Where were you on July 20, 1969?

[John Boyer]

I was the 8 year old ringbearer in my Aunt's wedding in a cabin outside of Westcliffe Colorado. I recall the entire wedding party gathering around a small black and white television to watch the moon landing. I recall being only mildly interested in this historical event but thrilled about being the ringbearer. John

 

[Hugh Beaumont]

I was 6 at the time and living in Kentucky as my Dad was in the Army at Knox.

We lived in a mobile home that was packed with my parents friends that day. I remember wearing my Apollo astronaut jumpsuit and praying Neil wasn't going to get attacked by aliens when he stepped outside the capsule.

Definitely a tense moment for this six year old.

 

[Lincsong]

Probably lying in my crib sucking my bottle.

 

[THe Conductor]

According to my father, who was 13 at the time, he was in a motel room in Reno, watching it on TV.

 

[MrNewportCustom]

I was two days away from turning six and my family and I were eating dinner while my father watched the landing, live, on the news.

When the broadcast was over, dad asked when dinner would be ready. We all laughed and told him that we'd cooked it, called him, set the table, called him, ate it, called him, cleared the table, called him, washed the dishes and put everything away.

Dad had spent the evening about twelve feet from the dinner table.


Lee

 

[Talbot]

I was 9 years old

and in grade 5 at primary school. The entire school was assembled in the main hall, and we all got to watch it on TV.

There were about 150 of us. We all got to watch it on one small set that was up on stage.

 

[Big Man]

I was 14 years old at the time. I'd followed the space program from day one, and was very excited about the moon landing. My parents bought a color TV just for the occasion. We all sat fixed to that big console TV during the coverage. I guess if I had to sum up my experience in one word it would be "awed". My parents and I realized we were seeing world changing history in the making. That was quite an experience.

 

[Miss Vixen]

I was not born yet but my mom kept the Newspaper from that day and still has it says *First man on the moon* pretty cool!

 

[Diamondback]

Late to the party, by around 11 years. (Even more too late for the real party, which woulda been getting a moonshot of my own!*)
*Color me cynical on this "Constellation" bastardization of Shuttle and Apollo parts... yep, I read Aviation Week, too, along with having sources inside the company that built huge portions of the original Saturn Vs, and "mix of Apollo retread** and Shuttle parts" is a lot of what it is.
**Don't get me wrong, if NASA put another Saturn on Pad 39 and asked me if I wanted to take a ride you can bet I would, but our next steps into space need to be either "evolutionary" or "revolutionary" rather than "nostalgic"--and if NASA were serious about "faster, cheaper, better" there are any number of lower-cost ways to do it without bastardizing--for one, a LEM fits nicely into a Shuttle hold if it's properly braced and you can get another external tank up and hook onto it in orbit.

 

[DancingSweetie]

I was 2 years old, and my baby sister, my mom, and I were living with my grandparents because my father was away in Vietnam. I don't remember anything about that time of my life.

 

[High Pockets]

I was fifteen years old,....I remember standing out in the driveway looking up at the moon that evening thinking; "Tonight there is someone up there.".

 

[davestlouis]

I was in diapers...

My earliest news-related memory is Walter Cronkite on the TV news, announcing something about Vietnam, some time in the early 70s.

We were not much for watching TV at our house anyway...we had US News, Newsweek, Time, both Cincinnati newspapers, the Sunday New York Times, and National Geographic delivered. We were also expected to have read all of the above, and were quizzed on topics my dad gleaned from the print media. Dinnertime could be a real drag at our house.

 

[Elaina]

I was a distant twinkle in my dad's eye.

Mom was working, Dad was on the road, and they were 5 years from meeting/marrying each other. Neither saw it live, but my dad listened to it on the radio.

I've always hated that I was born too late to see it since I wanted to be an astronaut from the time I was little. I did, however, get to skip school with my dad to meet Sally Ride once.

 

[Viola]

My first historic memory is the Berlin Wall coming down when I was five.

 

[Shangas]

I wasn't around at that time, but my mother (my dad doesn't really remember), said that she and her friends and family watched the moon-landing on TV. They had one of the few television sets in their town at the time (Malaysia in the 1960s, you couldn't expect much else). Mum was in her mid-teens at the time, and she told me how excited everyone was, to watch a man walk on the moon.