Fifty years ago, I was fresh out of high school in Missouri, having graduated in June from Oak Park High School in the North Kansas City school district. For my graduation, Mother and Daddy gave me a reel-to-reel tape recorder.
In July, the Apollo 11 astronauts went to the Moon, and I put my brand-new tape recorder to work, recording the audio – off of the TV – of just about every bit of Apollo 11 coverage I could get. From the press conference of the three astronauts two nights before launch, to a CBS special on ‘launch eve,’ to the launch and numerous critical events as the astronauts traveled over the next few days, to the landing and the entire Moon walk (or, as NASA put it, “extravehicular activity”), to the trip back to Earth, splashdown & recovery, and the astronauts’ conversation – from their quarantined quarters – with President Nixon. For good measure, I even recorded comments on the launch experience by two prominent spectators who had been at the site – JOHNNY CARSON & ED MCMAHON of NBC’s Tonight Show. After all was said and done, I edited all of the material into a little over 15 hours of tape, which included my own 18-year-old voice introducing various segments (as well as my family occasionally talking in the background as we watched the coverage).
Having just received the tape recorder, this was my first attempt at anything like this, and I taught myself as I proceeded, learning skills that would come in handy decades later as I produced and edited videos for Texas Baptists Committed and the T. B. Maston Foundation, organizations that didn’t exist back in 1969.
I recently began putting all of this on YouTube in case some might find it interesting listening. Obviously, this has nothing to do with Baptists (other than the one who produced it), but I thought some of you might find it interesting. For those of you who were around back then, there’s a lot of nostalgia value in listening to Walter Cronkite, Frank McGee, and other network luminaries of that day, besides the nostalgia of living through those exciting days of the “Space Race.”
Click here to go to my Apollo 11 YouTube channel.
So far, I’ve posted only through the launch, but I’ll continue uploading and posting additional recordings over the next few weeks until all of it is on YouTube.
Bill, what a wonderful gift you received and what an equally wonderful gift you have given to all of us who have been receiving the gifts of your historically important Baptist reporting. Now you have given us an equally beautiful gift; a memory from from a future news/historian of a time that United this country. Perhaps a visit to these memories/document will provide perspective and thus, hope, as we attempt to regain the critical unity we so desperately need. Thank you for THIS gift.