At the time, I was only nine and my mind was fresh enough to still be sculpted. I lived in a modest house out in the country with both of my parents. I never had any siblings so I had to treat my parents as brothers or sisters so I didn't die of boredom. My mother had spoke of a moon landing transpiring in the near future and told me that when she was my age, no one even dreamed of being on the moon. But today, July 20, 1969, the world would witness what we had once thought was impossible.
I perched myself on the couch in our living room to observe my morning cartoons. My dad arrived with a bowl of cereal and delivered it to me. The cereal was my favorite: Lucky Charms. It was going to be a splendid day. The real reason my dad had come into the living room was that he wanted to watch cartoons with me. When he pressed the power button we were both disappointed to not see our childish shows on the air, but instead the little black box played a picture of a man bearing a puffy white suit situated in a spacecraft.
“We’re missing cartoons for this?” I exclaimed in an angry fashion.
“Now son, we’re about to witness something that will never happen again. It is much more important than Tom And Jerry.”
“But, I wanna watch my shows!” I uttered as I folded my arms in an attempt to assert my stance.
“Look, this is a very special thing. History is about to be made and were not going to miss it for cartoons.”
My dad was the man of the house and I knew when it was time to stop arguing. After our dispute was put to rest, I started to get a little excited to watch this one time event. I never dreamed of being an astronaut…. until I heard those words. “One small step for man, one giant leap for mankind.” Not once before that moment in my life had I heard words so powerful. Words that carried such a balance of adventure and discovery.
Hearing those few words shaped my entire life. When I saw man on the moon, there was no way that I wasn't going to follow suit. Neil Armstrong was my hero. Now he is remarked as nothing other than a bicyclist stripped of titles for cheating, when really, that is Lance Armstrong. If people remembered the moon landing the way I did, everyone would wish to be an astronaut.