Forty years ago, my family piled into our old Galaxy 500 with black vinyl interior and no air conditioning and took to the road. Our destination was Cape Canaveral, FL, 1,300 miles away. The primary reason for the trip was to attend the launch of the Apollo 11 spacecraft whose mission was the first of six Apollo missions to the moon. Apollo 11 would make astronaut Neil Armstrong the first man to set foot on our moon, the result of an initiative to put a man on the moon within a decade, announced by President John F. Kennedy on May 25, 1961.
My earliest memories include the excitement and determination this initiative inspired in the American people. My classes at school included constant references to this initiative, and my teachers often cited it as the reason to study harder and perform better, especially in the areas of math and science. As a child, astronauts were considered the ultimate heroes. Other people in science - engineers, mathematicians, biologists, geologists, doctors, etc. - were a close second. Our parents held these people up to us as role models and my friends and I read everything we could get our hands on that had anything to do with science or the 'space race'.
My memories of that trip to Florida are vivid and very real to me even today. I remember the intense heat and having to place blankets on the car seats in order to sit in the car. I remember the taste of the oranges we picked from the trees bordering the water, across from the launch pad, as we sat in anticipation with countless others and listened to the radio broadcasts telling us the status of the launch. I remember the incredible thrill of seeing the Apollo 11 rocket lift off in a tremendous burst of smoke and fire. I remember the incredible feeling of the ground shaking below me, and the tremendous sounds emanating from the launch site. And I remember everyone cheering and jumping up and down, watching this glorious, manned invention as it rose into the heavens, destined for our one Moon.
After the launch, we visited a number of Florida tourist destinations and after a few days, headed for home, still listening to the radio intently for updates on the mission. The much anticipated updates broke the monotony of the long drive back to Massachusetts, along with daydreams of being the first woman on the Moon.
But, now I think my most cherished memory of that entire trip came in New York City on July 20th, 1969. We were in the middle of the George Washington Bridge when traffic slowed to a halt, and people got out of their cars. It was nighttime and the stars were out, along with the millions of lights of the city below. All car radios were turned up as loud as they could be, and when it was announced that Neil Armstrong had stepped onto the surface of the Moon, everybody started cheering. The sound was deafening, and I think one of the largest and most joyous collective expressions of pride and excitement of which I have ever been a part.
I remember being so proud to be an American, so proud that we had a President such as Kennedy who inspired our nation to such heights, and so proud of the scientists that made such an achievement possible. And every day, I wish that our country will again return to such respect for science, and will again return to a focus on the dedication to innovation and hard work that the Apollo endeavor inspired in us all once upon a time.
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Comments: 92
Only in New York do these things happen.
When I saw "Chinatown" there, at the end the audience stood and clapped.
About the same time as your family traveled to Cape in an un-air conditioned car, my family did too from Texas. The impression about Cape that I remember is that it was ugly. I have never wanted to return to Florida!
I think it was pretty much the same across the country from what I remember, Leo. Although New Yorkers are pretty passionate folks, by and large. :-)
I don't remember much about FL in general, except seeing spiders and alligators in the Everglades and endless stretches of concrete highway.
I'm afraid I wasn't alive 40 years ago. Thank you for sharing, we all need to learn.:)
Trying to make me feel old, huh, Stacey? :-)
Whoops ! ;-p Sorry, that wasn't the intention. <:-)
Just kidding, Stacey. It's just one of those facts of life that there is always going to be someone who comes along and claims not to have been born at that particular time. :-)
November 11, 1970. ;) So, I missed the Moon landing. :( We all get to see cool things in our generations, though, I and I do enjoy reading about people's accounts of what they have seen.
40 is good for me
Religion and science seem to balance each other. We should learn about both. What happened along the way people reject science these days.
That's a very interesting comment, Rita. A 'balance' would suggest that they are on the opposite ends of a spectrum. My parents were/are very devout Catholics. My father was an engineer. They never viewed religion and science to be in a 'balance'-type relationship.
Personally, I think that concept is a very recent one in the American psyche - and really tends to hurt and devalue both religion and science in people's lives.
I don't know. I know God created the Earth. It is truly the things of His creation that scientists study, though many deny that fact.
Wow! I hear there's a PBS special on the subject that is the best way to relive that moment short of a time machine. Thanks for rekindling the memories.
You're welcome, Richard. I'm sure you can remember how important Pres. Kennedy's challenge to the nation was in our lives during this time. I'll have to look for that PBS special - it will be fun to see pictures and video from the period.
