Where were you July 20, 1969?

By John Patrick Conway, Jr.

At dinner tables all across America, usually while having coffee and dessert after supper, topics of conversation like where you were and what you were doing at some particular time in history are all too familiar. For those of my parents and grandparents generation the question was where they were and what they were doing the day Pearl Harbor was attacked on December 7, 1941 and/or the day President John Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas, TX on November 22, 1963. I imagine for today’s generation it’s all about the morning of September 11, 2001. But for those of my generation born in the mid 1960’s, it’s primarily where you were and what you were doing when Astronaut Neil Armstrong first set foot upon the moon July 20, 1969. A momentous event in history that stands out not because of a national tragedy, mind you, but rather because of a nation's combined effort in achieving a goal once they’ve set their mind to it. 

Over the years I’ve heard a few good stories on this very subject and there are a couple that stand out in my mind. But none more so than the ones I learned of from a bunch of guys I was hanging out with at Spadaro’s airport on Long Island in the summer of 1990. I was working as a Jump Pilot for a skydiving operation back then and there was a lull in operations due to winds in excess of those stipulated by federal regulations. While standing around with nothing to do while waiting for the winds to calm, an F-14 launching out of the near by Grumman-Calverton airport comes roaring by just west of us heading southbound over the Atlantic. Not surprisingly, the topic of conversation turned towards the Grumman Aerospace Corporation which, not long before that time, had been the largest private employer on Long Island. As I remember it, the conversation went from lamenting the painful demise of the company to how cool some of the machinery it cranked out over the years was…like that Tomcat that just flew by.

We talked about the company’s rich history of producing carrier based aircraft for the US Navy like the Wild Cats and Hell Cats of the Second World War, the F-9 Panther jet of the Korean War, and the early warning E-2 Hawkeye that were then still in production. But when I mentioned the Lunar Module of the Apollo Program that was designed and constructed by Grumman at their home in Bethpage, Long Island...well, that really got everyone fired up.

It didn’t take long before the subject of the space program took over and everyone is recalling where they were and what they where doing the day America served up a huge plate of Crow for the Soviet Union to eat in our unofficial but very real race to the moon. I was really surprised at how everyone in that group, that day, all of a sudden just lit up with excitement.

Of the two I recall off hand, one was a guy who stated that the day Neil Armstrong landed on the moon - he landed in jail for hitting a cop. As a result, the judge presiding over his case gave him a choice: Go into the military or go to prison. And so it was off to the Marines and a tour in Vietnam for him. Ironically, this very same fellow would later apply his military training to a career in law enforcement…as a cop. Go figure.

Another guy remembered the day Neil Armstrong first landed on the moon because it was the very same he finally landed his girlfriend for his first lay. It was also on this day that he became a father because he got his girlfriend pregnant as a result. So for him it was off to the wedding chapel to start a new life as a family man, and one in which he proudly proclaimed for the product of said dalliance to hear as he was then standing right next to him. I still smile when I think about those two standing there together with their arms folded across their chests, a father and son on a day of skydiving adventure, the father knowing full well that as he’s telling this story his boy is rolling his eyes and shaking his head with a half smile on his face because, even though he has heard it a million times before, he  understands how much his dad likes telling it and there’s no stopping him once he gets started.

As for me, my recollection of that day isn’t anywhere near as interesting. I was only a little more than three years and nine months old, but it’s the forth oldest memory I can recall (the first is a brief recollection of trying to stand in my fathers shoes as a toddler in Maryland; the second is a horse paddock in New Jersey where my mother explained to me that we were moving to Fresh Meadows, NY; the third being a neighbor in Fresh Meadows asking how old I was once having moved there and holding up three fingers). But it holds for me a special significance in that it was one of those rare happy times during a childhood where I do not remember there being much happiness, especially later on.

If I’m not mistaken my mother had taken my sister, my brother and myself to what we referred to back then as the “World’s Fair” due to the fact that it was the park that housed the very 1964-1965 event that my parents attended and for which my father actually had an official connection with as a junior executive for General Motors. Up to that point it was my favorite place on earth. It had this really cool merry-go-round near the entrance, a little zoo, wide open spaces to run around, reflecting pools, and the Unisphere. But not the least of which was the Hall of Science where NASA had left behind some boiler plate models of various rockets and spacecraft from its contribution to the Fair five years earlier.

I can to this day remember the very moment, and feel that sense of boundless excitement, when I first learned of Edwin “Buzz” Aldrin and Neil Armstrong’s successful landing of LEM Eagle upon the Sea of Tranquility. My family and I were standing on the Flushing bound side of the No.7 train’s 111th Street Station platform on its far eastern end heading back home from a day at the Park. All of a sudden everyone on the platform started cheering but none of us knew why. My mother asks someone near us and then, with a smile on her face, leans over to us kids to say that the Astronauts had just landed on the moon. I can still see her face at that very moment.

