Apollo 11 memories

We asked for your memories of the Apollo 11 mission. Here are some of your responses.

› Sarah Lambert: My memories of the moon landing are vivid. My husband and I lived and worked in Chile at the time. We did not have a television set, so, we stood in the town square with other residents to watch the landing on several televisions that a store had placed on its balcony. It was awesome to watch the landing, and we felt proud to be Americans. After our national anthem was played, the crowd burst into applause. It was surreal watching the moon landing on a TV screen from the bottom of the globe and looking into the sky seeing the moon as well.

› George Skonberg: I was a teenager (17) on summer vacation with my family. We had set up a rented pop-up camper at Fort Pickens State Park in Pensacola, Florida. That afternoon we had spent touring Naval Air Station Pensacola, the birthplace of naval aviation where Neil Armstrong and many astronauts had begun their flying careers. Five years later, I would begin my own journey there to earn my naval aviator wings. That evening my brother and I strung an extension cord through the trees and hooked up a portable black-and-white TV, complete with rabbit ear antenna adorned with aluminum foil. We sat outside, under the stars, watching on a grainy screen as Neil Armstrong climbed down the ladder, uttered his simple and profound message to the world and stood on the moon. Fifty years have passed, but I have forgotten little about the feeling of awe and wonder of what I witnessed that night.

› Terry Greene: Was playing summer baseball in a collegiate league in Boulder, Colorado. Midway through the game, they stopped play and plugged the audio of the live news report into the stadium’s loudspeaker system.

I was 19 years old and truly didn’t appreciate the historic moment.

› Mary Anne Hagan Jones: I was 8 1/2 years old, and I remember writing Neil Armstrong a letter and asking him to bring back moon rocks. I received a letter back from him with his signature. I got my picture in the News Free Press of me holding the letter in our living room. It excited me that he took the time to write back. I’m sure it was one of his PR people, but still I have that letter with the NASA seal to this day in a scrapbook! I remember watching the launch and him walking on the moon on our TV in the living room. The wonder years of 1969.

› Brian Watson: I was 5 years old on a family vacation from Chattanooga to Daytona Beach. My father made us leave the beach, which was not popular with the family. We drove to Cape Canaveral and parked in a restaurant parking lot along with dozens of other vehicles. We could easily see the huge Saturn V rocket across the water. We tried sleeping in the car as best we could, mostly taking turns. When I awoke at daybreak, there were thousands of people all over the place awaiting the launch. Then we listened on the radio to the countdown and waited anxiously. Soon we heard the loudest noise I had ever heard at that young age. I watched in fascination as flames and smoke shot from beneath the rocket and it slowly began to rise. It looked as if it might not go but then began to pick up speed as it traveled skyward. All too soon it was out of sight and left a trail of smoke I will never forget. Thanks, Dad, for making me leave the beach and witness history being made!

› Ann Barker Hale: Our family was vacationing at Daytona Beach. I was 13 years old. At launch time, thousands of people were outside their motels waiting. Soon we could see the rocket as it propelled the Apollo 11 Columbia and Eagle upward and northward. It was visible for a minute or so. Today, I feel so fortunate to have witnessed this piece of history. Since then, I have seen two shuttle launches from the Cape Canaveral area. These were much more spectacular but, unlike what I witnessed on July 16, 1969, I don’t remember the dates, the names of the crews or the purposes of the missions.

› David Johnson: My wife and I opened out our pullout sofa in our den on our farm outside Charleston, Tennessee. We had a 19-inch television with an outside antenna to watch. We gathered our 6-year-old daughter Lauran, our 4-year-old Andrew and our 2-year-old Jennifer and talked about what was happening as we waited. We were able to keep them awake and they still remember, except for Jennifer.

› Bonny Burbank Shuptrine: I was 10 years old, growing up with a family of five. We had left specifically for summer July time to our lake cottage on Lake James, North Carolina, from our hometown of Asheville, North Carolina. The day was momentous — my parents both watching the small black-and-white 24-inch TV with rabbit ears on the launch and raising the American flag on the corner property boat ramp. We all fished and boated, swam and had summer fun while constantly looking up at the sky and dreaming about the spaceship disconnecting and going toward the moon. Family dinner with fried caught fish, family prayer for our men and peach cobbler with ice cream as we watched Walter Cronkite on the news. Dad kept on telling us to be quiet as we all watched the mysterious footage of our men and the momentous “one small leap for mankind” from Neil Armstrong. My parents were tearing up, and we were all amazed. Proud of them and our country and a bit nervous to think about how they had to connect and re-enter to come home. My dad looked straight at me and said, “You can do anything.” I will always remember that, especially being a girl at that time. My father raised her strong and independent. LOVED that moment.

Find more lunar landing memories at timesfreepress.com.