I remember hearing about his message from my elders (oooh rimshot BAM)
SERIOUSLY - yes I remember - they were stirring times and stirring words. I just read about the special (TIME magazine Best of section. I'm looking for it too.
Hmm...you better look VERY young in September after a remark like that, bud. ;-)
You made me laugh - thanks! And - no - I won't look that (can't look that) young again.
Sheryl, this was a perfect remembrance and celebration! Thank you! I wasn't in the US for this moment in history -- I am positive that if we'd been here, our father would have made the same family trip to Cape Canaveral.
I do, however, remember waiting up all night long for each and every update, glued to the television from the moment we were prepared for lift-off until Armstrong set foot on the moon. Mom kept begging me to get some sleep, but I couldn't.
Afterwards, I was convinced, heart and soul, that I would one day live in the lunar colony. (Instead, I'm just among the loonies, now. It's close.)
Thank you for your comment, Dannielle. It's fun to remember how we were involved with this momentous happening, I think. Can you think of a recent initiative that involved children to this extent? I can't. Seems that kids now seem more involved in waiting for the next version of XBox to come out than any scientific achievement.
I was looking forward to the lunar colony thing myself. The whole almost zero-gravity thing was very appealing. :-)
Not a recent initiative, no. In fact, while studying women's history last Fall, I picked up a book by Susan J. Douglas entitled Where the Girls Are. In her introductory chapter, she describes how Kennedy's message to all of America's youth challenged girls to be part of the math and science renaissance. At the same time, conflicting messages about proper behavior for girls hobbled so many of us. (sigh)
The only comparable event for youth that comes to mind was the release of the last few Harry Potter books.
That sounds like a fascinating book, Dannielle. I'll have to check it out - maybe my book club would be interested in reading it! Many of my female classmates went on to work in the fields of science, but not as many as the boys in my class. I got the Bausch and Lomb science award in HS and I remember my Biology teacher (who was an older woman!) actually told me that it was a shame that a girl was winning it instead of a boy. Unbelievable. It's given to the student with the highest average in science classes over the past 4 years in school - so, regardless of how the school or she felt about my winning it, it was an objective criterion used to identify the winner. I guess since I was going to major in music instead of science, she thought it was a waste giving it to me.
Oy. Even Elizabeth Cady Stanton's father said it was a shame she wasn't a boy -- we heard that too often, either first-hand or in shared stories, but it seems less common now.
It seems that even if your treacher was thinking a musician wouldn't use the award, she could have said "someone going into a science career" rather than "a boy."
Yeah, that would have been less hurtful, for sure. I was friends with all the boys in my science classes and I knew they were disappointed, especially since many were going into engineering and medicine, but they still congratulated me.
Well, there's another lovely phrase that wouldn't be used today, at least not to your face. :-)
Sheryl, I vaguely remember the moon walk. My mother woke my sister and I out of a dead sleep and told us we had to stay up and watch. I would have enjoyed it more except for her going on and on about what a momentous occasion etc. etc. it was. I guess she was just excited. Still I remember it, so I guess... Thank you for the article. I really enjoyed it, and I think it made my memory about being half asleep and watching Neil Armstrong walk on the moon a better memory.
At least you were alive, Chana! That makes me feel better. ;-)
Thank goodness I did something right today! You did something right today to, thank you for that.
I was alive too, though not quite ready yet to appreciate anything more than my warm bottle of milk. :-)
I remember being allowed to stay up late to watch it on television.
I was nine years old.
It was totally inspiring.
We are very close in age then, Bill. Makes me feel better about being so 'old'. :-)
I wonder - did you have color TV at the time?
LOL - I here ya. I'm trying to ignore the fact that I'm turning fifty later this year, but my head keeps bringing it up.
Nope, we had black and white at the time.
As I recall, we got our first color television set in 1971; and it was considered a huge luxury.
I remember it well. At least you didn't get one of those sheets of plastic that you stuck over the screen to make it look like you had color tv. Remember those?
When they first started memorializing the moon landing, perhaps on the tenth anniversary, I wondered why I couldn't come up with any memories of watching it. Then I did the math and realized it was because I was in the field in Vietnam. That was another thing going on 40 years ago.
Yep. That's why we were in Bangkok; my Dad was up-country with the troops.
