Do you remember when Neil Armstrong walked on the moon? I do. It was July 20, 1969 and I was 10 years old.
My family was on our first real vacation. A month at Lake Hopatcong, New Jersey. Our car at the time was a Rambler Station Wagon and we had 11 passengers in that car! (You should see how may we fit in my Aunt Libby's Volkswagen Beetle.) In the station wagon were my parents, my 3 older brothers, each with a friend along, me and my 2 sisters, plus all our luggage, pillows, blankets, etc. We broke down at least 5 or 6 times on the way there. It's not that far away from where we lived in Brooklyn, but that first trip took forever, I thought we were crossing half the country. No air conditioning, which didn't matter because we never had air conditioning, but it was hot! I was in the back of the station wagon, surrounded by pillows and blankets, I'll never forget that ride. And the whole month we were up there my father had to take the long way everywhere as the car didn't do so well going up hills. We've nicknamed all cars that are "mechanically challenged" as "Bo Asch Specials". He had some beauties over the years.
There were four houses on a hill across the street from the lake and the 4 houses were rented by my family, my mom's sister, Aunt Libby, and her family, their brothers, Uncle Arthur and his family, and Uncle Richie and Aunt Kathy. It was so great, a wonderful vacation and all our family together. And even my brothers were better about leaving Brooklyn having their friends along. It was a great vacation.
Aunt Kathy and Uncle Richie didn't stay the full month, and another family rented that bungalow during the time Neil Armstrong walked on the moon. They had a TV! My father didn't let us bring a TV. We were renting this great house, across the street from the beach, and we were not going to be watching TV all day. We made friends with the people who moved into Aunt Kathy and Uncle Richie's bungalow real fast!
I remember being in that bungalow watching Neil Armstrong walk on the moon, one of those memories that stands out. Maybe because it was part of that first real vacation for our family. I don't know? Because only one year later, when Apollo 13 was in danger of not making it back home. The brave crew, James A. Lovell, Jack Swigert and Fred W. Haise, who I'm sorry to say, I only know their names because of the movie movie "Apollo 13". How can I not remember that?
As a kid, was it because I already watched Neil Armstrong walk on the moon, and, okay, what's next. Mars? Who cares if we're going to the moon again, there were only rocks found.
I don't think if I asked my young nieces and nephews what NASA is they would know. I will ask. But when we were kids it was science fiction coming true and I remember believing that going to Mars was next, maybe there was life there, I don't know, it just seemed like the next step and it was amazing, again science fiction coming true!
Now the wonder of science for kids is what they can do with computers, something I don't think we imagined at all when we were kids. I went to work with my brother Bobby once. I was probably around 14 or 15 and he worked 4p.m. to midnight or something like that, close to the Flat Iron Building in Manhattan. He worked in the computer room, maybe half the size of a football field with huge computers. His job was to take the used tapes out of the computer and replace them with big new reels of tape. I'm proud to say he didn't continue in that line of work, became of one New York's Bravest and is now retired.
I wasn't impressed by the computers, thought nothing of them.
My first exposure to computers was the WANG, way outdated now. That was about 1986 and then about a year later I was exposed to my first Apple. Not mine, but I got to play on it a bit. That impressed me!
This picture I made shows some of my first designs on an Apple! First time I used a mouse, didn't know what I was doing but I wanted more of this, I could see how special this was going to be, I never saw anything like it.
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Here I am, working at a big fancy firm financial firm, on a mini trading floor, created at first for the partners of the firm and then clients from the Forbes 500 list. Bruce Springsteen was one of our clients! Of course I still didn't get to meet him, but I did see his paperwork and signature, always so close!!!
I'm busting chops with my co workers as well as myself in these pictures. I had a perm in those days, and pulled the front of my hair off the front of my face, kinda like the Pebbles look from the Flintstones! My desk has a bowl of M&Ms, always filled up by my co-workers. And I've also got a rubber band by my hand, another thing I don't remember, but I'm guessing I was shooting rubber bands at my co-workers while working there. I don't do that anymore!!! How childish! Ha! I was also teased because I'm so short, no adjustable chairs for the secretaries in those days, I just couldn't sit higher, my feet wouldn't touch the floor!
But I was in awe of the Apple. I wanted one but it would be years before I would buy my own. I used computers at my jobs, Windows with Microsoft software and I loved that too, but I still remembered that Apple and though the computers I was using were very modern and could do so much, there was something about that Apple that intrigued me.
Kids today don't realize how many changes occurred right before they were born. My oldest niece at 30 grew up with VCRs, something that was new to me at 23 years old. Video games were played in arcades, not at home. My younger brother, I'm guessing here, had an Atari? I don't know, there's been so many changes with video games, I don't know the names of any of them anymore. But they don't know about Steve Jobs, Bill Gates and so many more geniuses who have created all this modern technology. They don't know who Neil Armstrong was and what he did. They know all the sports players' names and their stats, it's amazing! But walking on the moon probably wont sound like such a big deal to them, it's only what the next computer can do, cell phone, video games, virtual games. They'll walk on the moon virtually, Mars and Jupiter. A new science. A world I never imagined when I was their age. And look where we are, the world is nothing like what I imagined in my wildest dreams.
What wild dreams does this generation have? What will their future bring!
I hope peace! I think we all wished for that as kids and that hasn't changed and I hope it never does!
Share the full moon with me tonight, all together at 10:06 p.m. (EDT) watching the beautiful sky!
Bella Luna!!!
3 comments:
I had never heard about that family vacation! It sounded really fun, I can only imagine the antics that went on!
Bella Luna to you too, Tricia!! I'll be looking up and thinking how you reminded me about it! Thanks!!
Irene, I'll tell you some good ones when I talk to you. Even ask Aunt Debbie, she doesn't remember but she's been told lots of the stories. Her Chrissy and Doug were the little gang then.
And Kathy, I hope we were looking at the moon at the same time! Although I couldn't see it, I was looking up! I don't know what the weather was down your way, hope you saw it! Bella Luna!!!
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