Copyright 2009 Lydia Hinshaw
ORMOND BEACH, FL -- The kids were all in their PJs, some of them clutching stuffed animals along with their flashlights as they were led through the dark to the dining hall.
It was July 20, 1969, and closing in on 11 p.m., late at night by Girl Scout camp standards, but this was a special occasion. This night, men were going to walk on the moon, and we were all going to watch.
I was going-on 19, had finished my first year of college and was working my first job outside the tobacco fields. I was a counselor at a Scout camp in Barberville, FL, 23 miles from my current home.
The Girl Scout Council that was my employer served six counties, including Brevard, home to Cape Canaveral and the Kennedy Space Center. Many of our sleep-away campers were the daughters of men who worked in the space program in one capacity or another. I'd like to think that maybe even one or two of their mothers were rocket scientists, but in 1969, that wasn't likely.
At Scout camp, television, radio and all 1969-vintage electronic entertainment were verboten, because we were all trying to get away from that stuff and back to nature, but this was different. The one television in camp, a small black-and-white-model usually locked up in the director's private apartment, had been moved to the dining hall, its rabbit ears extended hopefully.
The reception was fuzzy, but I recall being riveted by the whole thing. Not so all the children of the space program, who leaned against their counselors and each other and slept soundly as history was made.
When it was over, we had to wake them up and lead them back along the sand trails to their bunks.
That year, 1969, is remembered as a significant intersection on the roadmap of the 20th century. For me, it was the year I got hooked on Florida. I went back to North Carolina for six more semesters, picked up my degree and came back for good.
My first job was in Brevard County, where I watched countless rocket launches, including several moon shots. Eventually I landed here, in the same county where I watched that first moon walk, 40 years ago tonight.
The Girl Scouts closed down their camp and sold their Barberville property in 1982. It is now a Florida Sheriffs' Youth Camp, providing summer outdoor experiences for troubled youths.
The little girls who watched the moon walk in their pajamas are in their late 40s and early 50s now. I don't remember any of their names, but some of them undoubtedly live in my zip code. Some of their grandchildren may attend one or the other of the child care businesses I now work for.
I wonder how many of those grandmothers remember that night, and marvel at how far we've all come since then?
It was July 20, 1969, and closing in on 11 p.m., late at night by Girl Scout camp standards, but this was a special occasion. This night, men were going to walk on the moon, and we were all going to watch.
I was going-on 19, had finished my first year of college and was working my first job outside the tobacco fields. I was a counselor at a Scout camp in Barberville, FL, 23 miles from my current home.
The Girl Scout Council that was my employer served six counties, including Brevard, home to Cape Canaveral and the Kennedy Space Center. Many of our sleep-away campers were the daughters of men who worked in the space program in one capacity or another. I'd like to think that maybe even one or two of their mothers were rocket scientists, but in 1969, that wasn't likely.
At Scout camp, television, radio and all 1969-vintage electronic entertainment were verboten, because we were all trying to get away from that stuff and back to nature, but this was different. The one television in camp, a small black-and-white-model usually locked up in the director's private apartment, had been moved to the dining hall, its rabbit ears extended hopefully.
The reception was fuzzy, but I recall being riveted by the whole thing. Not so all the children of the space program, who leaned against their counselors and each other and slept soundly as history was made.
When it was over, we had to wake them up and lead them back along the sand trails to their bunks.
That year, 1969, is remembered as a significant intersection on the roadmap of the 20th century. For me, it was the year I got hooked on Florida. I went back to North Carolina for six more semesters, picked up my degree and came back for good.
My first job was in Brevard County, where I watched countless rocket launches, including several moon shots. Eventually I landed here, in the same county where I watched that first moon walk, 40 years ago tonight.
The Girl Scouts closed down their camp and sold their Barberville property in 1982. It is now a Florida Sheriffs' Youth Camp, providing summer outdoor experiences for troubled youths.
The little girls who watched the moon walk in their pajamas are in their late 40s and early 50s now. I don't remember any of their names, but some of them undoubtedly live in my zip code. Some of their grandchildren may attend one or the other of the child care businesses I now work for.
I wonder how many of those grandmothers remember that night, and marvel at how far we've all come since then?
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