Today is the 40th anniversary of the Lunar landing, and I have already heard Also Sprach Zarathustra three times. I’m going to count how many times I hear it today.
You know, I just can’t get over that Ralph Peters comment from last night. Beyond the fact that it is just sick, can you imagine what memeorandum would look like right now if a diarist at the Great Orange Satan or Ted Rall or Michael Moore had said something like that?
I blame Scott Beauchamp.
Face
One small step for man, one giant leap for collecting moonrocks and cool photos.
Anyone see the reports that NASA actually taped over the original video of the moon landing? As in, taping over a wedding video for a football game? Yowsers.
Rey
On this day 40 yrs ago, I was on vacation with my grandparents in Denver, CO. I remember being so upset about the fact that all over the teevee was this freakin’ moon landing. I just wanted to watch cartoons. Silly 5 yr old me.
Bill
Let’s all have a drink every time we hear it today, too!
Little Dreamer
From the way W was sounding during his presidency, we hadn’t gone there yet. Hmmmm! I thought I remembered watching that as a child, seated next to my eight year old playmate who had six toes on one foot.
SGEW
A few years back I discovered that a friend of mine had never seen 2001: A Space Odyssey (the finest film ever made, in my estimation). How terrible, I thought, and proceeded to force him to watch it forthwith.
He couldn’t accept the music – thought it was unbearably cheesy and overbearing. He had heard it so often, either in satire, spoof, or even honest homage, that it had entirely lost all its impact. Never mind that when Kubrick chose that piece in 1968 it was relatively obscure and made peoples brains explode with its awesomosity.
Sometimes I really hate pop culture. How many more people have seen or heard references to Kubrick’s films than have actually seen the original films themselves? Probably an order of magnitude or two.
Redshirt
Gosh, Kennedy talked funny. De-Cade? Who say’s “De-Cade?”
Also, what is “the other thing” Kennedy refers to when he is talking about going to the Moon in this “de-Cade”?
Steeplejack
TCM is showing a schedule of moon-related movies today. Mostly ’50s and ’60s junk, but at 8:00 p.m. EDT they’re showing A Trip to the Moon (1914), a short (under 15 minutes) film with awesome special effects (okay, awesome for 1914), followed by For All Mankind (1989), a hard-to-find documentary on the Apollo missions that is supposed to be good, and then (at 10:00 p.m. EDT) the Hollywooden sausage-fest The Right Stuff.
The Grand Panjandrum
The Lunar Recon Orbiter took some cool photos of 5 of the 6 lunar landing sites. You can see the photos here.
John Cole
@SGEW: I’m stealing the word awesomosity.
Daniel Koffler
Oh, you mean Ric Flair’s entrace music. Got it.
beltane
Today is my husband’s 40th birthday. Yes, he was born on the same day as the lunar landing. I’ve heard the story a few hundred times; now all of you get to hear it.
Steeplejack
@SGEW:
I agree with you, and it infests everything. “O Fortuna” is “that scary news music,” kids hate the Beatles’ music because its just grocery-store Muzak to them, and I regularly hear people snort at film effects in classic movies because they’ve been (over)used so much in comedies, TV ads, etc.
Woody
If you remember the name of the person with whom you were sleeping, either before, during, or after you listened to Neil Armstrong’s announcement from the Moon, you might be a Real Boomer!
In my case, her name was Rosie…
Bob In Pacifica
I was hanging out with the people that I went to Woodstock with a month later. The video was neat but I found the recitation a little weak at the time. You know, “What the fuck did he say? Is that corny or what?”
With humans on the moon everyone figured jetpacks and flying cars were just around the corner. Alas, technology did not bend to serve the masses.
JGabriel
As long as we’re revisiting the Moon landing, someone ought to post a link to this historic report: Holy Shit! Man Walks On Fucking Moon!
Don’t forget to check out the transcript: ‘The Eagle has landed. Jesus H. Christ, Houston. We’re on the fucking moon. Over.”
And while we’re on the subject of historic events, it probably wouldn’t hurt to remember another, more recent achievement in our society: Kobe Bryant Scores 25 In Holy Shit We Elected A Black President
Seems a little … weird … that it took us 39 years longer to elect a black president than it did for us to put someone on the moon.
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Incertus
@Daniel Koffler: Glad I didn’t have coffee in my mouth when I got to your comment.
Bob In Pacifica
Woody, it was either Betty or Glenna. Lots of things happening in my life that summer. I guess things were really booming.
JGabriel
Woody:
I was four. I remember complaining to my father about not being able to watch cartoons and wondering why we always had to watch his documentaries.
