I realize the answer likely coming from about 50% here is simply "I wasn't". It is probably 75% at most discussion sites about the internet.
But my story is rail related of sorts. I was 27 (going on 28) and had returned to Univ of Illinois to take care of unfinished business (no secret: I dropped out, went into service, returned and graduated). Owing to a previously planned railfan weekend with a fellow Illini (younger brother of a contemporary of mine). He, Don, rode the IC down from Chi Friday July 18 on The Louisiane. That night he stayed in his "animal house' (needless to say I never reactivated at mine), next AM Sat July 19, we drove in my auto, a VW, to St Louis and parked it under the Union Station shed. From there we rode the MP to Jefferson City, which at that time still offered prepared on board food in a Diner Coach. I can recall staying at a downtown Holiday Inn and looking at the moon wondering just what was going to happen tomorrow? Needless to say Don held similar thoughts. Sunday July 20, we had returned on The Mule's predecessor to Union Station to hear a report of "The Eagle has Landed"; cheers were heard. As planned, Don was going to drive my auto (funny how I'm not quite so generous with my latter day 'rides') to Bloomington where he would board to ride home, and I would drive back to Champaign and Monday classes. He took about an hour head start considering how the GM&O was known for "scorching ballast'.
The GM&O Parlor Obs provided great views and the GM&O Diner was "exceptional" considering a 275 mile run. At Bloomington, we exchanged car keys and a report (he had the radio, I didn't) that nothing had happened yet. I got back to Champaign and over to the Illini Union in time to watch the "One Small Step...". Considering this was the era of student riots "power to the people f^&* the Pigs" (and I a Viet Nam vet amongst it all), it was heartening to hear the entire room erupt in cheers (might almost have been mistaken for a Young Republican rally).
Somehow that night I reflected 'we're gonna make it...". While I still await, I'm confident I'll have a monment when today I'll know "we're gonna make it".
Posts: 9977 | From: Clarendon Hills, IL USA (BNSF Chicago Sub MP 18.71) | Registered: Apr 2002
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I was on the My Tho river. The moon landing went unnoticed by me as did the event on Yasgur's farm a month later.
Posts: 229 | From: Long Beach CA | Registered: Jan 2007
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I was staying at an inexpensive hotel in Mexico City. The name escapes me at the moment and I'm sure it is long gone. I watched on a black and white TV in the lobby and I'm not sure that it was a live feed.
Frank in sunny and hot SBA
Posts: 2160 | From: Santa Barbara, CA, USA | Registered: Oct 2003
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Well if it really happened and we all know that NASA "lost" the film evidence. I would have been in 4th grade and watched the "preported" moon landing from home.
By the way the first sentence is a JUST KIDDIN or is it?;}
-------------------- Paul E Larson Posts: 34 | From: Camillus NY USA | Registered: Jul 2003
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I was in basic training, one week left. It was announced to us, but I did not see it until watching it being replayed sometime after finishing AIT.
Forty years later, and we have not gone any further and have no presence of any kind on the moon. You would have never made anybody believe it at the time. We should have had people to the limits of the solar system by now, colonies, or at least scientific stations on the moon, mars, and possibly some of the moons of Jupiter. Not having done so should be a crime.
Posts: 2808 | From: Olive Branch MS | Registered: Nov 2002
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1969 was a big year for me. My bride of 6 months and I were watching on a small TV in our rental townhouse in Baltimore. I was only 5 months into my railroad career - and yes my in-laws had been a little concerned that their daughter was marrying an 'easterner' without a job.
Posts: 2397 | From: Camden, SC | Registered: Mar 2006
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I was living in a small apartment in Laurelton, Queens, NYC with my wife and 1-1/2 yr. old son. At the time, I was not long out of the USAF and working as a technical writer for a company on Long Island that was a subcontractor of Grumman, the Bethpage firm that built the LEM (Lunar Expedition Module) that landed on the moon. I didn't, however, work on the manuals for the LEM but worked on manuals for the OV-1 Mohawk series aircraft that saw heavy use for the Army in Nam.
-------------------- Ocala Mike Posts: 1530 | From: Ocala, FL | Registered: Dec 2006
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I was working the evening shift at UCLA Hospital and didn't know about it or see it until I got home at midnight. Can't believe we never made it back.
-------------------- Vicki in usually sunny Southern California Posts: 951 | From: Redondo Beach, CA | Registered: Aug 2006
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I was celebrating my 24th birthday and it is all a fuzzy memory. I had an excellent time.
Posts: 139 | From: myrtle creek oregon | Registered: Jul 2006
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Six years old, 9722 Southport, Houston Texas. My father was an engineer for Singer-Link simulation, which built the LM simulator. I went to bed early because the EVA was originally supposed to be about midnight, Houston time; when they moved it up into prime time my parents woke me up. I really couldn't make much out of that grainy, ghostly black and white footage, but I knew my parents were all excited and that "this was it". A great day for all concerned.
