I was seven years old on the July summer day, when on the 20th my Mother called us kids in the house to gather round that old black and white television in the den of our new house, to watch history being made.

I was both facinated and a little agitated at the whole event.  I wanted to see the moon landing, for  a seven year old who had watched all the old 50's space movies with my parents on late-night TV on the weekends, I would have died to have the chance to actually walk on the MOON.  I was also missing out on what was a perfect summer day for playing baseball in my new backyard.

Thankfully, my Mother knew that this was such an historic moment in history that she insisted we all be there to watch.  If I recall correctly, there may have been as many as 20 kids around back then.  See, my yard was the local baseball field, just big enough to handle two complete teams.  But, on that day we were all astronauts when we walked out of that house.  We bounded across the yard just like we had seen the Apollo guys do it, well sort of.

My Mother is gone now, but the memory of her calling us all in, of her giving us koolaid and peanutbutter and jelly sandwiches and telling us that this would be a day that would forever change our world, is priceless to me.

NOTE:  I stand corrected on my original memory.  It wasn't the lunar landing that my Mother had us come in for it was actually the liftoff.  The landing did occur around 10:56pm, and using my younger brother's memory, we did have to stay up that night and see the first man walk on the moon.  Hey, it was 40 years ago, and I was a seven year old kid.