If You Believed They Put a Man on the Moon...

Blue moon over Paterson, NJ, last night.

Two news items this week attracted the interest of the little-boy-who-wanted-to-be-an-astronomer in me.

First, this nj.com article explained that last night's full moon -- which glowed huge and distant overhead -- was a rare type of blue moon, since it was the third of four full moons appearing during the spring season of 2019.

Many also refer to May's full moon as the "flower moon," because it's the time of year when many flowers bloom.

Second, this engadget article explained that if you were fortunate enough to watch the Apollo 11 Moon landing as it happened in 1969, NASA wants to hear from you.

Here's the info: "NASA recently launched a story program that asks the public to submit audio recordings of their Apollo 11 memories in a bid to create an oral history of the event in sync with its 50th anniversary. All you have to do is record a story or interview... shorter ones are preferred, email it and details to a special address (apollostories@mail.nasa.gov), and check your inbox in case NASA wants a follow-up."

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Inspired by the sight of last night's big blue flower moon, that's exactly what I did. Here's the SoundCloud version:



And here's the text (and maybe you could listen to this great R.E.M. song while reading):

The morning after Neil Armstrong took his first step on the Moon, our family visited my nearly 100-year-old great grandmother in a nursing home. We called her Bisnonna. She had lived most of her life in Ferno, Italy — "ferno" being the Italian word for "Hell." She was spending her final years in New Jersey. 

We were all excited about the moon landing, and her daughter, my grandmother, tried to explain to her -- in the soft, melodic, mostly-Italian, part-English language they had developed between themselves -- what a spaceship was. But the words didn't yet exist in either the English they commonly understood or in Italian. 

So, much to our frustration, we couldn't make Bisnonna comprehend how it was possible for a man to ride on a rocket that was launched into space, and eventually set foot on the moon. To Bisnonna, such a thing was beyond her experience and beyond her capacity for faith. She died just a few weeks later, believing in eternal life.

Do you have a memory of the moon landing? I'd love to hear it. So would NASA!