-------------------- --------Eric H. Bowen
Stop by my website: Streamliner Schedules - Historic timetables of the great trains of the past! Posts: 413 | From: Houston, Texas | Registered: Mar 2006
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I was in my flat in Berne, Switzerland (enjoying my first overseas posting at the British Embassy there) and watching the events avidly on a B&W TV. It is one of the few televisual events I can recall from the '60s - the assassination of JFK and the Aberfan disaster being others that readily come to mind.
Posts: 211 | From: Norfolk England | Registered: Sep 2007
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quote:Originally posted by sbalax: Now that I think about it, was the feed from the moon in color?
Not on Apollo 11 that was still black and white. Apollo 12 was the first colour feed but it only lasted for about two minutes as either Pete Conrad or Alan Bean (neither owned up!) pointed the camera at the sun and burned out the equivalent of its retina.
I was in junior school at the time of Apollo 11, and allowed to stay up for the landing but I didn't see the 1st moonwalk live as it happened at about 4.00 am our time (but the reruns were on all through the day).
The 40th anniversary has had a lot of coverage in Europe and while celebrating the wonderful achievements of Armstrong, Aldrin and Collins let's not forget those on Apollo 1 who made the ultimate sacrifice in the pursuit of their dreams - Ed White, Roger Chaffee and especially Virgil "Gus" Grissom who would probably have got the first moon landing himself had he lived - and of course Walter Kronkite, who oversaw so much of it and was known to many of us across the pond.
Posts: 395 | From: england | Registered: Sep 2002
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My husband, three children and I watched on the TV in our family room.I got Walter Cronkite's comments on tape so we could listen to it again.
Posts: 1577 | From: virginia | Registered: Jun 2005
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quote:Originally posted by Stephen W: It is one of the few televisual events I can recall from the '60s - the assassination of JFK and the Aberfan disaster being others that readily come to mind.
I was living only about 20 miles from Aberfan at the time and just the mention of the name still sends a shiver throughout the region.
For those unfamiliar or too young to remember the incident Aberfan is a small town in the former coalfield area of South Wales. One morning in the autumn of 1966 an artificial mountain of mining waste crashed down a hillside after a week of torrential rain and buried the local kindergarten and elementary schools just after school had started.
116 children and 28 adults perished, and they are buried in a mass grave overlooking the towm. I once had cause to visit Aberfan about 20 years ago and even though the temperature was in the 70s it still felt cold.
Posts: 395 | From: england | Registered: Sep 2002
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I was working for the summer at Canyon Village in Yellowstone National Park in 1969. The mgt allowed several of us who were working to take a short break and watch the moon landing on TV, so we all went downstairs to our recreation hall, and all crowded around a small black-and-white television which was about the size of a computer screen (leave alone the TV reception in the mountains during that time!!) It was quite an event for the 50 or 60 of us who were able to watch it on TV. I don't remember what time of day that would have been in the Mountain Time Zone -- it seems to me it was in the afternoon, but I could be wrong.
I was attending college at DePauw University at that time.
And to keep this on a "train" topic, I rode out and back to Yellowstone from Chicago on the NP North Coast Ltd.
Posts: 2428 | From: Grayling, MI | Registered: Mar 2002
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I was 13. We were living in Canoga Park, California at the time and watched it on a B/W TV.
Train Lady, you have something fantastic, for NASA has long since edited every one of Neil Armstrong's comments to what we hear now.
IIRC the original words were "...one small step for a man, uhhhh.... one giant..."
-------------------- The City of Saint Louis (UP, 1967) is still my standard for passenger operations Posts: 1404 | Registered: Oct 2001
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I was in Venice,Italy. We were watching it on television. It was a warm, humid day. The Italians were just as enthused as the Americans. It was definitely a worldwide event.
Posts: 498 | From: New Hope, PA, USA | Registered: Jan 2003
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At our rented home in Georgetown, KY watching it on CBSI with my schoolteacher mother.
I had just completed the 1st grade. I remember that Gulf Oil offered a commemorative book complete with a cardboard cutout model of the lunar module shortly thereafter. It was just a couple of dollars with premium fillup - I had to have one!
-------------------- David Pressley
Advocating for passenger trains since 1973!
Climbing toward 5,000 posts like the Southwest Chief ascending Raton Pass. Cautiously, not nearly as fast as in the old days, and hoping to avoid premature reroutes. Posts: 4203 | From: Western North Carolina | Registered: Feb 2004
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"That's one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind."
NASA wished that he had said "That's one small step for a man, one giant leap for mankind."
Unfortunately, there are no retakes when you're the first man to set foot on the moon.
