Question of the Day | 07/19/2009 11:00 pm

Today marks 40 years since man's first visit to the moon. Did you watch the event? What do you recall thinking and feeling?

Relive the historic moment with Julia Reed, Liz Smith, Joan Ganz Cooney and Candice Bergen

Joan Ganz Cooney | 07/19/2009 11:00 pm

Joan Ganz Cooney: Nixon, Kennedy and King on Her Mind

I did watch the landing on the moon in my apartment, and was happy the Eagle had landed successfully – but I was in the midst of getting "Sesame Street" on the air (it debuted in November of 1969), still mourning the deaths of Robert Kennedy and Martin Luther King, trying to absorb the fact that Richard Nixon was about to be inaugurated president and filled with anger over the Vietnam War. I have never been thrilled about space exploration so I guess that makes me unimaginative and earthbound but there it is.

3 Comments

Liz Smith | 07/19/2009 11:00 pm

Liz Smith, the Moon and Mom

I watched the moonlanding in Tyler, TX, with my mother by my side. We were visiting friends when it happened. I was on a rare trip home to Texas. My mother was a total Southern Baptist true believer; I felt she was totally mystified by the things we were seeing on TV and maybe she didn’t quite believe them because she hadn’t received word by then of whether or not this was what God intended. Her lovable goodness and naivete stays in my heart. And I am always happy to be reminded of her, so the moon landing meant a lot to me. It was totally astounding and made me feel patriotic as all get out.

4 Comments

Candice Bergen | 07/19/2009 11:00 pm

Candice Bergen, Elliott Gould, Harrison Ford ... and Man's First Step on the Moon

I was in Oregon making a movie with Elliott Gould and Harrison Ford, who was then still working part time as a carpenter. We were in my room, a bunch of us, and I think we had just seen "2001: A Space Odyssey" at a drive-in with a full moon hanging over the screen. And of course we were stoned. I found it exciting. Moving. But also wondered about millions (when millions meant something) being spent on this when there were critical problems not being addressed on earth.

5 Comments

Julia Reed | 07/20/2009 11:45 am

Julia Reed: The Six Degrees of Neil Armstrong and Tupper Saussy

I remember the moon landing so vividly, mainly because of the company I was keeping. I was eight years old and visiting my mother’s family in Nashville, like I did every summer. At the time my Aunt Frances had a salon going pretty much 24/7 and all these characters would come and hang out by the pool. One of them was Tupper Saussy, who was a genius advertising guy and a pretty good painter and a great composer who had a bunch of Top 40 hits, including "Heidy Ho Princess" and "Morning Girl," which is still one of the great songs, with a band called the Neon Philharmonic.

Anyway, when it was time for the landing everyone gathered around the TV in the playroom – all the adults in bathing suits and cover-ups with Bloody Marys in hand, and my cousins and me on the floor, and Tupper took a seat at the piano and scored the whole thing on the spot. There was a little Beethoven (as there always is in any Tupper song), but it was mostly pure Tupper – over-the-top, dramatic, virtuosic and absolutely perfect for the moment.

Tupper always was a renegade. He and his then-wife Lola had marijuana growing in the window boxes of their house on the very august Belle Meade Boulevard, and later on he became a fairly famous income-tax dodger. After years on the lam somewhere in the islands, he served a little time, and when he got out he moved back to Nashville and started his music career up again. He was so talented, you can’t believe it (you can still find the Neon Philharmonic on Amazon, along with his crazy books on the evils of government), so it made me really sad when he had a heart attack – while writing lyrics on his computer – and died instantly a couple of years ago in his apartment back on Belle Meade. Neil Armstrong and Tupper are forever linked in my mind, which would probably come as a big shock to Armstrong.

3 Comments

38 Reader Comments (so far…) Sign In or Register to comment

I remember that day vividly………..We took our portable TV over to a friends house. Connected it up outside under a 200 year old Oak Tree.

My husband, my two sons and our 2 friends. It was truly beyond belief.

That’s one thing nice about getting really old………….So many wonderful memories of phenomenal things that have happened in this World. From sitting around our Radio as a family listening to the old Radio shows…………to sitting around a Television watching men walk on the Moon.

By Dona Howlett on 07/19/2009 11:48 pm

e-mail alert

I recall this day vividly as Mr. Burke, our 6th grade teacher brought his TV to class and we watched in rapt fascination. Our class was especially entranced as my dad was an engineer who had helped create the lunar landing module and had provided my class with models and information leading up to this great day. I was so proud of what our country could do and so proud of my dad for having contributed so much to the endeavor.

By Leigh Hart on 07/20/2009 1:56 am

e-mail alert

I was living in London at the time, going to art school. I really, really wanted to watch it, but I didn’t have a TV…However, my friend Felicity lived in the room across the hallway in this weird three-story rooming house. She wasn’t interested in the moon landing (hard to believe), but she let me in to watch it. She ended up sound asleep but I sat there transfixed, watching it on her little black and white TV (the only one in the house) in the darkened room. To be honest, I’m not all that interested in space travel either, but I was fascinated by the event, knowing that everyone around the world was in tune at the same time.

