one small step

It was passed my bedtime. I recall being in my pajamas, but my brother and I were either kept up or awakened from our slumbers. Either way, it was dark outside and we were "made" to watch TV - highly unusual.

Dutifully, I watched the screen with rapt attention. The image was quite grainy in black and white. The black and white was typical, though, because we only had a black and white TV. What I watched were astronauts landing and walking around on the moon.

Honestly, though, I was not sure why I was kept up for such viewing. I was 4 years old and had seen astronauts before. Maybe not on TV, maybe not walking around on the moon, but yeah. Astronauts were certainly a thing. And that's what they did, right? They walked around on the moon.

I'd seen astronauts on the magazine covers my parents subscribed to. I glimpsed astronauts on the TV news. We drank Tang because that's what astronauts drank. 

We ate those (awful yuck pooey) Space Sticks because they were cool astronaut food.

And there I was, sitting on the floor, passed my bedtime, looking up at TV footage of astronauts on the moon. Okay, cool, I guess? I have a vague recollection that even Grandma was there with us. Was something momentous happening? None of the adults were speaking as they seemed a bit speechless, so I was left to ponder. 

And that was that: sitting on the floor in the dark watching grainy images of astronauts, the whole family minus my oldest brother, who was away at college, gathered 'round. It was a bit later that I would learn it was history in the making. 

So I was "there" before realizing how historic. But I drank the Tang and gagged on the Space Sticks.

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Linking up this week with Mama Kat for the prompt:

1. Share one of the first news stories you remember caring about.