I was 10 years old when this happened.
I was an utter Kennedy space-kid -- I watched every single Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo launch and followed each mission like crazy -- as a younger child, my little red wagon was named Freedom 7...
I was sick as a dog and running a high fever when Apollo 11 went to the Moon. When Eagle actually landed, I was watching the tv and wondering if the images were fuzzy because of the distance or because I was so sick. Half an hour after Armstrong stepped on the Moon, my parents helped me go outside so I could look up and see it -- I was crying and saying, "We're up there! There's a man up there!"
On CBS there was an interview with a very old black man; he had been born a slave, just at the tag-end of the American Civil War. The interviewer said something like, "Sir, you were born at a time and place where people got around by horse and foot; you have been the rise of the railroad, the automobile, the airplane; how do you feel about the thought of men walking on the Moon?" The fellow, in a feeble voice, heavily accented, replied, "But men cain't walk on d'Moon. Moon's a li'l ol' bitty t'ing up in d'sky!"
On one night, the whole world looked in wonder towards the sky.
