Come 9:30 p.m. Saturday, July 20, I expect to transport myself 50 years into my past, and dwell on it a bit.
I know exactly where I was and what I was doing.
That’s probably the case for every other American who was alive and cognizant at that time. History says six hundred million of us were glued to our televisions.
My large family – the full quotient of six children had all been born by that time – was crowded into the small living room of our shotgun-style Festus home, huddled in front of our Zenith black-and-white TV. My seat was on the floor, as usual. (It’s where I still wind up when a large group visits our home. Habit.)
Around 8 p.m., my mother answered the knock on the door to usher in Great Uncle Billy and Great Aunt Clara, and two more kids hit the floor to open up space on the sofa.
We were hushed (with all those kids, that sure didn’t happen often), as we watched Neil Armstrong take his historic step and make his historic statement – “One small step for (a) man, one giant leap for mankind.”
Armstrong, who died in 2012, swore for years he said the “a,” although it can’t be heard on the recording, and it is also reported that he later admitted a slip of the tongue.
But, whatever the exact words, we were zeroed in. My littlest sister was just 3, so perhaps the significance was lost on her, but the rest of us knew we would never forget what we’d witnessed.
About 25 years later, a group of local teenagers tried to set me straight.
Donald Trump, and his accusations about today’s media, was nowhere on my radar when a student announced that I, and all those other enthralled millions, had been victims of “fake news.”
I’d traveled down to Kingston High School in Cadet, not far south of Jefferson County’s border with Washington County, to speak at a career day.
I gave my usual spiel about my job in journalism – the hours, the pay, the rewards, the drawbacks, the sense of mission I felt back then and still do – and then opened the floor to questions.
“You don’t actually believe that America sent a rocket to the moon and someone got out and walked on it, do you?” a boy in the middle of the room asked.
I thought he was kidding, but not so. He meant it.
Five minutes later, after he shared his “evidence” and I shared mine, I asked the class for a show of hands. Half of the 20 kids in the room believed the conspiracy theory more than me. Or, at least they said they did. Maybe it was just fun to see the middle-aged lady’s jaw drop.
My tale of watching live coverage of it all didn’t appear to make a dent. The government had manufactured its “story” and the media was duped or played along, they said.
In truth, it was a good lesson to a working journalist. Those in my business needed to insulate ourselves against such assaults by gathering our information and writing our stories in an objective, credible, defensible way that would stand the test of time.
The experience also spoke to the power of the conspiracy theory. Unfortunately, the standards for the folks who create alternative versions of reality may not be as high as mine.
The moon, ruler of the night sky, has always been fascinating to me, way more than its daytime partner, the sun. You can’t even look at the sun, for goodness sakes.
Maybe my moon-love stems from a book I read in childhood, “Matthew Looney’s Voyage to the Earth,” about a moon boy who stows away on an exploratory mission to the Earth, where scientists expected to find a lifeless orb poisoned by oxygen.
I still had my copy for my oldest son to read when he came of age. But a few months ago, when I knew I would write a column about the first manned mission to the moon and hankered to reread “Matthew Looney,” the book couldn’t be found at my house or my son’s.
I tried two used bookstores, one in Festus and one in Albuquerque, N.M., and also checked out Amazon. There, I found I could get a used copy – for $127. Didn’t want it THAT bad.
Now that the anniversary is a countable number of hours away, I tried Amazon again.
Glory be, others must have realized this was a perfect time to make a buck off moon nostalgia.
“Matthew Looney” has risen from the dead, and a number of reasonably priced copies are available now.
One less, however, for the rest of you. A “very good condition” 1966 paperback, priced $15.43, is heading my way.
Maybe I’ll get it in time to read it before the 50-year knell sounds at 9:30 p.m. Saturday.
The moon over Jefferson County will be just shy of the full moon to come on July 24.
I want to be looking up at our orb, 238,900 miles away. I think I’ll wave, too.
After all, my old friend Matthew Looney lives there, and these days, maybe that’s where Neil Armstrong hangs out, too.
