Casual American hero* Buzz Aldrin celebrates a momentous anniversary.
July 20th, 1969 is a date that stands high in my life – it was the day that we, together as one people, achieved the greatest scientific and technological feat in human history. The specific role that Neil, Mike and I performed in the event was but one part of an immeasurably… pic.twitter.com/PolqssqYCO
— Dr. Buzz Aldrin (@TheRealBuzz)
Ye Aulde CF Chapeau most respecfully doffed to you, GEN Aldrin, as well as your brave colleagues LT Neil Armstrong and MAJ GEN Mike Collins. Our friend and fellow ReichWingNaziDeathBeast© blogger Ase wishes one and all a “Happy Peak Of Western Civilization Day,” which is precisely what it is.
Should anyone reading this wish to smugly admonish us in comments that the moon landing was “faked”—y’know, just like the 9/11 atrocities—and never actually took place other than on some jerry-rigged stage set, kindly keep that patent dumbassery to yourself; I assure you I am NOT interested, not even a teeny-tiny bit I ain’t. Should said deluded fool stubbornly persist nonetheless, I suggest you look up Buzz Aldrin and harangue him about your crackpot theory instead. Let us know how that works out for yer stupid ass, by all means.
* The modest title Cousin Regbo had the Navy Printing Office emblazon on his personal business cards back when he was flying A6 Intruders on combat-strike sorties against Iraq during the first Gulf War, along with the amusing credo “Will go low…but it’ll cost ya!” That card to this very day occupies a place of honor on my refrigerator door.
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We were camping, and they landed in the early afternoon, if I remember correctly.
Dad had his high tech AM radio, and a crowd of fellow campers gathered ’round.
I watched on the TeeWee at home, myself. I was all of nine years old then. As it happens, among the moon-landing Deniers derided above was my maternal grandma, who insisted right up to the day she died that the whole thing was faked.
In her long lifetime (age 98 when she finally passed), the woman had witnessed the progression from horse-and-buggy to jet airliner, from outhouse to indoor plumbing, from hand-operated well pumps and buckets to city water/sewer service, from tin-tub baths shared between a family of six to indoor showers with hot running water at the twist of a faucet knob. So I guess I can see how men walking on the moon shown on TV news broadcasts might be a bridge too far for her.
My Grandma was a believer, with two sons in the AF, one that was involved with NASA.
There are the uninformed, and then there are the true idiots that have no understanding of radio signals and the ability to tell where they come from. That ability extends to the soviets that knew the truth.
In my Gramma’s case, I think it was just that, after a long lifetime of stunning, near-superhuman advances, the moon-landing was simply too overwhelming for her. Since she unfailingly watched Walter Cronkite every evening, she was less uninformed than misinformed, deliberately and with malice aforethought. Not to mention outright deceived.
Same-same with my parents, all the adults in our neighborhood, my aunts, uncles, and other kinfolk too. In those days, as I’m sure you remember, pretty much EVERYBODY watched, enjoyed, and believed when Walter the Lying Red assured them “…and that’s the way it was.” I watched Cronkite with my folks as a kid myself, and never thought to question such a clearly honest journalist until many years later. We all know better now, don’t we? For many if not most of us, it was a bitter, painful lesson to have to learn.
I do wonder sometimes what either of my strong, wise old grandmothers–both women from sturdy, hardworking farm and later cotton-mill stock; both intelligent and literate, albeit with a bare modicum of formal schooling; both capable, fearless, adaptable, and wholly imperturbable; both lucid, mentally supple, and coherent until their final ten years robbed them of all that; both passing at age 98, within a few months of each other in fact–would make of the current situation if they were still around to see it.
Okay, okay, I gotta qualify that “wholly imperturbable” business, seeing as how it’s a bit short of the whole story. My Gramma Hendrix, see, passionately hated and feared thunderstorms, lightning especially. She flatly refused to answer the phone, take a shower–actually, she wouldn’t go into a bathroom for any reason, on account of lightning’s well-known ability to gain access to the interior of a house via its metal plumbing, after which unauthorized entry it would run deadly riot throughout the whole place, fatally electrocuting every man, woman, child, or beloved family pet therein–or leave her windows and doors open so much as a tiny crack.