I didn’t really have a frame of reference for separating news from documentaries yet. And we watched a lot of Star Trek, so I don’t think I really understood that going to the moon was a big deal. Although I do remember it, so something must have clicked that this was a memorable event – probably my annoyance at the aforementioned lack of cartoon watching.
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Incertus
@Steeplejack: kids hate the Beatles’ music because its just grocery-store Muzak to them
It was deeply disturbing to me when I realized, not long ago, that to the current high school/college crowd, Michael Jackson and Madonna are the equivalent of Led Zeppelin and Pink Floyd to me at that age, at least in terms of cultural consciousness. Terrifying, even.
Napoleon
@Rey:
Rey said “I remember being so upset about the fact that all over the teevee was this freakin’ moon landing. I just wanted to watch cartoons. Silly 5 yr old me.”
I was 8 and the biggest fan of space travel. My mom refused to let me stay up to watch because it was after my bed time. I never forgave her for that one.
Geeno
@Woody:
a beagle mutt named Skipper
The Grand Panjandrum
Our Lady of Perpetual Outrage [speaking about Peters comments]:
Yikes! The Librul medias better be careful! Just in case they overuse the “hero card” … sigh … that ship has sailed, no? But I am shocked, shocked I tell you, that O’Reilly, Malkin et al don’t have an ambush style reporter hiding in the bushes outside Peters front door. Shocked I say! Shocked!
Any decent human being would not speculate as to why this young soldier ended up in the hands of the bad guys. Who knows when we will have the real story? How long did it take to get the real Tillman story? The Jessica Lynch story? This speculation just makes me ill.
MikeJ
18 year olds were born the year Nirvana released Nevermind.
Indylib
@Napoleon:
Yep that would be a hard one to forgive.
I was 2 during the first moon landing, so I have no memory of it. I do have fuzzy memories of at least one of the later Apollo missions, but I have no idea which one(s)
ice9
We are living in the future,
tell you how I know–
I read it in the papers
fifteen years ago.
We’re all driving rocket ships
and talking with our minds
wearing turquoise jewelry
and standing in soup lines.
OK, part right.
ice
cleek
kill me now
joe from Lowell
Oh, you mean Ric Flair’s entrace music. Got it.
Oh, you mean the rocket and the those space guyz from the early MTV ads.
Persia
@Steeplejack: Don’t forget “Ride of the Valkyries!”
Woodrowfan
Well I’m a boomer, but I was only 10 at the time so if anybody else was in bed with me at the time it was my little dachshund, Fritzie…
Woodrowfan
So why do so many of my (college) students were t-shirts with bands from my era on them? Pink Floyd, Aerosmith, Zeppelin? HEY KID! GET OFF MY CULTURAL ICONS!
MattF
I was travelling through Italy at the time. An Italian newspaper had a banner headline containing the first words said on the moon: “Contact Light On” .
gonzone
“Shorter” on Peter’s comment:
IOKIYAR.
Scott
Yikes! The Librul medias better be careful! Just in case they overuse the “hero card” … sigh … that ship has sailed, no? But I am shocked, shocked I tell you, that O’Reilly, Malkin et al don’t have an ambush style reporter hiding in the bushes outside Peters front door. Shocked I say! Shocked!
When the soldiers finally come home from Iraq, Malkin and Ralph Peters and the rest will be waiting at the airports to spit at them. This will be portrayed as the most patriotic thing ever, because those losar foggorts didn’t love Amurica enough to WIN FOR GEORGE.
Fwiffo
I hold this up as the exemplar of youtube comments.
Incertus
@MikeJ: And Cobain is their Jim Morrison. Scary, huh?
RedKitten
And technically, I’m old enough to be the mother of an 18-year-old.
Fuck.
ice9
A good time to reflect on the idea–and the conservative myth–of heroism. I have heard firsthand the stories of two decorated combat soldiers, and have read dozens more. Every story has consistent threads: confusion, instinct vs. training, fear, anger, luck, weary perseverence. Absent: anything remotely approaching the mythical notions of glory and heroism that conservatives so often offer as legends and myths for our nation to consider. It’s not like Crane’s “The Red Badge of Courage” wasn’t required reading at whatever Good Old Days Academy these people attended. Like Reagan, they can’t tell the difference between the movies they watched and the reality they created, safely, from a distance.
It bears repeating that bellicose manly rhetoric is inversely proportional to the likelihood that the speaker sat out a war or two because he had a big pimple on his ass, or maybe had “other priorities.”
