So, on the 20th we celebrate the 40th anniversary of Apollo 11 and one small step and MSNBC wonders where in the world we all were that historic day.
I was 5 and I remember my mother had the little black and white that normally sat on the kitchen counter top in the bedroom so she could watch the news as she ironed. It was hot but the sky was black and rumbly with an impending storm. If there hadn’t been lightning, I’d have been outside getting wet. Playing in the rain was summertime fun. Racing little twig boats down the raging rapids of the curbs and watching them disappear into the yawning opening of the sewer. But lightning meant being kept indoors and Dr. Max, my favorite cartoon show, was being pre-empted by the moon and I was grumpy.
“Come and look at the moon,” Mom coaxed.
But there was nothing to look at but Walter Cronkite and child of television that I was – first generation Sesame Street after all – I didn’t see anything special about people on the moon. People on tv could do anything they liked. It was tv.
What’s your story? Where were you?
anniegirl1138 
I would have been 18 at the time. I was probably working during the landing itself, as I worked 3-11 in those days. I don’t remember seeing it live, just rebroadcasts of it.
the actual lunar landing/walk was around 10pm local time… i was 7 years old. dad woke me up to see it… gave me a sense that it was important. although it wasn’t just the lunar landing that grabbed me, this was the foundation that sparked my career interest in engineering. many folks in my world (around my age) were heavily inspired by the Apollo program to pursue careers in science and technology…
i’ve been fortunate to follow a career trajectory that has put me on the cutting edge of aerospace science, and actually have a few astronauts in my circle of friends and acquaintances. close enough for a dumpy fat chick from the midwestern suburbs…
We went to bed, but our parents got my sister and I up a couple hours later so we could watch it live and, so they told us, tell our grandkids one day.
I was also 5 years old, and I’m sad to say I don’t remember anything about it. I don’t think I even paid attention.
That was the year my mom left my dad. She took the three kids and we moved from Pittsburgh to Dallas. I don’t remember watching the lunar landing, so I was probably outside, hiding from the world, and living in my imagination.
I dwelt almost exclusively in my imagination in my youngest years. It’s probably another reason why I didn’t believe being on the moon was such a big deal.
That summer I was seven and would be turning eight. I have no idea where I was or what I was doing. Like most kids of that time, I was probably outside playing in the neighbourhood or getting up to mischief.
You? In mischief?
My father tells me he made me watch it. I have no recollection of the events whatsoever. How pathetic is that?
I don’t remember the landing either. Just the absence of cartoons and being trapped in the house.