All TVs, radios, kitchen/laundry room appliances, electric toothbrushes, and hair dryers were not only turned off for the duration but unplugged also. The stove and fridge were exempted from mandatory disconnection, owing to the insuperable quandary having to either squeeze behind or move them away from the wall single-handedly presented to a slim female well into her Golden Years–an exemption you could easily tell that she wasn’t altogether happy about being forced to make.
My Gramma Hubbard, on the other hand, absolutely LOVED herself a hand-to-God gullywasher of a summer storm, accompanied by shiver-me-timbers thunderclaps and danger-close lightning. So greatly did she enjoy the spectacular display of Ma Nature’s fury unleashed, in fact, that she’d drag her favorite dining-room chair out onto the back porch at the gust-front’s initial onset to sit back and relax, a broad, contented smile spread over her face, until the sharp reminder of Mankind’s powerless insignificance under Nature’s fearsome onslaught had passed by.
I feel the exact same way about it myself, actually. Since I was but a wee stripling it’s been my unwavering opinion that there’s simply no better sleeping-weather than a fierce, glass-cabinet-rattling t-boomer. To such a radical extent that fairly often, if a sotto-voce peal of thunder off in the far distance should come to mine ear, I’ll straightaway dive into the bed and tug the covers up to my chin in the company of my affrighted feline family, even if it’s way too early in the evening to have any real hope of falling asleep. No worries, though; stretching out in my jammies, eyes closed and lights off, to luxuriate in the soul-restoring wind, rain, ‘n’ thunder soundtrack playing just beyond my bedroom window is plenty good enough to satisfy me.
Needless to say, the cats do NOT share my enthusiasm for storms, not a bit of it.
SERENDIPITOUS ADDENDUM: Only just remembered a funny little quirk Gramma Hendrix and I had in common–neither of us ever fretted ourselves overmuch about herry-canes, tornadies, or flash floods, the last of which are in no wise rare occurrences around these h’yar parts. I can only suppose that, like me, dear old Gramma saw little or no point in getting alarmed about gargantuan atmospheric phenomena far beyond our poor power to influence, much less control, therefore can do not a single damned thing about. Well, aside from cringing and cowering, weeping unashamedly, perfervidly praying to our Heavenly Father for His mercy and deliverance, or just sitting back and taking things as they come.
I’d be pretty certain your Grandma was just an uninformed person, and suspicion about anything the government does is warranted.
I too love thunderstorms, especially those just off the coast. The lightning shows are absolutely fantastic. Sometimes the show is silent when it’s far enough away. Up until lightning struck just a few feet from me, knocking my stupid butt to the concrete, I had no fear and would often stand in the storm soaking up all its glory.
I’ve been through a small tornado in Alabama and on the beach when the remnants of a hurricane (tropical storm) passed across Cape Point (Hurricane Allison – 1995). I fished that storm at the storied Point, by myself. Winds blowing 60mph and gusting higher, the eye crossed over around 1am and it was dead calm and clear skies for about 30 minutes, then the wind picked back up and blew from the other direction. The Red Drum fishing in that stormy dark night was unbelievable. At one point my half pound chunk of mullet would produce a big one on every cast. My arms were sore for days. I left at 3am completely tuckered out and running on adrenaline and inspiration. And scared my wife nearly to death as it turns out. The storm was bad enough that it woke her and I just assumed she would sleep through it. She wasn’t sure if she should call the Coast Guard or the Hwy patrol to look for me….
Hurricane Allison
I knew Cronkite was a liar when he started claiming we had lost the Vietnam war, lost the Tet Offensive where we decimated the NV troops, obliterated them in fact. The NV were defeated not the US. Cronkite and the rest of the commies in the media gave the NV hope and caused the war to drag on. Cronkite is responsible for 20,000 deaths that occurred after 1968.
That was the beginning of my waking to the fact that the media was co-opted by the communists.
I was just thinking about this evening the other day. Going through old stuff from my Dads house includes my old JH and High school yearbooks and as I was thumbing through I saw a picture of the young lady that I watched the landing with. I have a hard time accepting that it was over 50 years ago 🙂
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AwgNayarr_8