Meanwhile, two candidates in a row–Gore and Kerry–volunteered and served in Vietnam with distinction yet lost, painted as soft.
oy.
ice
linda
when the story of the captured soldier first hit on saturday, msnbc’s jack jacobs commented on the psychological stress these young soldiers are under, and wondered how that played in this capture.
nice bit of empathy shown by peters. oh, that’s right… the reichwing doesn’t do empathy.
4tehlulz
@The Grand Panjandrum: These are ‘shopped. I can tell from the pixels and having seen many ‘shops in my time.
Poopyman
I had just turned 15 so, sadly, that was as far away as a walk on the moon.
As booming as ’68, but different.
Way different
Napoleon
@Incertus:
Incertus said: “It was deeply disturbing to me when I realized, not long ago, that to the current high school/college crowd, Michael Jackson and Madonna are the equivalent of Led Zeppelin and Pink Floyd to me at that age, at least in terms of cultural consciousness. Terrifying, even.”
To tie this back to the original subject of the thread the local NPR newsshow this morning mentioned that 40 years ago this evening Led Zeppelin was appearing here in Cleveland and they rushed from the venue after the show to go to someones house to watch the moon walk.
Poopyman
And technically, I’m old enough to be the grandfather of an 18 year old.
Fuckity fuck fuck!
ellaesther
@John Cole: I was just going to say the same thing…!
Poopyman
And while I’m whinging on about how so very terribly old I am, let us not forget the model for these campaigns, the campaign against B-24 pilot George McGovern by that stand-up politician, Richard Milhouse Nixon.
The Grand Panjandrum
@4tehlulz: Yes. I can also see that this looks very similar to the terrain around Area 51. The government uses the same soundstage for all space exploration videos. They keep the stock footage in the same vault as the bodies of the aliens from the Roswell landing.
Steeplejack
@Napoleon:
Epic mom fail!
Comrade Darkness
18 year olds were born the year Nirvana released Nevermind.
Stop that! It’s too early in the day to start drinking.
Punchy
@Poopyman: Damn I feel young after reading this. And I’m not young. Therein lies the rub…..
Fulcanelli
To The Wingnuts,
The lunatic is in the hall.
The lunatics are in my hall.
The paper holds their folded faces to the floor
And every day the paper boy brings more.
And if the cloud bursts, thunder in your ear
You shout and no one seems to hear.
And if the band you’re in starts playing different tunes
I’ll see you on the dark side of the moon.
– With Love, from the Liberal Media
JGabriel
cleek:
“Hope I die before I get old”?
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Poopyman
Glad to be of service, Punchy. Or something.
Actually, it just seems odd because I sure don’t feel old. But I do have to avoid looking in the mirror….
ellaesther
Here in Chicago, the ever-delightful Lin Brehmer (who is, apparently, my best friend in the world) played a track that was veritably suffused with awesomosity: a mash-up of “Rocket Man” with some of the radio conversation back and forth between Houston and the astronauts in the course of the landing. I just stood in front of the radio and cried. Manohman.
I also recently paid an insane amount of money ($27.95) to get a box of Space Food Sticks, which, it turns out, you have to be a little kid in the back of a small, green station wagon driving across the country to your grandparents house in order to fully enjoy. Something tells me that this crowd may know of what I speak.
Brick Oven Bill
Gore was a Senator’s son in Vietman, practicing journalism. Kerry’s service has been well-documented. Biden’s son is a lawyer making rules and regulations in some back room, punching his ticket in an honorable way. But in the relatively safe way that the political class sends their sons to war these days.
In contrast, Sarah Palin’s son is an enlisted man with a rifle, guarding high value targets on the front lines. This is one more reason that, beyond her gaffs, people have a sense of trust in Sarah Palin.
A Squirrel
@Incertus: Hey!
I carry no water for most pop culture-schlock, but I’d rather listen to any Nirvana album than any Doors stuff. Morrison was very over-rated.
Leave our generation’s only music icon that was worth a damn alone!
gnomedad
I grew up as a space program and Star Trek fanboy who lived for National Geographic space articles. I never guessed we’d be so earthbound 40 years later. Gravity sucks.
anonevent
@beltane: That’s actually interesting to me. I was born on the day the Apollo 12 mission landed on the moon, November 19th, though I tend to tell people that was the same day that Lincoln gave the Gettysburg Address.
Indylib
@ellaesther:
One word – Tang
Cain
@Little Dreamer:
From the way W was sounding during his presidency, we hadn’t gone there yet. Hmmmm! I thought I remembered watching that as a child, seated next to my eight year old playmate who had six toes on one foot.
