My man Neil!

Let’s see. In about thirty minutes we’ll be at the precise 40th anniversary moment when Neil Armstrong became the first human being to set foot on another heavenly body. Oh, what a night that was for humanity.

I was 19 in the summer of 1969 and worked at Rike’s warehouse on old Miami Boulevard West in Dayton. Remember Warehouse Sales? Where lots of good stuff goes on super special? Perhaps Rike’s didn’t originate the concept, but they surely perfected it. I was an Extra that summer who drove a fork lift, unloaded trucks and train cars, worked Will Call, and did just about anything anybody in a tie asked me to do. It was one of the best jobs I ever had.

July 20 was a Sunday night in 1969. I had promised to attend a church event in Cincinnati: a Cursillo closing. You know, when tons of people who already made the retreat show up in solidarity for the newbies? I really wanted to stay home and watch the moon history on television, but I felt responsibility to Alvin, my Cursillo sponsor and buddy from work, who I had promised. He drove and promised to get me someplace that night to see the landing.

Alvin got me someplace, alright. It was some restaurant at the Paddock Road exit off I-75 in Cincinnati. As I recall, the place was pretty crowded, everybody watching the monitor mounted high on the wall. Odd, I can’t remember if we were tuned into Uncle Walter on CBS or another network. All I really remember was how lousy the picture from the moon was. Shoot, I thought, we could get a man on the moon but we couldn’t get a better picture? So it was. I was elated, nonetheless.

I’m a space junky. Got that way listening to Al Shepherd’s and Gus Grissom’s suborbitals in 1961 on the school public address system when I was 11. Then one year later when John Glenn became the first American to orbit -- and he was an Ohioan like Orville Wright -- I was beside myself with pride and hero worship. I came to conclude that astronauts were the modern manifestation of the great American archetype, the independent and self-reliant cowboy. Cool!

We need heroes. John Glenn and Neil Armstrong, and the host of NASA pilots and mission specialists, fit that bill. Still, today, I bet few people paid attention that two astronauts put in a full day walking in space, doing some hard work that will make the International Space Station a more complete habitat and research facility. Did you know it was Dave Wolf and Tom Marshburn working in space today, making their own kind of history?

I’m a Trekkie, too. Not a colorful one who goes to conventions dressed as a Klingon, but just a guy from the 60s who’d love to see a Federation where lots of different types of people do, indeed, try to get along. There’s still trouble, to be sure, but money and opportunity aren’t the issue anymore. All you have to do is try hard and opportunity will find you. And the good guys can win.

I’d like to think I learned something about hard work and adventure from NASA about that when I was 19. I know I learned something from Star Trek.

Today’s elder idea: That's one small step for [a] man, one giant leap for mankind.

Neil Armstrong

US astronaut and American hero

2:56 UTC July 21, 1969

10:56 pm EST, Sunday, July 20, 1969

in Cincinnati