Doctor Grandma

Yes, I was alive, and I was old enough to remember it. Today is the 40th anniversary of the 1st landing on the moon by John Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin, and the other guy we never can remember the name of — Collins, who circled the moon and picked them back up. They actually walked on July 20th. Where was I? I was a 15-yr-old teenager in Indiana, on vacation from our home in PA., visiting relatives. I was actually in Fort Wayne, Indiana that day, at the home of my aunt & uncle, & cousins. The entire family gathered around the tv set for days. We did not have CNN and 24-hour news in those days. But we did that week. July 1969. One reason it is fixed in my mind, was that it was my last vacation with my father. Just after my 16th birthday, he died at the end of the next month, at 50 years of age, of a heart attack, on the night of my mom’s birthday. And my life changed forever.

We all know “One small step for man, one giant leap for mankind.” Buzz Aldrin said, when he stepped out, “Beautiful! Beautiful! Magnificent desolation.”

It doesn’t mean that much to me, to have us plant an American flag on the moon. Or even walk on the moon. But I love watching the stars, thinking about the illimitable space. The pics from the hubble space telescope — now THAT is something.

“Dost thou reckon thyself only a puny form, when within thee the universe is folded?” — Imam Ali. Quoted by Baha’u’llah in His book, The Seven Valleys.

This entry was posted on July 16, 2009 at 9:31 am and is filed under stories in the news. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.