Good thing it wasn’t on one of their hands. They’d have been hunted down by a revenge obsessed Spaniard.
cain
Dennis-SGMM
The day Neil Armstrong set foot on the moon I was serving in the Navy at a base in South Texas. The TV lounge of the barracks was packed with off-duty sailors. When Armstrong’s foot touched the moon’s surface the only comment was an awestruck “Fuck.”
Because every woman within a 200 mile radius was already wise to sailors I wasn’t sleeping with anyone.
JGabriel
Brick Oven Bill:
Kerry’s service was safe? BOB, go do a little research. Then go fuck yourself sideways.
.
Gordon, The Big Express Engine
Is it me, or does it seem like a lot of old fogies read this blog!
Lee
Waaay off topic but full of win.
(from Drudge)
The birfer crazy is full on in this clip.
100% crazy
ellaesther
@Indylib: Oh and what an excellent word it is, too.
JGabriel
Dennis-SGMM:
So sad. I hope you were lucky enough at least once in your career to make it to Manhattan during Fleet Week.
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David Hunt
One of the more depressing quotes I’ve ever come across:
“I always knew I’d live to see the first man to walk on the Moon. I never dreamed I’d live to see the last.”
–Jerry Pournelle
Elroy's Lunch
That summer I was a teenager living in Southeast Asia in a “neutral” country where there was some serious ordinance being dropped that no-one talked about. The American community had its own telephone system and we had a 2-digit number. No tv stations within at least 600 miles. I remember crowding around a black-and-white tv set at the compound and watching a feed of the landing during the early hours of July 21st. It was pretty impressive. The local Soviet and Chinese community seemed impressed too. The French, eh, not so much.
Oh, and the last movie I watched before leaving the US was “2001: A Space Odyssey”. Serious awesomosity to a 17-year old.
Dennis-SGMM
@JGabriel:
Nope. I went from South Texas to South Vietnam (CTF-116) at Binh Thuy, RVN. South Vietnam was more welcoming and had a better climate.
jacy
I was five, and all I remember was wondering why everybody had drug the lawn chairs and coolers into the living room. We had quite a housefull, if I remember correctly. Even the crazy hermit that lived next door — the one who always wore overalls — was there. I don’t think he had a television, which was probably why he got an invite.
Of course my S/O had not been born yet — a fact that he never allows me to forget. The moon landing is one of those bright imaginary lines that makes me old and him not-old.
R-Jud
@SGEW:
Fixed. Same as it ever was.
JenJen
@JGabriel: You know, years ago my Dad bought me “Our Dumb Century” for Christmas, and every year or so we drag it out again and laugh our asses off. :-)
JGabriel
Dennis-SGMM:
Given the tenor of the times, maybe New Yorkers were less welcoming to the military back then. These days, however, a lot people treat Fleet Week as a seven day long Dress To Get Laid party.
.
Ash Can
I was 11 and did stay up to watch the moonwalk live. When the lunar module landed earlier that day, it was announced during the Cubs-Phillies ballgame, at the ballpark (first year for Veterans’ Stadium, IIRC), and drew a big cheer. Dick Selma, who was something of a character, was pitching for the Cubs at the time. He called a conference at the mound, and we learned from the paper the following day that when the infielders got to the mound, he said to them something like, “Guys, we’re on the moon. Isn’t it amazing?” The ever-irascible Ron Santo said that he looked at Selma like he was crazy, then told him to just pitch the damn game. Spoilsport.
I get a chuckle out of the posters here about the pre-empting of cartoons for the moon reports. My “what? no cartoons?” moment came in 1963 when WGN pre-empted Garfield Goose to broadcast Martin Luther King’s “I Have a Dream” speech live from the steps of the Lincoln Memorial. I announced that I didn’t like this Martin Luther King fellow because he was on instead of my favorite program. My sensible and fair-minded mother assured me that it wasn’t Dr. King’s fault that WGN pre-empted Garfield Goose for his speech, and that Dr. King was in fact a good person who was a great help to a great many people. I was placated on Dr. King, but still not happy about missing Garfield Goose.
gnomedad
@Lee:
Jebus. Is this a country or a cult?
gbear
Punchy
@Lee: Holy fucking wow.
Eric U.
Let’s not forget Rove using McCain’s service against him in 2000. I believe that veterans have been spit on by people, and I also believe that the spitters were republicans. At some point the military is going to understand that the republicans are not their friends. I realized it when I was flying off to the middle east because GHWBush forgot to tell Saddam not to invade Kuwait.
