Farewell Neil Armstrong


Most of us of a certain age can probably remember where we were in July 1969, that day (or night) Neil Armstrong  walked the moon- it was that kind of defining moment in history that prompted that profound phrase, rather popular at the time of stoned heads: “Today’s the  first day of the rest of your life.”

I was sixteen, at a summer camp outside Madrid, learning to sail with a group of Spanish and foreign kids. They included a girl from Paris, three years older than me, who showed me what a French kiss was as we danced slow one night in a small informal discotheque that doubled up during the day as a canteen.

I thought that was a pretty special night, until the following one when I walked up a mountain side, alone and,  on  a starlit Quixotic  night , gazed at the moon and imagined the first man walking on it. Only later, would I catch the blurry image of the act itself, on TV.

Thanks to my Spanish  mother, and British father, my early childhood heroes had included other legendary  explorers – Columbus, Darwin, and Scott- but Armstrong’s achievement took me into another dimension, literally, physically, and spiritually- sublime poetry in a courageous act that seemed to take us closer to God and the true beauty of his creation – ‘ a small step for man, a giant leap for mankind’ .

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