Certainly not as happy a memory, Charles, but an extremely important one. Do you remember being aware that this was happening back home? Was it discussed at camp?
I'm sure we must have known it was happening. I don't remember it being a surprise when I got home. But I don't remember it at all.
I was actually in high school when that happened. Plus, my Dad was a microelectronics engineer who designed aerospace computer systems, and a lot of his work was on the Apollo capsules. So we paid close attention. My brother and sister and I used to try to spot satellites among all the lights both stationary and drifting, and when a Gemini or Apollo mission was under way we used to try to find out where the capsule would be on a given night so we could look for it.
You're right, this was important work, and it's good to see it being celebrated and revived. Stephanie B. is involved in all this and I get a lot of updates from her, and I also keep an eye on Nasa's online stuff, especially NASA TV online when there's a mission on. We're going to the moon again soon, so don't give up on those colonies just yet!
That must have been ultra-cool having a Dad involved with the space program, Roy! You would have been the envy of every kid in my school, that's for sure. That kind of info is available to everyone now with a computer, but then it would have been gold.
Thanks!
Oh my god....I just read what I wrote and I sound like a total geek.
:-)
That's why I like you, Sheryl. :-)
Thanks, Aniko - right back at ya! :-)
Interesting how some events elicit the ultra-vivid memories. And how appropriate the vehicle for this trip had a space oriented name; Galaxie 500 (Ford spelled it with the ie instead of y). I'd love to hop in a Galaxie 500 right now, even if the leather seats are hot. I wouldn't care where I was going.
Oops! Thanks, Robert. You can tell I wasn't that interested in cars growing up. I just remember that car as being my father's pride and joy. It got washed AND waxed every weekend - and god help the child that smudged its windows. I remember sitting in between my parents on the front bench seat, getting a break from abuse by my two olders brothers in the back. :-)
I also remember my dad's average speed in that thing was about 75 mph. And seeing a lot of highway exits flash by just as my mom was saying, "THAT was our exit!".
Hey, that was my mom's line as well.
Ha! I guess our moms had a lot in common. To this day, I absolutely hate getting lost on a trip because of that fact. We were always having to turn around or find an alternate route due to missing exits.
Her other line was "aren't we about to run out of gas?"
I didn't know that the Galaxie 500 was a make of car until now! There's a band with that name, and another band with an album called "Galaxy 500" (the alternative spelling). Apparently people must have had memories of that car...
As for the moon landing, I was just a bit too young to remember it, though I'm pretty sure my parents woke me for the momentous event. I've always been pretty science-oriented, so I'm sure if I'd been just a bit older I would have been very caught up in it.
HI, Dave. I think the Galaxie 500 was the poor man's Cadillac, actually. My dad's looked like this, but was gold on the bottom with a black hardtop. It must have been a 1966 model. That's the closest I can come to its shape. It had a very powerful engine, though, I remember that.
Holy crap! And this is the exact interior! Wow, what a blast from the past. I remember my dad pumping the gas pedal before turning the ignition, too. And the fake wood on the dashboard - or maybe it was real. What a trip down memory lane THIS has turned out to be.
We had 2 Galaxie 500's. One was yellow (don't remember the interior, and the newer one was a beautiful Maroon color. Both were very comfortable, smooth driving cars.
I was at Girl Scout camp when they landed. I did not see it until I came home. I do believe it happend though. :).
Ha! You know, Grems, when I did a google search on 'Apollo 11', a few of the first few links were actually to recent stories about how the entire moon landing was a hoax. You know, if that turned out to be true, I would actually be devastated. I just cannot believe that would have been done and done so successfully.
I lived in Florida for 36 years and never went to Cape Canaveral. Like everyone else, I read about it, watched it on TV or listened to it on the radio.
But you must have been able to see the launches from your house, Debra! How could you miss them? When my daughter was in 5th grade, she went to Space Camp at Kennedy Space Center. It was as much fun for us to return there and see how things had changed as it was for her to go to Space Camp for a week.
I lived in the south west coast of Florida on the Gulf. We would see the light of the shuttles as they went over. It probably wasn't as exciting as being in Cape Canaveral. Did you know that every time they do a launch all the alligators go nuts slapping their tails in the water? The feel the vibration of the shuttle, and some say it it mimicks the vibration the male gator makes when mating. (I don't know how true that is)
Fun alligator fact! :-)
I have a friend who lives halfway between Orlando and the coast. She can see the shots pretty clearly from her home. Pretty cool.