I was 10 when the moon landing happened. I watched every minute of coverage that I could, but I slept through the actual landing.
ellaesther
@Ash Can: Dude, I had to miss the Brady Bunch for the Watergate hearings. I lost both my afternoon viewing schedule, AND my faith in representative government.
Ah, 1974: Where a child’s dreams went to die.
Scuffletuffle
I don’t care how many times or in how many places I hear “Ride of the Valkyries,” it still gives me shivers…except now they’re tinged with references to napalm in the morning… sigh…
JGabriel
@JenJen:
There’s so much great material in that book. I think my favorite headline, though, is still: Rosa Parks To Take Cab. ‘Screw This Bus Shit,’ Says Montgomery Alabama Commuter.
Although there is something vaguely reminiscent of Cheney in the headline: G. Gordon Liddy Eats Former Attorney General to Prevent Exposure of Watergate Secrets.
.
Tsulagi
Yeah, so much for Leave No Man Behind.
Believe I’ve come across writings by Peters before that were just plain loony or bordered on it. Seemed like the wingnut low-IQ Freedom Fries answer to someone like Bacevich.
Defcon guys like Peters should start up a W-Street inbred frat house. Complete with sandbox in the back yard to use for in-depth analysis.
JGabriel
@Elroy’s Lunch:
If only Armstrong’s first words had been a witty bon mot, something like Sacre Merde!, we could have impressed the French too.
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arguingwithsignposts
still here, surprisingly. tell me something awesome to keep my mind off my own epic fail. is this an open thread?
Elroy's Lunch
@JGabriel
LOL. Maybe they should have had some freeze-dried
FreedomFrench fries on hand.Ash Can
@ellaesther: OMG, Space Food Sticks. Now that I think back on them, yes, they were pretty nasty. But we kids thought they were the coolest, because they tasted fine to us and they were what the astronauts ate (poor bastards). It’s amazing the crazy shit kids will eat and like.
@jacy: LOL! My husband doesn’t remember the Vietnam War. I tell people I robbed the cradle.
Brachiator
@beltane:
This reminds me of a story about the actress Marilu Henner, who appeared on the tv series Taxi (from Wiki answers and a few other sides).
I remember years after the moon landing trying to put it into perspective. It marked a quiet shift in mankind’s perspective. For thousands of years, the moon was a strange object, inspiring myths, poetry, and superstition. When Armstrong stepped down upon the lunar surface, the moon became real estate.
Ironically enough, the soundtrack was a temporary music track. Kubrick originally intended to use a score by composer Alex North.
And I agree with you about the film’s awesomosity.
JGabriel
arguingwithsignposts:
Hey, AWSG. Not so much open as wandering.
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Cris
But how many times have you heard the entire composition of Also Sprach Zarathustra, all 30 minutes of it?
jacy
Space Food Sticks! Oh, man, we loved Space Food Sticks. I remember thinking if I ever ran away from home I could subsist on Space Food Sticks and Shasta Sparkling Punch and nothing else.
@arguingwithsignposts:
Not so much an open thread as an omigod, I’m so fucking old thread.
Hope you are feeling better.
Ash Can
@arguingwithsignposts: is this an open thread?
It’s a bunch of us old farts reminiscing.
How about you? Are you old enough to remember the first moonwalk? And the where-were-you-and-what-were-you-doing that went along with it?
JenJen
@JGabriel: A few other favorites:
– CRUST OF BREAD FOUND – Nation Thrilled by Discovery of Yeasty Morsel
– Pentagon Develops A-Bomb-Resistant Desk – Schoolchildren Now Safe from Atomic Blast
– FEDS GUN DOWN NIXON OUTSIDE ARIZONA MOTEL – FBI Agents Bring Down Fugitive President in Hail of Gunfire
– (re: Poppy Bush) “Bush Not Liar,” says Bush.
– Famine-Wreaked Ethiopia Makes Desperate Plea to U2 – “Please help us, Bono”
– MADONNA SHOCKS SEVEN
OK… now what the hell are these Space Sticks y’all are yapping about?
gnomedad
@Cris:
Not too long after 2001, Leonard Bernstein analyzed the piece in one of his Young People’s Concerts. Can’t find in on YouTube, alas.
arguingwithsignposts
@Ash Can:
no. i’m old enough to remember the challenger exposion, as far as national tragedies go.
there is a well. i’m at the bottom, and i can’t figure out how to get out of it. and even if i get out, i can’t see how to keep going once i’m out.
i’ve kept on living since last week – broken though i am – and yet i … don’t know. i just don’t know.
