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Seventeen


I had turned seventeen the month before. Aquarius / Let the Sunshine In by The Fifth Dimension was number two on Billboard’s list of hits. True Grit with John Wayne and Glen Campbell was showing at the movies, I’d never kissed a girl, and man landed on the moon. It was the summer prior to my senior year of high school, and all are vivid memories for me.

I can’t tell you the dates I first heard the song or saw the movie, but I remember exactly when and where I was when Neil Armstrong stepped onto the Lunar surface. It was nighttime and I was sitting on the front porch of our farmhouse in Winston County, Mississippi.

July was like it always was in Mississippi. Hot. Smothering hot. We had no air-conditioner, so we raised the windows in our den and watched the television while sitting outside on the front porch. I don’t remember if we had a color television set at that time, but it wouldn’t have mattered. The scene we watched was shown in black-and-white for the whole world to see.

We had been waiting and watching for what seemed like forever as the lunar lander descended toward the moon’s surface. Just before it landed Armstrong said, “We have an alarm.” I held my breath. Were they about to crash? The shoebox sized computer aboard the lander was able to clear the alarm and moments later history was made. Man landed on the moon.

It’s hard to believe the phone I carry with me today has a million times more computing power than that shoebox the crew had onboard the space module.

I don’t remember my family’s reaction on the porch that night. I’m certain it was one of awe. I just remember that my mind was racing. There were a couple men sitting on that big shinny orb up there in the sky. There really was a man in the moon… or men on the moon.

Through the grainy black-and-white picture, we saw the thirty-eight-year-old Neil Armstrong take his first step onto the surface and say the immortal ‘'That's one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind.”

The antenna that rose into the sky over our farmhouse that July night gave me a memory I will never forget. The fuzzy picture I watched has played over and over again in my mind throughout the past fifty years. I have trouble remembering any lines from True Grit and I struggle with the words and melody of The Fifth Dimension’s Let the Sunshine In but I’ll never forget Neil’s words from that night.

I’ve never been able to look at the moon the same way since that night on the front porch. The impossible became possible. A few weeks later I began my final year of high school.

Another of Armstrong’s many words of wisdom was, “I believe that every human has a finite number of heartbeats and I don’t intend to waste any of mine.” He did not, and I took note. Eventually, I did kiss a girl, and I am quite certain my heart was racing as much as Neil’s was that night he stepped foot on the moon.

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Rick Algood
July 10, 2019

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