I was in 3d grade when it happened, the whole school (we were a small one) went to the lunchroom to watch Neil step onto the moon. What a rush! Even as little ones we knew it was a big moment.
Exactly, Charles. It was a unifying, collective excitement throughout the entire country. I wish we had something of that magnitude now - we sure could use something to bring Americans together again.
yes Sheryl, agreed. But sadly, I do not believe that a trip to Mars will do it. Not to mention that we are broke now, there ai'nt any money for a Mars trip.
No, Chris - only trips to Afghanistan and Iraq, unfortunately.
40 years ago...7 years before I was the apple of my mother's eye :)
As I'm sure you still are, PoetKK. I hope you at least heard about it later on, though.
my mother remembers this though
Sheryl, this was great.
I have no recall of this event, but for some reason I remember my parents and their friends watching the 1972 Democratic convention on television.
Thanks for stopping by, Janna. Funny how we retain certain strong images from our youth, sometimes inexplicably. I also remember the exact place and time I first heard about the Beatles from my next door neighbor. We were standing on the sidewalk in front of my house during the summer and she was telling me that her older sister was raving about this new group (we worshipped her older sister, who also attended Woodstock - she was our guide to all things cool).
Here's a little family/vacation reminiscence from about the same era:
Me: Dad, we're going the wrong way.
My Father: No we're not.
Me: Yes we are, I'm positive.
MF: Only a fool is positive.
Me: Well I must be a fool then because there's the Kentucky Fried Chicken we passed ten minutes ago, and the supermarket with the overturned cart out front and the bus bench with the picture of that guy with the green hat.
MF: If you don't like where we're going you can get out of the car.
I opened the car door (I had no intention of getting out of a car moving at 40 mph)
My mother shreiks and turns very pale. My father turns the car around. Nothing more is said.
Hmm...sounds familiar, but if I or my brothers ever went as far as to actually open the door? Let's just say my dad was a master of the reach-back slap - hard to do now with bucket seats and headrests, but pretty easy to master with low back bench seats. :-)
I think we might have had the same dad, though. Is that possible?!?
I remember one road trip where it was late at night, again coming through NYC, and my dad ended up going over the GW bridge about 5 times because he was lost. We finally ended up in Harlem for some reason and I remember my brothers stuffing me down into the foot well in the back, yelling that I needed to keep my head down because I was going to get shot otherwise. All the while, my parents are in the front oblivious to this abuse, arguing about how the heck to get out of this area without getting back on the bridge again.
Such pleasant memories of family vacations.
My dad only slapped me once. We were having dinner. He was sitting across from me in his usual pristine white shirt with a red silk tie. We were having steak. I was applying some wrist-action g-forces to a bottle of A-1 sauce (shake well) when the top came off. It made a diagonal A-1 trail across his shirt and tie, which inspired in me the irresistable urge to laugh. That did it.
Wow, and that was an accident! I guess it was the laughing that got him. Most of the slaps we got were due to intentional misbehavior, not that that's an excuse. But, if you asked us if we could predict that a slap was coming on, we'd have to admit that we could. :-)
And if anyone is interested in some incredible pictures of the mission, here they are.
I'm afraid that I have always taken the position that mankind does not possess the intelligence to be allowed the possibility of screwing up other parts of the universe.
All of the money wasted on NASA should have been spent on education or food for starving Americans.
I still have the magazine coverage issues, Look, Life, and National Geographic.
We WERE the universe!
We also had peace corps and Unicef, and all kinds of really cool, "community organizations" for the good of all.
This article made me sigh, and wish for less cynical, less weary times.
(Did you ever "ride" in the back window of that Galaxie 500? There was always a kid stuffed up there, due to lack of room on the seats. 6 kids, 2 parents. Do the math...
(I KNOW you can!)
Blessed BE, Sheryl O. Great article. Simply wonderful.
Wilka
I recently used Skype to interview a woman in the Peace Corps in the Ukraine for a Rotary Peace Scholarship. The Corps is still alive and well and thankfully there are still very dedicated, talented young people dedicated to world service, peace and conflict resolution.
This is FEATURED in PROPHETIC PULSE ~ A Paradigm Shift.
:-)
Those were the days my friend.
It was a shame that Kennedy was not able to see his dream for our nation come to fruition. I'm glad you can remember the pride and wonder of those times. Thanks for stopping by, my friend.
By the way, I think we had a Galaxie 500, too.