2th&nayle
@Dennis-SGMM: Let me guess…ah, Beeville?
ChrisB
@Daniel Koffler:
Perfect.
@RedKitten:
And I am the father of an 18 year old. Fuck is right.
I remember 3 things about that summer. The moon landing, the Mets catching up to the Cubs (Apollo 11 took off about a week after Jimmy Qualls broke up Tom Seaver’s “Imperfect Game”), and Bonnie and Clyde being shown on TV. I was 11 and all three were really cool.
Of course, the moon landing was during summer vacation but I remember that when earlier launches and splashdowns occurred during the school year our school would wheel a TV into our classroom so we could watch them.
“Splashdown.” Now there’s a word that probably did not exist before the 1960’s. It’s now the name of water parks and a video game even though the last one occurred when, several decades ago?
JackieBinAZ
slightly different memory. what i don’t remember is if they were actually good.
bago
There was TV in black and white? Not even at a 640X480 res? That must have been what, a 60k stream tops?
jacy
@ChrisB:
Sheesh – I’m the mother of a 20-year-old and a 4-year-old, so I’m screwed all the way around. (and the gamut of ages in between, so I get all level of kid hijinks)
And most horrifying: I remember shortly after the youngest was born I had to go down to my daughter’s high school office to sign something and the girl at the counter asked if he was my “grandbaby.” Sigh.
I can’t figure out if having small children when you’re older keeps you young or just makes you age that much faster….
PanAmerican
Classic NASA? I vaguely, sorta recall Apollo-Soyuz. My NASA is the Shuttle program whose highest points of public consciousness have been disasters.
The Cold War program was as much a triumph of propaganda as science and engineering.
There were 15 total manned Apollo capsule shots. Plus 16 in the Mercury and Gemini programs. There have been 126 manned Shuttle flights and 13 Soyuz runs with Yanks aboard.
What the likes of Pournelle, Krauthammer and Wolfe are calling for isn’t the human triumph of manned spaceflight. What they want is easily digested agitprop.
Neddie Jingo
Quick 60’s-kids quiz:
Do the Moon Walk like the astronauts!
Join the Space Gang and drink your Energy _____
What was the product so advertised? By the Archies, no less!
Utterly sovereign bubblegum…
Dennis-SGMM
@2th&nayle:
Good guess! Kingsville: VT-23. That you even knew Beeville is amazing.
JGabriel
@ellaesther:
Isn’t that the stuff that was made of spider eggs and made your stomach explode if you took aspirin with it and drank a coke?
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Patrick
I was in the tv room of a barracks outside of Yokahma, Japan when I watched the moon landing. I didn’t know exactly what the Japanese announcer was saying — but he was very excited, as were we all. It was a proud moment for those of us stationed overseas.
Steeplejack
I was on Okinawa, so the landing occurred for me on Monday afternoon, July 21. I missed it because I was at my summer job in the 2nd Logistics Command laundry, Machinato. “Laundry” doesn’t do it justice. We tended huge four-bay washing machines that could do 300 sheets in a load and flatbed “dryers” that could dry (and iron) a sheet in 20 seconds. It was like a combination of Norma Rae, Fritz Lang’s Metropolis and a Dickensian bobbin factory. Oh, yeah, 110° heat, 100 percent humidity–and I had swim-team practice before and after work. Good times. I felt sorry for the Okinawans for whom it was a full-time job rather than a summer make-work gig for high school kids.
Saw replays of the landing later, and it was just as amazing then.
My missing that was not as bad as my college roommate, who lived in downstate New York–Max Yasgur was his milkman!–and he didn’t go to Woodstock. What is beyond epic fail?
Gordon, The Big Express Engine
@JGabriel: Heh. That was how Mikey died, the kid from the Life cereal commercial. Pop Rocks and Coke – a lethal combination…
JGabriel
@jacy:
Sometimes you see wingers fretting about all the places kids can go and all the things they can see on the interenet, and how a good parent MUST install key logger and spying software.
But I always wonder how often having computer literate kids leads to blackmail. Like:
“Mom, can I go to the football team’s party on Thursday Night?”
“No.”
“I’ll tell Dad about that German spanking site you visited!”
(Pause.)
“I’ll drive you.”
.
JGabriel
Or just general smart-assedness, now that I think about it, like:
“Don’t you use that kind of language at the dinner table, young lady!”
“But what about that political site you go to, Ballon Juice? They talk about doing terrible things to kittens there, I looked it up on Google! That’s much worse than anything I ever said!
.
