I would imagine some of you also fit this description but back in the ‘60s I was that kid, the one who sat cross-legged in front of (the home’s only) TV and watched as much of the NASA space missions as possible. After a while Uncle Walter Cronkite actually felt like an uncle, ya know?

I was fascinated by all of it, from the astronauts to the launches to the concept of sending men into space, circling the earth and bringing them home safely. At that stage of the game I’m pretty sure I didn’t know much about President Kennedy’s famous space race speech but when it came to getting a man to the moon by the end of the decade I was in his corner whether either of us knew it or not.

The Gemini program missions, Apollo 1 when we lost three brave men to a fire in the testing capsule, and that orange peel light that purported to light up at each tracking station around the world. How could they tell the capsule was passing over aboriginal western Australia, anyway? (It showed up in the movie All the Right Stuff so it must have been true.)

I remember it all, or as much as a 61-year-old mind will allow. I was fascinated in a way that few things have fascinated me in all the years since.

So on that hot July night in 1969 it figured I would be sitting cross-legged in front of the TV when we landed on the moon...and I was, but not without some help. Me and my crew were in the front yard playing Every Man for Himself - you know, the game where somebody throws the football in the air, somebody else catches it, and then absorbs a tremendous amount of punishment from all the other 11-year-olds in the game - when my mom called my name.

Dude, I’m in the middle of something. Even so, when mom calls I listen and she tells me, “Bobby, you better get in here, we are going to land on the moon.” What? How could it be after all the time I’ve invested in the space race I was about to miss the most famous moment in man’s history for the sake of getting knocked about by a bunch of my boys?

I raced up the stairs of our duplex at 323 West 6th in North Platte, and slide into my accustomed seat in front of the TV. I remember the one small step for man and being in absolute awe, or at least as much as an 11-year-old can be. I felt like I was there myself in a way, being part of the team for all these years. (This would later create a sense of déjà vu as through the years it seemed as though I was always watching instead of doing on most teams I played on.)

That was 50 years ago this Saturday, July 20, 1969. The first moon landing remains one of man’s greatest accomplishments. And little did I know - I never did ask my parents if they knew that night - that in less than a month our family would be moving to Arnold, my home town. From there I would go on to start my career at the Broken Bow paper, later serve as sports writer for the Alliance, Fairbury and Lexington newspapers, meet my lovely bride and have two great kids. And become publisher of the local newspaper in Central City and of Huskerland Report for the past 30 years.

And they thought the moon landing was a miracle.