Fifty years ago this weekend and I remember it like it was yesterday.
The nation was focused on Apollo 11. There were moon watching parties. Crowds gathered to view it on a big screen in Grand Central Station. It was all encompassing.
Given that Sunday, July 20 was a typical hot and humid summer's day, I can remember walking through the neighborhood and hearing Chet Huntley blaring out like he was on a loudspeaker. With all the open windows of the apartment building across the street, you could not escape him supplying the soundtrack up and down our block.
The scheduling of the day's events were etched in our minds. You knew what hour they would be "undocking" from the command module, what hour they would be landing on the lunar surface, and exactly when the astronauts would venture out to walk through the craters for the very first time. The latter was scheduled to take place very late on that Sunday night so, luckily, they planned this perfectly to coincide with our non-school summer schedule.
On that day, I, however, had a focus elsewhere.
The Mets had just gotten good and were finally competitive for the first time ever. Neil Armstrong, pish tosh. For me, it was Tom Seaver and nothing else. The team was on the road, having just completed two series against the Chicago Cubs that launched the Flushing Faithful into their own pennant-bound orbits.
The Mets were playing a doubleheader against the virgin Montreal Expos in that French dump called Parc Jarry. They lost the first game, 3-2. But, the second game was a seesaw battle that lasted 10 innings and, in those days, an unheard-of three hours. As the Mets battled through the tenth inning, I was distracted in so many directions. The Mets on the tube. The moon landing on another channel. And a violent thunderstorm outside my window. Too much for this youngster to process at once.
My dad, rarely moved by anything, was duly impressed by the moon stuff.
"You better watch this because it's history."
It was one of those super-rare moments where my family acted as one. My parents glued to the TV in the living room with me draped across the floor and spooning with my dog Tuffy. We, like the world, were together. Yet, there was one other person in the house who didn't give a shit.
Grandma downstairs.
My grandmother had pretty watched dismissed the space race as soon as it started.
"Wasting all the poor taxpayers' money."
She'd wave in disgust whenever somebody mentioned it. As Armstrong and Aldrin strolled around the moon, Grandma had already gone off to bed.
In the weeks after, Grandma did not stop with her disdain over Apollo 11. It had been a very rainy summer and, by mid August, we were knee deep in mildew.
As Grandma sat in her favorite rocking chair and surveyed the soggy neighborhood from her living room window during one more rain storm, she tried to fit the pieces together for me.
"You know why it's raining so much? God is mad at us."
Huh?
"God is mad because we had no business going to the moon. He didn't want us there so now he is making it rain."
Logical? In her mind, yes. I tried to reason with the unreasonable.
"Grandma, it's raining here in New York, but it might not be like this in Texas or California."
She waved me off.
"It's raining and God is mad."
This volleyed back and forth. Logic and illogic. Sense and no sense. Finally, Grandma pulled an ace from her sleeve.
"It's true because I heard it on the television."
Her standard retort. You can't refute the things you hear on TV. I asked her who said that God was mad on the TV.
"Walter Cronkite."
I guess this is why Cronkite was the most trusted man in America. My grandmother listened to him.
You can't battle that kind of logic. I walked away from the conversation in defeat.
Well, at least, the Mets were winning in the summer of 1969.
Dinner last night: Tri tip beef and salads.
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