The Epic Journey of Apollo 11

Everybody, it seems, is remembering Apollo 11 today. It is the 40th anniversary of its landing on the Moon, after all.

My reminiscences come, of course, in the form of photographs.

Back in 1969 there weren't a lot of homes with video tape recorders to capture television programs. In the days leading to the landing, the news programs suggested that we could use cameras to take pictures of our television sets to keep a record of the event. All we had to do is put a camera on a tripod and set the shutter speed to 1/30th of a second. That's the refresh rate of the NTSC broadcast standard used in the U.S. at the time. We needed to carefully focus on the TV screen and set the aperture to let in enough light for the speed of the film we were using. They told us what apertures to use for the different speeds of film.

Our pictures of the event were on two rolls of film. The pictures leading up to the landing are color slides and the pictures of the extravehicular activity are black and white prints. Mom or Dad sent me the prints. I don't have the negatives.

The aperture for the color slides seems to have been set as if the faster, black and white film was in the camera. Those pictures are terribly underexposed and sometimes it is hard to see what's in the pictures.

The pictures of the EVA are not that great because the quality of what was on the TV screen was not that great.

I wasn't the nerdiest nerd on the block. After they went back into the Lunar Module I figured there wasn't a lot to see so I went to bed. It was well past my usual bedtime.

I wish I had a better memory. About the only thing I remember is Nixon's phone call to the astronauts. I was kind of annoyed that they had to pause to chit chat with him. They had more important things to get done.

I was also annoyed that Armstrong's descent down the ladder and his small step onto the moon were so dark and fuzzy. I wondered if they can send a man to the moon, why can't they make a camera that can show what's happening? They explained the technical issues of the difficulties with sending back live video from the moon and I guess that satisfied me. Still....

I'm glad I got to witness this. I'm not convinced that there is a need to go back yet. Low Earth orbit offers a lot of opportunities for valuable science to be done and is fairly accessible. But then, I'm not a rocket scientist so what do I know?

Here are the pictures we took of Apollo 11.

The Epic Journey of Apollo 11

The captions of the EVA pictures were written by Mom on the backs of the pictures.

Waste not

Our Mother is a champion Reducer, Reuser and Recycler of waste. She held onto cottage cheese containers for years until they were taken by recyclers. She sends us letters in envelopes that are provided with bills (with the bar codes marked out so they don't go to the utility companies). She's given us some great canvas shopping bags that we use every time we go to the grocery store. They were probably shipped to us in a reused box. She has probably increased by years the lifetimes of several cities' landfills by reducing waste and inspiring others to do the same.

(I hope Mom has limits. I hope that reusing or recycling toilet paper is "NOT" one of her activities. I advocate the first "R" in that department through the use of Jasmin.)

We go to concerts and shows at the California Center for the Arts, Escondido, where we often are sitting next to a woman who has been volunteering time helping in a school's kindergarten classes for the last 14 years. A few months ago she mentioned that she uses magazines and the artwork on all those address labels that charities send out in their fund raising efforts. She said that if we had anything like that she could take them off our hands.

So imagine my surprise when Mom asked if I had any idea what she could do with all the artwork from the thousands of address labels charities have sent to her in their fund raising efforts. I told her about Lu and how she uses these stickers with her kindergarteners.

Mom sent her big box of address labels to give to Lu.



Lu would have been happy just to get sheets of address labels. She said that she cuts the names and addresses off and shreds them. But Mom was way ahead of Lu. Mom had cut off the address portions of the labels and organized the pictures into many categories. They were in reused window envelopes labeled with the kinds of stickers they hold. The envelopes were arranged alphabetically.

Today we went to a concert by the San Diego Symphony where we always sit with Lu. We took the box of stickers to her tonight. Lu is thrilled to have these. She says the kids just love this sort of things. Some apparently become treasures for some kids. And some become very special presents for their parents.

Thanks, Mom! You've brought great happiness to many kids. And to Lu.

By the way, the concert was pretty good. They played Mozart's 40th Symphony and Dukas's "The Sorcerer's Apprentice." Those are always good to hear and they played them well. It also included John Corigliano's "Pied Piper Fantasy." It had interesting rat squeaking, scurrying, and gnawing sound effects but went on way too long. Maybe if I heard it more I would appreciate it more but I sure did get fidgety.