Let's Meander to the Moon, Shall We?

On July 20, 1969, Neil Armstrong became the first human to walk on the Moon. (Not one of our typical, meanders). A Boston Globe article on this historic event inspired Dick Jordan to write the following bit about where he was meandering on that date. (Where were you at that time? Let us know by adding a "Comment" to this blog post).

Here's Dick reminiscence:

"When Neil Armstrong took his first steps on the Moon I was sitting in a little restaurant taking a lunch break from work at the secret military installation on in the Pacific Ocean where I was 'employed' as an enlisted member of the U.S. Air Force. There were lots of restaurants, stores, and movie theaters on the island, and it was populated by thousands of "locals", as well as U.S. military personnel and their families. I could drive for twenty or thirty miles along the north-south axis of the island in my little two-cylinder Toyota which was like a soup can powered by a Singer sewing machine. But at that historic moment in time, I felt so far away from home that I might as well have been on the Moon, not just a fifteen-hour plane ride away from the West Coast of the U.S.

As a kid growing up in the '50's I was certain that one day soon I would be able to travel not just to the Moon, but to Mars for sure, and probably to a lot of other planets and galaxies as well. I read Robert Heinlein's science fiction novels and watched "Tom Corbett - Space Cadet" on TV. My friend Karl and I formed the "RK Rocket Club". We took the tops off ballpoint pens, stuffed the bottom part full of paper matches, then lit the heads and watched our "rockets" rocket along the sidewalk. We shot off "Pop-Bottle" rockets on the Fourth of July. But, of course, we never got to the Moon, or Mars, or anywhere else "off-planet".

Today, fifty years later, I realize I won’t be doing any interplanetary travel in my lifetime and that the odds of even being able to watch a modern-day astronaut do so is slim and none. But this is no longer that big of a deal to me. After all, there are no Rick Steves guidebooks to the solar system, and I can't use my frequent-flyer miles to get a free ticket to any of its planets."