asked the question... I was sixteen, living outside Toledo and going to summer school for algebra, but spending weekends up at my grandmother's house in Northport, Michigan on Grand Traverse Bay. We had the black-and-white Zenith on the porch and we watched Huntley & Brinkley doing the live coverage (the CBS station with Walter Cronkite didn't come in that clear).

The people next door were having a beach party with a rock group called Newt & the Salamanders playing, but as the time approached for the moonwalk, the band stopped playing and everyone gathered around the TV's set up on the beach.

Tangentially, I was living in Miami when the last Apollo mission was launched in December of 1972. It was launched at night, and I remember going out on the balcony of my apartment in Coconut Grove and being able to see the flames of the rocket as it went into orbit.

Re: On This Date

TinaH — Mon, 21 Jul 2008 09:33:02 -0000

I was 13 months old and probably burbling in my crib. Damn shame, that.

Ah yep, only I was a much older 15 months. Mom says that we were on Okinawa at a friend's house watching because they had a better TV and antenna.

Re: On This Date

amish451 — Mon, 21 Jul 2008 08:59:43 -0000

On-duty, sneaking down the hall to watch on the canteen TV as often as I could, finally Sarge said, "It's severe clear ( I was an Air Force Weather Observer Tech.), the tele-types can wait, this is Effin history ... save me a spot, I'll be right down!" I watched the landing surrounded by kick-ass fighter pilots and hard-ass-lifer-techs ... all of whom were visibly moved and vocally damned proud of our country that day......
(BTW: Marilu Henner was in the shower, losing her virginity at that moment ..... ) at least that was her answer a few years ago when Dave Letterman asked her, "Where were you and what were you doing July 20, 1969 ......? " As I recall, she prefaced her answer with, "Who the *#%& told you about that?"

Re: On This Date

MR Bill — Mon, 21 Jul 2008 08:07:46 -0000

I was at my folk's house in Hayesville NC, in the little TV room, looking at the weird out of focus pics, wondering when Armstrong would go down the Ladder of the Lunar Excursion module...It was late, and it seemed to take forever for Neil and Buzz Armstrong to touchdown.
I think we were watching CBS.

Re: On This Date

SunlessNick — Mon, 21 Jul 2008 02:54:59 -0000

I wasn't alive then, but I still mist up thinking about it.

Re: On This Date

laurie — Mon, 21 Jul 2008 02:51:59 -0000

I was a few days away from my 5th birthday, watching it from about 2 feet away from the old wooden console TV in my family's living room. Several neighbors were in our home watching with us and it was as if fairies had been captured or ghosts had appeared. The feeling of amazement was palpable. It is one of my strongest early memories. I remember asking my mother for a piece of paper so I could draw the astronauts. My mom saved the picture in a family photo album. What struck me the most was a giddy, rapturous feeling like anything in the world -- and out of it -- was possible. I remember my dad saying something about how now there would be no more wars, that now we would use our might to explore the heavens. He was a WW2 veteran and had been a nose gunner stationed in Okinawa. He really believed the space program meant the ultimate deterrant and best use of science.

Re: On This Date

leap — Mon, 21 Jul 2008 02:31:13 -0000

I was working on an archaeological project in northern Israel when Apollo landed. We were not "allowed" to have radios on site, as they were distracting--not even for the first moon landing! So none of us was able to hear it live. There was a teevee in a nearby town, but we were working when it landed. That night, though, the moon shown large, and a few of us sat on a hillside looking up at it, listening to the BBC broadcast of it on a little transistor radio. That was neat.

Re: On This Date

Jean — Mon, 21 Jul 2008 02:30:33 -0000

Hmmm, '69, a very good year for all night beach parties on the south shore of Longuyland and lazy days lying in the sun. I vaguely remember my brothers being all excited by this event, but I was a blase chick working on her tan and a cure for her hangovers which I finally found in '74 (an extremely good year).

Re: On This Date

wendy — Mon, 21 Jul 2008 02:13:57 -0000

I was 12 and we had been sent home from school to watch (Australia, and probably the 21st). The picture was too grainy so despite my father trying to keep us inside, we went outside to play. The worst thing was that the TV stations played it over and over again for days on end.

Re: On This Date

oddjob — Mon, 21 Jul 2008 01:25:10 -0000

Where was I? I was nine years old and I was asleep. My parents watched it, but we kids watched it (with some boredom, especially from my five and six year old brother and sister) the next morning when it was rebroadcast.

Re: On This Date

Apostate — Sun, 20 Jul 2008 23:42:21 -0000

Americans have been back on the moon several times since July 20, 1969. See here.

Re: On This Date

mistformsquirrel — Sun, 20 Jul 2008 23:33:10 -0000

@TheBob - I hear you there... when I was growing up I expected much the same; I figured "Well, I get why its taking awhile to get back tot he moon; but we'll go back before long, and when I'm older, I betcha well have stuff like in StarWars!"

Now I grant, I'm only 24 now - but things have started to look pretty grim from my perspective. I'd definitely go into space if I ever got the chance though. Even just a short shuttle ride or something.

Re: On This Date

blusilva — Sun, 20 Jul 2008 22:55:33 -0000

I was three, and I remember asking my mother why I had to watch it instead of Gilligan's Island. She said (much like SteffaB's mom) that this was history happening, I was lucky enough to see it in my lifetime and that I would remember it forever.

It was pretty boring. But, I'm glad she made me watch. :)

Re: On This Date

idahovic — Sun, 20 Jul 2008 22:27:57 -0000

I was 9 at the time. I stayed up all night watching the national networks replays of Armstrong's first steps.
It was the first time my parents let me stay up that late. I've been a science geek ever since.

Re: On This Date

CapnWhizBang — Sun, 20 Jul 2008 22:19:33 -0000

I was 13. My family had rented a house in Noyack, NY for a week of summer vacation by the water. Our neighbor had a big old b/w TV with a lousy picture. We all watched it on that. I thought it was very cool although I couldn't really appreciate what an enormous task it was.

Re: On This Date

Jay — Sun, 20 Jul 2008 21:43:27 -0000

I was 9 - just - and lying on the floor in my parents' bedroom where the color TV was. In my jammies, ready to be popped into bed as soon as it was over. But we got to stay up and watch the whole thing.

Re: On This Date

Burning_Prairie — Sun, 20 Jul 2008 21:14:51 -0000

I was 13 months old and probably burbling in my crib. Damn shame, that.

Re: On This Date

dgun — Sun, 20 Jul 2008 19:59:40 -0000

Missed it by 6 months. What a great moment in American/world history.

And landing on the moon was pretty awesome too.

Re: On This Date

maystone — Sun, 20 Jul 2008 19:51:23 -0000

I was 20. A group of my relatives gathered at my uncle's place, and we watched the moon landing first with silence and then with cheers. My cousins and I trooped outside afterwards to stare at the moon and try to imagine what it must really have been like to be there.

Then I went to my brother's place and met up with all of our friends and we got royally high ourselves :)

Re: On This Date

Nancy W — Sun, 20 Jul 2008 19:42:19 -0000

Girl Scout camp in West Virginia. One of the staff members rounded up a small TV that day and brought it to the mess hall so we could all gather round and watch. I remember this giant luna moth on the wall out on the porch of the mess hall, beautiful green colors and feathery antenna. Then of course we went outside and slept under the stars around a campfire so that we could keep an eye on the moon all night. We kept going silent with amazement - between giggling and ghost stories - when we'd remember that there were actually people up there walking around.