shynds's blog

I met Neil Armstrong in the summer of 1983. I was twenty-two years old and working as a cook at a Rocky Mountain dude ranch. Mr. Armstrong spent a week there with a group of men most of whom were big shots in the aeronautics and aerospace industry. This was a crowd poplulated by characters with outsized personalities, and that's putting it mildly. Mr. Armstrong was the most famous person in the bunch but you would never have known it. (Before the arrival of this group, the housekeeping staff was reminded please to refrain from stealing Mr. Armstrong's underwear for souvenirs.) My brief encounter with Mr. Armstrong was utterly cosistent with what I have read about him since his death last weekend. He was dignified and modest. On his last morning there, I had to work a brutal pre-dawn breakfast shift to feed the guests who had especially early departure times. I was not at my best that morning, and it wasn't just because of the time of day. Truly, I was not at my best. Upon dragging myself into the kitchen, Mr. Armstrong offered me the seat next to him and said, "You look about as sharp as a meatball." That was a pretty funny and generous thing to say to an irresponsible young man who should have known better.

To have one small personal anecdote about Neil Armstrong has always given me a thrill. Sometimes we talk about brushes with greatness when we recount having met this or that famous person. Neil Armstrong was on an entirely different level. Of course, he clearly rejected any notion of his role as an object of hero worship. I don't know whether local author Andy Chaikin regards Neil Armstrong as a hero but I do know he considered him a friend. In Man on the Moon, his acclaimed book on the Apollo program, Chaikin writes eloquently about the man and his many colleagues whom he came to know so well. For those still awestruck by what Neil Armstrong did on July 20, 1969, this book is essential reading.

The moonlight in Vermont will be bright this week as that beautiful sphere in the sky gives us its fullest view. Many of us will look up and shake our heads in wonder that a man set his foot there, took a step, then leaped.