The rest of that day was spent back home watching the events on a Zenith Black & White television. It had a white plastic case that sat upon a gold aluminum stand on wheels and that also served as a magazine rack. It’s strange the things you remember, but I haven’t been able to stop thinking about that day since learning of my childhood heroes passing last night, and what a profound impact those events, and the emotions associated with them, had upon my life later on. Some seventeen years later I would leave home for college and flight training in pursuit of a life where I could live my dream of experiencing such joy on a daily basis.

Though I no longer work in aviation I am reminded of those times, and that day in particular, whenever I take the No.7 train as it passes the 111th Street Station on its way to Flushing.

I never did get to meet the Astronauts of Apollo 11. The one time that I thought I might try was back in 1999. On the 30th anniversary of their moon landing, Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin, and Michael Collins were to attend a function open to the public at the Smithsonian Air & Space Museum, but I was just two months into a new position at Salomon Smith Barney and I didn’t think it would go over too well my taking time off just to meet up with childhood heroes. I really wrestled with myself over the pluses and minuses of jumping a flight to Washington DC the night before and returning the next. In the end I chose to air on the side of caution. Bad choice.

On another but not completely unrelated note, there’s an excellent Australian movie that came out back in 2000 called The Dish staring Sam Neil and Patrick Warburton. Though the movie revolves around true events, the storyline is based upon the fictional recollections of one of the movies main characters, Cliff Buxton (Neil), on this particular day in history and the events leading up to it.

As a one-time director of the Parks Radio Telescope Observatory that, during the Apollo 11 mission (and others), was actually used to transmit video, audio, and data telemetry back to Houston, Buxton returns to his old charge on the 20th anniversary of this special occasion to reminisce. Shot on location in and around the actual site in New South Wales, Australia, the cinematography is just gorgeous. The elements of the story reach far and wide, and how they intertwine is both amusing and entertaining at the same time. I won't  go into any more details here and now, but suffice it to say that if you haven’t seen it yet then I highly recommend that you do so at least once (the DVD being accessible thru Netflix). It’s all at once funny, heartening, and exciting to watch IMHO. And if you’re a slide-rule geek like me, they even have a scene with one of those in it as well.

In closing this post I wish to extend my most heartfelt condolences to the family and friends of Neil Armstrong. In many ways he was fortunate to be in the right place, with the right credentials, at the right time in history. Most importantly, however, he saw and believed in John Kennedy's assertion that great nations and their people do great things. That we, America, are defined not only by what we accomplish but the manner in which we accomplish it. To that end he stepped forward (as did others), dedicating himself as an integral member of a team effort, and displaying before the bewildered eyes of all who watched back in July of 1969 the grace, skill, and steadfast bravery of Aviators the world over. In having done so he brought honor to this country of ours, and in a way that many may attempt to emulate but only a scant few will ever equal.

What I respect most about Neil Armstrong was not his technical acumen or his piloting skills, but rather the manner in which he carried himself. A retiring and humble soul, he never sought the fame and fortune that could very easily have been his. It just wasn't in his nature. Without ever having met the man, my take on his character was that he understood better than anyone else his own self-worth, both inside and outside of a cockpit, and his silence on the subject spoke volumes for his faith in his own abilities. My assumption here extends from comments made in what has to be the best book I ever read about the X-15 program, titled At The Edge Of Space. It was written by a NACA test pilot and engineer named Milt Thompson who worked along side Armstrong when they were both project test pilots on this very program, and later on in the Dyna-Soar program from which Armstrong resigned once he was selected for NASA's 1962 Class of Astronauts. His take on Armstrong was that of all the test pilots involved, he was the most intelligent and talented.

I also think that Neil Armstrong was not the type to be given to self delusion. I  believe he understood all to well that, where his accomplishments in aviation were concerned, he stood upon the shoulders of a nation. From his flight training in the US Navy, to his in-house training as a test pilot for the NACA, and then again his NASA Astronaut training and experience in both projects Gemini and Apollo...all paid for by and in benefit of the good old United States of America. For him, the opportunity to reach for the stars was compensation enough. He didn't have a damn thing in the world to prove. He knew how good he was, and he knew that others with any brains at all could very well recognize it when it was starring them square in the eye. Nothing more need be said. 

So to my childhood hero wherever you are, may your spirit find only following winds and fair weather cumulus. I only wish we could have met and shook hands once in this life. The next perhaps... 



Copyright August 26, 2012. All rights reserved.