Men on the Moon

Forty years ago today man first walked on the moon. Even forty years later it's still a feat to be astonished at - though I suspect that some people figured that by now we'd have colonies up there or something.

Many people can tell you their memories of that day. They remember watching the grainy footage. They remember the first words spoken. They know where they were and what they were thinking as they were watching it.

I'm not one of those people.

I was three years old when the men landed on the moon and something much more important was happening in my life than a moon walk. My little brother had just been born three days earlier.

A second little brother.

That didn't seem fair. I already had a little brother, I needed a sister. I told my father as much when he informed me that I had a new little brother.

I remember sitting on the floor in the kitchen, surrounded by pots and pans that I had removed from the cupboard. My dad handed me a snack bag of potato chips from the hospital - part of my mother's lunch that she didn't eat, I suspect - and told me I had a new baby brother.

And what was my reaction. "Bring him back and get me a sister. And while you're at it, get me more potato chips."

See - it's not that I don't have specific memories of that time - just not of the moon landing.

I'm happy to say my parents did not trade me new little brother in for a sister. He grew on me over the years.
How could he not?