I can recall the first moon landing.  I cannot recall Mr. Armstrong's first step.  I, ummm, nodded off waiting for it.  As I recall, it was postponed and postponed and POSTPONED.  Apparently Armstrong and Aldrin kept history waiting while they tried out some new wrestling holds on each other as they fought to be first out the door.  Had NASA thought to send along a referee, things might have been sped up considerably.  Instead, it was almost 11 p.m. my time before Armstrong kicked Buzz where the heat shield is thinnest and scampered out.  I'd had a hard day playing in the sun myself.  They'd simply blown their chance to impress me with their moon business.
     My mother managed to stay awake, but she had her own special reasons for doing so.
     "Those guys are gonna go monkeying with the moon and have it fall on us!" 
     And, ah, how do you know this, Mom?
     "Have you ever noticed how all those NASA guys sound alike?"
     Not much I could say to that.  Instead of saying anything at all, I took to hoping that the moon would somehow manage to miss me when it fell.  Not a very noble hope, it's true, but a plummeting rock the width of the United States and twice as heavy seems to have a way of bringing out the worst impulses in a child of ten.

     As luck would have it, the moon did not fall on anyone despite repeated NASA monkeying missions.  We even lived to go to Washington, D.C. and see a moon rock in June of 1970.  It had been brought back in a special bag, then institutionalized at the Smithsonian.  A thick glass bubble kept it from attacking the spectators.
    "Yep," everyone who stood and stared at it said in rapt amazement.  "That's a rock alright."
     Little did we know that the thing's magnetic hold on us would fade in a very few months.

     I now actually live about 15 minutes from a retired moon rock.  It's been sitting in the Armstrong Museum in Wapakoneta for well over 20 years now.  I think I visited it once back in the early '80s.  It was nestled somewhere between Neil's childhood bike and the "Infinity Room" -  two large mirrors facing each other in darkness.  Visitors were required to walk between these mirrors while strobe lights flashed to get a "sense" of outer space.  My mind wandered as I walked this walk.  I kept thinking, "Wow! Space is an incredibly cheap and hokey place!" 
     By the time I got back outside and saw the rusting remains of the abandoned Astro Putt-Putt Golf Course where players once had had to navigate their balls through cardboard mock-ups of NASA vehicles, I was kinda wishing that the moon might fall on me yet. 

     William Golding of Lord of the Flies fame once wrote a novel which opens with a man about to drown at sea.  He's rescued and the story goes on from there.  At the end it's revealed that he actually did drown at sea and the entire book had unfolded in his mind in his last few seconds of consciousness. 
     So maybe Armstrong really did dislodge the moon, eh?  Maybe the last "30 years" is nothing more than the frantic attempts of my mind to live a full life in its last few seconds. 
     That rush job sure would explain an awful lot.... 
     Watergate.
     Donald Trump.
     That whole Macarena thing.
     And this little story....
     Not too long ago, U.S. Customs officers intercepted someone trying to smuggle a few moon rocks into this country.  Seems they'd once been given to some Central or South American president or dignitary and had either been stolen or sold or otherwise traded hands until some poor smuck got caught with them in his luggage at a U.S. port of entry.  Customs, of course, confiscated them. 
     Just like that. 
     Poor NASA.  It had spent - what?  About $100 gazillion to get those suckers.  Had it only had about 30 years of patience, it could've got 'em for the cost of a single alert Customs officer.
     DOH!

     I'm not sure if Aldrin ever really forgave Armstrong for beating him to the moon's surface.  For a long time, he tried to settle for merely forgetting the fact by drinking a lot.  He could have made a lot of money by endorsing, say, Southern Comfort - "The Drink That'll Make You Forget YOUR Biggest Disappointment, Too!" - but he was too classy for that.  I wish I was.  Instead, I here and now state my abject willingness to say Southern Comfort helped me forget my not being the first man on the moon in exchange for, oh... say, a single bottle of Southern Comfort.
     Lacking that bottle, I tried to forget my disappointment today by making a holster for those antique catch phrases I bought at the antique shop on Saturday and discussed yesterday.  I wanted to have them at hand for instant use next time I go out.  Unfortunately, I made the holster too small to hold "Well, I'll be jiggered!" so I had to dig out my old, small caliber "So's your old man" and strap that onto my hip instead.   "So's your old man" is far more likely than "I'll be jiggered!" to impress a bored waitress at Shoney's when I casually unbutton my jacket, anyway. 
     I used to stuff my mouth with phrases before I went outside, but everyone kept thinking I was trying to do a real bad impersonation of Marlon Brando's Vito Corleone, so I stopped. 
     I know, I know - "So's your old man" isn't going to win me many battle of wits all by itself.  That's why I also have a "Your mother wears army boots" hidden in my boot.
     Maybe if Armstrong had been able to reach into his boots while he was on the moon, he could have used this memorable phrase instead of that lame thing he hacked up in his haste.
     Just a thought.
     Not much of a thought 'cause it turns out I DO have a bottle of Southern Comfort after all, but still a thought, however disappointing.
     Fortunately for me, I won't be remembering that disappointing at all in -

     [Swift draw from my secret armpit holster]

     "Two shakes of a lamb's tail!"