7 Days Until Book Release!

 

We are only seven days away from the release of my new book, Everyone’s Gone to the Moon: July 1969, Life on Earth, and the Epic Voyage of Apollo 11, so I thought I would share with you one of my favorite stories from the book.


As I’ve mentioned before, the book focuses on the month of July 1969, a transformative month if ever there was one with humankind first venturing into outer space to land on another world. But besides telling forgotten and obscure stories of the preparations and eventual first landing on the moon by the crew of Apollo 11, it tells the complex story of life on Earth that month - the racism, wars, political upheaval, even the pop culture that was upending what up until then were the norms in music, movies, the arts, and life itself.

The book interweaves the story of Apollo 11 with some of the big news events, lesser known and obscure events of the period, and most importantly, stories from both everyday people as well as contractors and engineers that worked on the Apollo program shedding light on what life was like in July 1969.

One of my favorite stories about life in the late 60s comes from a fellow you might know, author Joe Formichella. Here’s a portion of his story:

Joe’s family was devout Catholic and he paints a vivid picture of what life was like in the 1960s growing up with eight siblings.
“We had a small black and white television and a small living room,” he said. “With eight kids we would have to fight for a seat so we could see the T.V. And there was a specific T.V. hour when we were allowed to watch it.

"We lived in a small house. The washer and dryer were located in the dining room right beside the chair where my dad always sat for dinner. The dryer was very noisy and with eight kids it would be running all day. We would all sit down for dinner and when it was time to begin and my father was preparing to do the benediction, he would lean back in his chair and open the dryer door so it would stop running. When dinner was finished, he would lean back and close it again to restart the machine.”

Joe’s father was a die-hard New York Yankees fan. On occasion, he would load the family into the car and make the five hour drive from Syracuse to New York City where he would randomly pick an obscure place to go. “There’s a deli here we haven’t been to in a while” or “let’s go to such-and-such a place.” It was all an excuse to drive into the Bronx where they would pull up to the original Yankee stadium. The old stadium used to have a gap in the outfield fence where people on the outside could look inside the House That Ruth Built and gaze in wonder at the deep green field of dreams where the legends of the game – Ruth, Maris, Mantle, Gehrig – had all played.

“Just look,” Joe’s father would say. “Just look.”
That was a catch phrase Joe’s father often used. “Just…” fill in the blank. When it came to the country’s first journey to the moon, the elder Formichella was all in. He had an undeniable exuberance when it came to the first lunar landing that was contagious. To him, it was a noble and patriotic endeavor, not only because of the technical achievement, but also because the country’s first Catholic president, John Kennedy, had set the course.

“When they [Apollo 11] landed on the moon, I remember my dad saying, ‘Just watch. Just watch’.”

As Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin walked on the moon, Joe remembers walking outside into the balmy Syracuse summer evening and looking up at the moon. Somehow, it made him feel closer.