2th&nayle
@Dennis-SGMM: Oh, when you said south Texas, you meant SOUTH Texas. Kingsville huh, home of the Texas A & I, “Fightin’ Javelina’s” as I remember. Always like that name. I had some ‘airdale’ buds that were stationed at Beeville. Ate the best bowl of chili I ever had in a little joint just south of there. Makes my eyes water just thinkin’ ’bout it.
JenJen
@Lee: Oh My F’ing Gawd.
What’s that old Bowie-Trent Reznor song… “I’m Afraid of Americans.” Yeah, that’s it.
R. Porrofatto
We should bear in mind that our heroic, über-macho Lieutenant Colonel Blowhard Blood ‘n Guts has never actually been in combat of any kind, military combat that is. How he wrestles with his own manliness is another story.
Lee
Holy Crap! South Texas Represent!
My dad grew up in Pawnee, Texas (around Beeville).
Used to spend my summers down their with the relatives.
Original Lee
@arguingwithsignposts: We’re glad you’re still with us, and shouting down wells is something we’re good at here. I think the key for now is not to think too long-term and just keep plugging away as best you can. Someday soon the well won’t be so deep, and then suddenly you’ll realize you’re out and about again.
I was 7 for the moon landing, and my parents got me up out of bed to watch Neil Armstrong. The whole day, my mom kept calling me back inside to watch TV, and some of it was pretty cool, but most of it was pretty boring. I had a blue leatherette bookmark embossed with the NASA mission statement in gold that a friend of my godfather’s had given me. That same friend helped develop some of the food items for the astronauts and sometimes was able to pass samples along. I never liked Tang very much (the stuff the astronauts got tasted even worse, IIRC, because it contained less sugar), but the Space Food Sticks were pretty good to my taste buds at that age. The chewiness when they were fresh was very similar to fresh Tootsie Rolls, but they didn’t stick to your teeth, and they came in several flavors.
Dennis-SGMM
@2th&nayle:
Ah, memories. I worked mid-crew (midnight to 8AM) for most of the time I was at Kingsville. We’d get off, change and have breakfast at a little six table restaurant named The Sunrise Kitchen: chorizo and eggs, huevos rancheros, chili rellenos, whatever was on the breakfast menu that day, washed down with copious pitchers of cold beer. That was when I could work my ass off all night then eat and drink enough for two normal men.
Joseph Conrad put it best: “Youth”.
@Original Lee
Real South Texas hippies also know Alice-Orange Grove. It was about halfway between Kingsville and Beeville. They also know that Kleberg was a Dry County and the only place to get booze was at Ben Bolt, just across the county line.
Comrade Kevin
@JenJen: Another one I liked, from 1941, was:
WA- HEADLINE CONTINUED ON PAGE 2
Colette
@Dennis-SGMM: I was born in Kingsville. My mother says it was the worst place she ever lived, and the Navy took us to some pretty funky places. I haven’t been in Texas since I was five months old, so I can’t really comment from personal experience.
@ellaesther:
Susbtitute “big gold Ford wagon” and you’re me in the summer of 1970. The fake-chocolate-flavored ones were the best.
My parents let us stay up to watch the moon landing. I remember walking outside, either that night or the next, looking up at the moon and thinking, “Holy cow. There are people there.”
catclub
The best ‘to the moon’ phrase is:
Ralph Kramden’s (what a name!) “To the moon, Alice, to the moon.”
from the Honeymooners.
I am not old enough to remember it from the original, but still
know it is better than the right stuff version.
Plus, you kids get off my lawn. I prefer Bach.
2th&nayle
@Dennis-SGMM: You’re not going to believe it but I’ve heard of the ‘Sunrise Kitchen’ before, but I don’t remember ever eating there. Sounds like my kind of place. Thing I remember most was the mass quantities of white tail deer they had down there. Used to have a friend that lived in Alice after he separated from the AF. Went down there to visit a couple times. I think my favorite town in those parts was Victoria. Pretty town and the folks were real nice.
Dennis-SGMM
@Colette:
Wow, small world. My feelings about Kingsville are exemplified by the fact that after my two year assignment there was up my squadron was going to keep me for the rest of my hitch – another two years. The only way out was to volunteer to serve in-country in South Vietnam. At the time, the Navy was only taking volunteers who were unmarried. I took Vietnam without hesitation.
Little Dreamer
@Cain:
Inigo Montoya?
Prepare to die?
Haha! Thanks, I needed that.
Nylund
Well, if you get sick of the Richard Strauss song from 2001, try the Johann Strauss song
from the same movie.
