I was behind the wheel of a 1969 Dodge Dart Swinger in Lavalette New Jersey with my old friend, Joe. We were driving up and down route 35, hoping to find his girlfriend who was on vacation with her parents.
He was determined to find her, so I soldiered on, trying to see the road and traffic through the windshield as the wipers did their rhythmic sashay, pushing the rainwater out of my field of vision.
But the real reason that I remember that night so well, was because of what was on the radio. It was play-by-play live coverage of the moon landing. The static on the radio due to the poor weather of that night made the faint dialog between NASA and the astronauts even more difficult to understand, but I DID hear the voices of those astronauts and technicians as they were making history.
We didn’t find Joe’s girlfriend that night, but that doesn’t matter. Either two or three years later, they were married. In fact, they are still married, and they have eight grandchildren. That’s one small step for Man, eight giant leaps for Joe.
Jonathan Womelsdorf
Lopatcong, New Jeresy 2019