Your Stories: Submitted Stories
- Man on the Moon: The Whole World Was Watching
I will never forget the Apollo moon landing. I was at the beach with my parents; my sister was on an exchange program in Central America and was staying with a Guatemalan family. Both of us were mesmerized by the television broadcast, and were amazed to discover later that we had spent our time during those days in July doing exactly the same thing: watching TV. My feet never touched the sand during that beach vacation. Instead, I sat in the hotel room, working on a needlepoint pillow and watching Walter Cronkite. Thousands of miles away in Guatemala City, my sister was also glued to the TV. She said that, following Neil Armstrong's moonwalk, Guatemalans began to congratulate her. She was initially very puzzled by their congratulations -- after all, she was only in 7th grade and hadn't had anything to do with getting men to the moon. Finally, she realized that people were expressing their admiration for American know-how and that her US citizenship made her someone special in their eyes. Thirty years later, I tell this story to my high school students to illustrate one moment when television connected people around the world.
- Susan
Baltimore, MD
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