{"id":253,"date":"2019-07-15T02:18:53","date_gmt":"2019-07-15T02:18:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/mariannedyson.com\/blog\/?p=253"},"modified":"2019-07-15T02:18:53","modified_gmt":"2019-07-15T02:18:53","slug":"apollo-11-a-view-from-summer-camp","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mariannedyson.com\/blog\/2019\/07\/15\/apollo-11-a-view-from-summer-camp\/","title":{"rendered":"Apollo 11, a view from Summer Camp"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Marianne\nDyson<\/strong><\/a>, July 2019<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

I was a teenager at summer camp when Apollo 11 astronauts Neil Armstrong\nand Buzz Aldrin landed on the Moon 50 years ago this month. Below is the story\nof that day as recorded in my memoir.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Marianne

Marianne and “Red” in 1969 at Rambling Acres. Photo courtesy Marianne Dyson <\/em> <\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

—Begin excerpt from <\/em>A Passion for Space<\/em><\/a> copyright Marianne Dyson–<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

July 20, 1969, Ohio<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

“Girls! Girls!” someone\nhollered from outside the big red barn. I was at Rambling Acres\nHorseback-Riding Camp, near Canton, Ohio. “Put your brooms away and come\nup to the house! They’ve landed on the Moon!”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I didn’t need a second invitation.\nI’d enthusiastically followed the space program since first grade when John\nGlenn had orbited the Earth. I was 14 now, and I loved space even more than\nhorses. The previous spring, I’d even written and hand printed a 60-page book,\n“The Apollo Program” for my eighth-grade English class.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I dashed from the stall, latching\nthe gate behind me, and ran up the dusty road to the camp owner’s house.\n“Wait up!” my best friend Chrisse hollered as she scampered up the\nroad behind me, followed by the other girls. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The owner, Mrs. Noll, insisted we\nbrush dust and straw off each other’s clothes and remove our dirty shoes before\nentering her house. Then we filed into her living room and settled down\ncross-legged on the carpet, facing the television set. The TV was a stand-alone\npiece of furniture, a box on legs about three feet tall with “rabbit\nears” antenna. The picture was in black and white.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The familiar face of CBS News anchor\nWalter Cronkite appeared on the screen. In his deep voice, he explained that\nMission Control in Houston had given Apollo 11 astronauts Neil Armstrong and\nBuzz Aldrin the “go” to exit their spacecraft. The men had been\nscheduled to sleep but were too keyed up after the exciting first landing on\nthe Moon.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I was keyed up, too. It was the\nfirst day of camp, and I’d just met five new girls. We had plenty to talk about\nwhile we waited for the astronauts to leave the lunar lander. “Which one\ndo you think is the cutest?” Sue asked me as we loaded our plates for\ndinner.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“It doesn’t matter,” I\nsaid, snatching a roll. “They’re married!”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sue frowned and then sighed as she\nscooped beans onto her plate. “Wouldn’t it be dreamy to marry an\nastronaut?”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“Yeah,” I agreed. Then I\nadded silently, “But even better if you could be one!”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We finished dinner, and the\nastronauts still hadn’t emerged from their ship. We wondered what they were\nhaving for dinner. (I found out later, bacon cubes. Yuk!) We trotted back to\nthe barn for evening chores. I brushed the horse who shared my nickname, Red.\nThen we got our showers and returned to Mrs. Noll’s house.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The television spurted static-filled\nvoices of the crew talking with Mission Control. What was taking so long? Why\ndidn’t they just open the door and hop out? Bedtime came and went. Luckily,\nMrs. Noll let us stay up for this historic occasion. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Finally, six hours after Apollo 11\nlanded, the ghostly black and white “live from the Moon” image\nflickered on the screen. At 10:39 p.m. Eastern time, Armstrong spoke the\nnow-famous words, “That’s one small step for man, one giant leap for\nmankind,” as he stepped backwards off the ladder onto the lunar surface. I\nremember thinking how I’d like to follow in his footsteps.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But in 1969, there was no such thing\nas a female astronaut. No woman in my family had even gone to college. Yet, the\nprevious winter, I’d written in my diary, “I wish very much to be able to\nbe an astronaut. I’m sorry I’m a girl, but I’ll have to try harder then.” <\/p>\n\n\n\n

As I gazed up at the half-full Moon\nthat July night, I marveled that there were men up there looking back at me. If\nthose men could walk on the Moon, then maybe a skinny red-headed girl from a\nsmall town in Ohio could find a way to go to college and one day work for NASA.\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

–End excerpt from <\/em>A Passion for Space<\/em><\/a>, copyright Marianne Dyson","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Marianne Dyson, July 2019 I was a teenager at summer camp when Apollo 11 astronauts Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin landed on the Moon 50 years ago this month. Below is the story of that day as recorded in my memoir. —Begin excerpt from A Passion for Space copyright Marianne Dyson– July 20, 1969, Ohio … Continue reading “Apollo 11, a view from Summer Camp”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-253","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-science-snacks"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mariannedyson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/253","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mariannedyson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mariannedyson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mariannedyson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mariannedyson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=253"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/mariannedyson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/253\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":264,"href":"https:\/\/mariannedyson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/253\/revisions\/264"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mariannedyson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=253"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mariannedyson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=253"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mariannedyson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=253"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}