By Carrie On on 07/20/2009 4:35 am

e-mail alert

I watched the landing and wondered what the future would bring. There were people in my family at that time who could remember the first cars. I wondered what my future children might experience.

By Chris Glass` on 07/20/2009 6:24 am

e-mail alert

Well considering I was not even born yet, I do not recall it. However, I’m so fascinated by science that I’m sure had a been alive I would have been glued to the t.v. and would have wanted to know every single little detail.

By siasp surate on 07/20/2009 6:54 am

e-mail alert

My parents and my sister and I watched together in our living room. I was 11 and my sister was 9 and we sat on the floor in front of our console tv in order to get as close as possible to the television in order to spot any ‘martians’ that may wander into the view of the camera!

By DeBúrca obj on 07/20/2009 7:04 am

e-mail alert

DeBúrca obj - If they hadn’t landed on the moon that day, there wouldn’t have been your description of watching the event, here on WOW to-day…and I would have continued to wonder if we would ever read your messages here again.

Welcome back. My hopes were that you were possibly in Ireland for a while, but would be back to this site eventually. (and here you are, obj be praised).

By Lauriate Roly on 07/20/2009 10:40 am

e-mail alert

Thank you Lauriate, I was actually in Ireland for a couple of weeks. I’m back, but sticking my toe in very tentatively. I have to admit it was great to spend a couple weeks away from politics and to only hear the occasional RTE and BBC news without a negative interpretation being put on everything.

By DeBúrca obj on 07/21/2009 8:12 am

e-mail alert

I do remember that day so well! We were at our cottage on Cape Cod and my parents were entertaining friends from home. I so desperately wanted to watch the ‘moonwalk’ but my mother refused to allow me to turn on the television.

I respect the fact that she limited our family’s exposure to tv, but that day I believe my mother made a bad call.

By Green Tears on 07/20/2009 7:11 am

e-mail alert

I was 7. It was a beautiful summer day and our babysitter brought us inside from the sandbox to watch the historic moments. It was nice and everything, but I was right in the middle of a masterpiece sand castle and I was a bit mad about being forced to be inside on such a great sunny day.

By B Clark on 07/20/2009 7:16 am

e-mail alert

Yes…….I was pregnant with our daughter, we had friends in……..I was 21 and remember clearly thinking it was a total waste of money — still do.

By MK P on 07/20/2009 7:25 am

e-mail alert

THE MOON and the YEW TREE

This is the light of the mind, cold and planetary.

The trees of the mind are black. The light is blue.

The grasses unload their griefs on my feet as if I were God,

Prickling my ankles and murmuring of their humility.

Fumy, spiritous mists inhabit this place

Separated from my house by a row of headstones.

I simply cannot see where there is to get to.

The moon is no door. It is a face in its own right,

White as a knuckle and terribly upset.

It drags the sea after it like a dark crime; it is quiet

With the O-gape of complete despair. I live here.

Twice on Sunday, the bells startle the sky–––––––

Eight great tongues affirming the Resurrection.

At the end, they soberly bong out their names.

The yew tree points up. It has a Gothic shape.

The eyes lift after it and find the moon.

The moon is my mother. She is not sweet like Mary.

Her blue garments unloose small bats and owls.

How I would like to believe in tenderness–––––

The face of the effigy, gentled by candles,

Bending, on me in particular, its mild eyes.

I have fallen a long way. Clouds are flowering

Blue and mystical over the face of the stars.

Inside the church, the saints will all be blue,

Floating on their delicate feet over the cold pews,

Their hands and faces stiff with holiness.

The moon sees nothing of this. She is bald and wild.

And the message of the yew tree is blackness–––blackness and silence.

Sylvia Plath––1961

By phyllis Doyle Pepe on 07/20/2009 8:01 am

e-mail alert

I was planning my wedding (9/2/69). My family gathered around the TV and watched. My brother Tom was not quite 7 and he was enthralled by the "spacemen"; we all were. It was incredible and I still watch each shuttle launch. I would go if it were possible. So many things good and bad were going on at that time. I agree with Joan Ganz Cooney; I was reeling from the deaths of MLK and RFK. Woodstock would happen about 2 weeks later. What a time!

By Deirdre Cerasa on 07/20/2009 8:08 am

e-mail alert

I was 23 years old and r emember watching it with my husband and baby daughter. I was so caught up in motherhood and being mom that my reaction was one of just let the men be safe to come home to their families. Some of the spending on those programs to me were becoming a waste of money. But I guess at the time we thought we needed to keep up with the Russians. Boy have things changed. Here on earth are problems that going to space could never solve.

By Barbara B on 07/20/2009 8:10 am

e-mail alert

i was six. I don’t think we even had a television. We had a TV only sporadically throughout my childhood. My mother may have watched it somewhere but nothing pops into my memory. we might have even been living where there was no television reception of any kind since I don’t have any memory at all of my mom talking about it or anything. In those pre cable days we lived where there was no TV a LOT.

By Chrome Toe on 07/20/2009 8:25 am