Farewell, Neil Armstrong

I remember well the night of June 20, 1969, because I stood for a long time out on my deck gazing at the moon and marveling at the realization that there were three American men up there.

Only Neil Armstrong and Edwin Aldrin set foot on the moon, Armstrong first, of course. Michael Collins was the skipper of the Apollo 11 mission and stayed on board the whole time, in case, I presumed, some moon monster appeared and devoured the others and it would be his duty to scram out of there to come home and tell the story.

They didn’t have live television coverage for that mission or I would have been in the house watching it instead of out on the deck.

According to the computer, the astronauts had too much to do to film their landing but they did hook up the cameras to capture the first step on lunar soil. I suspect they made a lot of steps before the official first step.

There was a second moon landing only four months later, on Nov. 14, 1969, and TV and the press made such a big deal out of it they generated the recurring suspicion that we hadn’t landed on the moon at all, but filmed the whole thing back home. Sequences were filmed like a movie with actors dressed in space suits simulating the actions of - Charles Conrad and Alan Bean picking up rocks to bring back to earth. Skipper Richard Gordon stayed on board the ship, as Collins had done before him.

A couple of lines were superimposed on the screen that said ABC or CBS simulation, but not all the time.

Sometimes the lines just said LIVE VOICES OF ASTRONAUTS. The viewer could easily be fooled into believing he was watching the real thing.

Associated Press ran a photo of two actors in space suits working over a space ship to show how the astronauts stripped the Surveyor craft found on the moon. It said it was a simulated photo but all over this country there are people who insist they SAW astronauts walking on the moon, gathering rocks and stripping the Surveyor.

Skipper Gordon, who was from Poulsbo, gave one of the moon rocks to Governor Dan Evans, who had it on display in his office until one day it disappeared right after a bunch of students had paid him a visit. It was concluded, naturally, that one of the kids had taken it, but months later it was found under a davenport and shipped over to the state museum in the hope it would have a safer home there. I did get to hold it in my hand before they whisked it away. I hope it’s still there. I was afraid to call and ask.

Four more landings were made on the moon, 1-31-71, 7-26-71, 4-16-72 and 11-7-72. Apparently we’ve given up on going back since I read sometime back that President Obama has called a halt to such goings on and given NASA a new mission of familiarizing the world with the history and goodness of the Muslim faith. No kidding.

Anyway, I used to believe there is or was life on some other of the planets but I have veered more to the belief we were God’s only creation. But I commend to you H.G. Wells’ fascinating yarn, “First Men in the Moon.”

Two space travelers found the moon to be dry and lifeless but on hearing a boom, boom, boom beneath their feet they found a herd of moon men, little fellows with bulging eyes on the sides of their faces, jointed necks and skinny bodies covered with leathery material.

They lived below the surface because the temperature dropped to hundreds of degrees below zero at night.

The space travelers ate a red fungus that made them intoxicated and were captured by the moon men who, well, read it and find out.

– Adele

Adele Ferguson can be reached at P. 0. Box 69, Hansville, WA 98340