Posts: 1530 | From: Ocala, FL | Registered: Dec 2006
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Pullman Co, I haven't heard them many years mainly beause the recorder doesn't work at the moment. In those days it was tape to tape on a reel , cassettes weren't to be had yet. if they were we didn't haave one. being a pack rat we also have stashed somewhere the newspaper article about it. along with the Kennedy assasination,The russion revolution of 1917? and articles from the Mexican border wars)( both family hand me downs)and a few other odds and ends. Speaking of which I had called Amtrak some years ago and complained that there were no route guides on the CL. They sent me route guides of most of the other trains as well as CL. These are the old ones with much more info than the present ones.Too bad they changed them. I had many good memories while reading them last night
Posts: 1577 | From: virginia | Registered: Jun 2005
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That special day was a Sunday, and I was celebrating my 10th birthday (born July 20th, 1959) having a ball and playing, not unlike I was this past Monday July 20th, 2009 celebrating my birthday again, this time the Big #50. In July 1969 I lived in Hattiesburg, Mississippi, not knowing that in less than a month we would be in the center of the devastating Hurricane Camille.
Posts: 497 | From: Clarksburg, West Virginia | Registered: Oct 2003
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I was a navy corpsman running the Far East Mortuary at the Naval Hospital in Yokosuka, Japan. My wife and I stayed in Yokosuka that evening went to the Ginza looking for a tv in a store window. So were hundreds of others. We did find one and we were with mostly Japanese watching the event. What I remember most was how excited the Japanese were for the US to be able to pull this off. Many of them would kindly bow to us Americans. It was a great feeling. By the way, twelve astronauts have walked on the moon, the last in 1972.
July 20, 1969: Neil Armstrong and Edwin "Buzz" Aldrin
Nov. 19, 1969: Charles (Pete) Conrad and Alan Bean
Feb. 5, 1971: Alan Shepard and Edgar Mitchell
July 30, 1971: James Irwin and David Scott
Apr. 21-23, 1972: Charles Duke and John Young
Dec. 11-13, 1972: Harrison Schmitt and Eugene Cernan the moon.
Joe
Posts: 85 | From: Finger Lakes Region of NY | Registered: Jun 2008
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quote:Originally posted by dilly: I was standing, with hundreds of other shaggy-haired denizens of New York City, in the middle of the Sheep Meadow in Central Park.
Large projection screens had been set up for the event. As I recall, I watched the moon landing whilst under the influence of two tabs of mescaline.
I found out later that the images beamed from the moon were in black and white. But I definitely experienced it all in living color.
Far out, dilly! You must be in my age group to have had that experience! My own reckonings of that day involved ppl around me, who were steeped in such botanicals and psychoactives as well...I still remember the grainy B and W images...but that whole year of 1968 will have to go down as one of the most pivotal in US history. The pop music of the era still gets played by me on a regular basis. Big Doors fan, you see? And people are still strange, as Morrison told us...
Posts: 588 | From: East San Diego County, CA | Registered: Oct 2004
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Attached is a story about the landing back home of Apollo 11. Wes is a fraternity brother we still see a couple times a year. Of course he is hounded unmercifully by his friends for his 10 minutes of fame.
Gist: NASA afterward tried to sneak that "a" in there but the press corps heard what it heard.
Posts: 2236 | From: Evanston, Ill. and Ontonagon, Mich. | Registered: Feb 2007
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In Santa Ana CA - 27 and awaiting birth of 1st child - now a 40 year old shyster (um - lawyer :-). Took a photo of the TV screen when spepping onto the surface, but glare makes pic just a tv with a blurred image - and really wasn't much of a railfan in those days other than chasing down the old PE system.
Posts: 114 | From: pismo beach CA | Registered: Jul 2003
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I was at Camp Kent in Kent, CT. I was nine years old. It was a big event. They brought us to the auditorium. The staff set up TV's. We watched until well past curfew. I didn't understand all the ramifications of the achievement. I just knew it was "neat-o" and very important.
When I visited The Smithsonian some years later I couldn't believe how small the space capsules were.
-------------------- Everybody has to believe in something. I believe I'll take the train! Posts: 230 | From: Ithaca, New York | Registered: May 2009
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I was about to enter high school in Miami. In those days high school started in 10th grade down there. The moon landing was a great event as were the subsequent ones. I was fortunate enough to meet Wernher von Braun, designer of the Saturn V rocket, on the Florida Special in 1971 as he headed to an Apollo launch. Years later I met Jim Irwin of Apollo 15 who now is deceased. And 2 years ago my son was judged by Harrison "Jack" Schmitt of Apollo 17 at the International Science & Engineering Fair in Albuquerque. That was quite a converstaion topic as we returned home on the SW Chief.
Posts: 561 | Registered: Jul 2003
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I had an amazing trip on the Sunset Ltd just a few months before Katrina and at dinner one night was a retired engineer who worked at the Marshall Space centre and had a photo of himself with Werner von Braun; a lady who used to work at NASA; a USAF Colonel who'd met Chuck Yeager (1st to break the sound barrier) and a doctor who'd performed cataract operations on both parents of Apollo 7 astronaut Walt Cunningham!
I've visited Jim Irwin's grave at Arlington. He is buried next to another Apollo 7 astronaut Donn Eisele. Irwin's fellow Apollo 15 companion Dave Scott was in the news in the UK a few years ago as he was dating a well-known BBC television newsreader.
Posts: 395 | From: england | Registered: Sep 2002
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