Where Was I 40 Years Ago?

There are a lot of news reports and feature stories about the Apollo 11 moon landing on TV today. The moon landing occurred 40 years ago at 10:56pm EDT on July 20.

Back then, I was an eager 11-year-old who, like most kids my age, was fascinated by all things "space." I had a model LEM (Lunar Module), and an Apollo 11 patch that I wore on a jacket.

Our family had been following news of the launch of Apollo 11 and its subsequent lunar orbit, then the landing of the lunar module on the surface of the moon. My mother let my siblings and me stay up to watch Neil Armstrong bounce down the ladder onto the moon's surface and say his famous line, "one small step for [a] man, one giant leap for mankind."

I read an article in The Washington Post about how to take photographs from television, limiting the strobing that occurs on TV. I took a lot of black-and-white pictures from our black-and-white television set. I remember watching the fuzzy live television beamed back to us Earthlings, and marveling at it.

I got to stay up long enough to watch the President speak by phone to the astronauts, then reluctantly went to bed.

The next morning I got up and developed my film. I printed dozens of fuzzy black-and-white enlargements which I shared with family and friends. I brought them to my father who was in the hospital. He smiled and complimented me on my photo development skills.

Where were you 40 years ago?