“Tranquility Base, Houston - The Eagle has Landed.”
Ray San Fratello
Posted: 07.20.2009 / 7:35 AM PDT
I remember vividly July 20, 1969. It was a beautiful Sunday in Batavia, (upstate) NY. My dad, who was a space exploration fanatic, was glued to the TV most of the day. I sat down only as I heard that the lunar module was getting close to landing. I recall being a bit antsy as my sister and I were meeting friends at a local restaurant/tavern called Gentner’s at 5 PM and kept looking at the clock. I thought my dad would have a stroke as one of the astronauts noted they were almost out of fuel - very tense moment - then the next thing heard was Neal Armstrong saying,”…The Eagle has landed.” It was a surreal moment, almost like a movie. My dad was ecstatic; we headed for the bar.
I remember having a great time out, several tables of friends sharing some beers and talking about getting ready to head back to college or preparing to go for the first time. Several friends spoke about planning to attend a rock concert planned downstate in a month. I knew nothing about it and didn’t care too much. I wish in hindsight that I would have gone to what has become the mother of all mythical concerts - Woodstock.
Later that night, and little by little, the entire place fixated on the TV screen as we watched Neal Armstrong step onto the moon’s surface with those grainy but nonetheless spectacular live pictures from the moon - “That’s one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind.” I thought of our slain young President John F Kennedy urging the country on in the early 60s about putting a man on the moon before the end of the decade, and there it was with a little more than five months left to the 60s, the dream come true. Could we ever have that kind of faith and commitment again here in the US?
About midnight, when everyone began heading for home, I made a point to check out the moon in the midsummer night sky, and for the first time it really hit me that there were human beings sleeping up there tonight. Simply amazing and awe inspiring.
As I think about this today 40 years later I recall my dad having said that due to something with the moon’s atmosphere that the astronauts’ foot prints would remain there forever, their “feat” sealed in time. Now I have no idea if this is true, and my dad has been gone now some 14 years, but his passion for the adventure of space exploration at least rubbed off on me a little. Even if those footprints are buried in moon dust, my dad’s words are still with me as is that magic night in a local tavern literally watching the TWO men bouncing “in the moon.”
Living here now in Clermont, Florida, every time I look east to see a space shuttle rise above the Orlando skyline, I think for a minute of my dad playing with his beloved rockets and wrapping away his newspapers and magazines for posterity and I think of all the people who worked through the decades and who made it all possible. I say a short prayer of thanks for it all. What new frontiers beg our engagement, both up there and here?