My parents busted out their Lunar Receiving Laboratory badges back from their Apollo 11 days today. Gotta say its pretty cool to have not one, but two parents that were amongst the very first people ever to hold a moonrock (and to test them for signs of life, pathogens, etc).
Here is a very brief statement from my father regarding his earliest duties at NASA which alludes to his work on Apollo 11, which some moon nerds might find mildly interesting:
“We were inventing and critiquing various methods to detect signs of live elsewhere. Mostly that meant Mars and the moon. I was researching various chemical techniques for detecting molecules indicative of life. I had a small fast and sensitive technique to detect organic carbon in soil and rocks. I was selected to be on the preliminary examination team and worked in the Lunar Receiving Lab (LRL) in Houston. The experimental technique was not successful because the first samples were so highly contaminated by pump oil and handling procedures.”
(to over simplify: he was burning the rocks to test for carbon but all the machinery oil that had contaminated the samples burned as well, pretty much ruining his experiment).
Little Dreamer
@Lee:
It’s even worse on the comments on that youtube page. OMFG!
Derek
Awesome job they had, Nylund!
I just listened to streaming audio at the NASA website. They are replaying the entire mission from start to finish in Real Time, precisely 40 years after it happened.
Even though it happened four decades ago, I fist pumped YES when the Eagle had landed just thirty minutes ago… I couldn’t be there, but it sure felt like I was!
http://www.nasa.gov/externalflash/apollo11_radio/index.html
A printed timeline is here, ( http://history.nasa.gov/SP-4029/Apollo_11i_Timeline.htm ) so if you want to hear the famous “One Giant Leap quote”, it looks like that will happen at 8:56PM mountain time, with EVA starting around 8:30PM.
Little Dreamer
That’s really interesting since the lunar landing happened at a time of day that was kinda late morningish/early afternoon in New Jersey (if I’m remembering correctly – it certainly wasn’t night time).
Ummm, where are the blockquote and link buttons? Just wondering, I don’t see them on my screen, did we get rid of them?
ThymeZoneThePlumber
@Little Dreamer:
Oh lord, that is seriously funny and sad at the same time.
Speechless here.
ThymeZoneThePlumber
@Little Dreamer:
I know where I was and what I was doing at landing time, and I am pretty sure the time was around 1:15 in the afternoon Pacific Time. Let me see if I can find it ….
ThymeZoneThePlumber
@ThymeZoneThePlumber:
According to one site, it was
The Eagle Has Landed. At 4:17 PM Eastern Daylight Time
So I missed by two minutes. Dang!
Little Dreamer
@ThymeZoneThePlumber:
So where were you and what were you doing? I’m curious.
JGabriel
Little Dreamer:
Yes, John got rid of them, or maybe his webmistress got rid of them. They were fingered as the intrusion point for whoever hacked the site over the weekend.
.
Little Dreamer
@JGabriel:
Oh, I see. I’ve been so busy I didn’t even realize that the site had been hacked. Oh my!
ThymeZoneThePlumber
@Little Dreamer:
I was in San Francisco standing in a parking lot and listening to a car radio while the landing was going on.
Little Dreamer
@ThymeZoneThePlumber:
Poor you, at least I got to watch it on tv. ;)
gil mann
@arguingwithsignposts:
i’ve kept on living since last week – broken though i am – and yet i … don’t know. i just don’t know.
Well, I know a couple things. That tone of voice, for one. I know that real well. And I know you’re wallowing, because depression’s secret weapon is its dark allure, the way it whispers to you just give in.
Get. Fucking. Help. I don’t get the sense you’re gonna hurt yourself or anything, but this shit rewires your brain, so you can’t afford to just wait for it to blow over. Yeah, I know shrinks are usually terrrible at their jobs and kinda weird to boot, but that’s fine too, find a shitty one and hate him instead, give yourself a break from the inward-directedness.
I think I read you saying you’ve tried a couple drugs and they didn’t work, but that’s how they are. I think I hit paydirt on the fourth or fifth.
My name links to my e-mail if you wanna talk. I probably can’t “help” per se, but I function pretty well as a cautionary tale.
EDIT: I don’t think that worked. I’m at [email protected].
Origuy
@PanAmerican:
Actually, there were 11. Apollo 2 through 6 were canceled after Apollo 1 caught fire on the launch pad. Only 7 through 17 went up. I remember that clearly; Gus Grissom was from a little town south of where I grew up. I think the first mission I remember was Gemini 3; Grissom went up in that. They had a TV in the classroom.
PanAmerican
Apollo-Soyuz and three Apollo Applications Program (aka Skylab) missions.