My Dad had me write a letter to NASA to get information about the space program. Few weeks later I received a package in the mail with information and posters. On one side of the poster was a picture of our solar system and on the other were the plans on how to send a man to the moon complete with how a Saturn V rocket would do that. The poster was on the wall of my bedroom for years. 

By the time I figured out what was going on the Mercury program was canceled and the Apollo was well under way. We didn't have a TV so we had to go to the neighbors to watch the launches. I was bummed as a child because my Mom refused to let the evil boob tube in our house. It doesn't it matter because I spent a lot afternoons at Chad's house watching reruns of Batman and Gilligans Island. For Christmas one year I got a three foot Saturn V rocket which all the stages came a part like the real thing. I had endless hours of fun planning missions to the moon and pretending to be one of those mission controllers that sat behind those little TV monitors appearing to do nothing.

For the moon shot launch we went to Chad's house. But for the landing we went to the Flaratery's. They were a family the went to the same church that we did except their children went to public school and we went to Catholic school. When our parents wanted to do things and there wasnít a sitter available, we got sent to their house. We knew about what time the landing was happening and spent a good part of the day glued to the T V getting the reports and running around the yard and looking at the moon through binoculars. We would lie and say "I see em don't you?" The moon was high in the afternoon sky and about three quarters full. I will never forget how it looked that day in the sky.

At the time of the landing we had all been called back in the house. We thought it was going to happen right then but it was still twenty minutes away. We squirmier with anticipation of the coming event. We had to listen to the commentators tell what was going to happen, but we already knew that. I hated those cheep animation's that showed the coming events. I guess they had to fill the time with something. I liked it when they would patch the audio of the astronauts to the TV. I couldn't sit still at one point my Dad threatened to whack me across the head if I didn't shut up and keep still.

We all cheered at the time and heard Neil Armstrong in the lunar module say "Tranquillity base the Eagle has landed". This was the biggest event of my life and I couldn't help but hide my excitement. After they landed it seemed like nothing was going on. President Nixon called from the White House and I wanted to know why we couldn't do that. At that point my Dad whacked across the back of the head. When they finally got to walk on the moon my older brother kept on saying if there was even a pin hole in their space suits they would die instantly. That scared me. My brother also taunted me my telling me that if we were on the moon I'd would weigh the same as a bag of sugar and he would be able to kick me a mile.

As the evening wore on the kids were losing interest with the slow pace of events. After the moon walk we reluctantly went home to return the next day for another moon walk, the lift off and the docking with the command module.

I've never lost interest in space. The only other real excitement of the Apollo program was the moon buggy in '71 and the Apollo 13 mission. After that I was still into it during '75 Apollo/Soviet docking, and most of all the falling Skylab in '79 which fell our of the sky the day I lost my virginity. The public interest in the space program peeked with the launching of the space shuttle in 1980. I think that it's incredible that I can get on my computer up to couple of wires and see pictures form space not more than minutes old.