In July 1969 I was working a regular job 3rd trick in Burlington yard
as a snake. Apollo 15 was slated to land on the Moon early Sunday
evening and then in the early morning Neil Armstrong was to make his
historic “Leap for mankind.” So I grabbed my sister’s B&W 19” TV
since it had built in rabbit ears and headed off to work at 11:00.
Unlike most Sunday nights, we were busy. It was hot and humid with no
breeze. Your clothes stuck to you like thin slabs of fresh liver.
When word spread there was a TV in the yard office, everyone
including the operator at BN, seemed to adjust their schedule to
coincide with a necessary trip to the yard office just before their
Moon walk. The depot was completely empty.
Everything stopped at Burlington for about 45 minutes. Even the
Dispatcher’s phone was quiet. The lights were shut off so we could
see the picture. To this day I can still see a couple of the old
heads that saw steam yield to diesel and jets drive piston airplanes
into retirement just sit there, absolutely mesmerized (as we all
were) by the grainy picture captured off the rabbit ears. Just when
we were all enjoying our extended break the radio came alive when
Jack Myler on the wayfreight screamed they were by Lone Tree with a
red board at Connett, the screen door slammed and you could hear the
operator beating feet up the cinders to the depot screaming, “Tell
him I’m in the can.”
And as any railroad story goes, there was always someone with a
contrary opinion. I was working the West End switch engine a couple
weeks later with one of the yard office moon walk historians. During
the supper break, Kenny claimed in a deadly serious, conspiratorial
tone, “That moon landing never happened. The moon is like a soda
cracker. If you went there you’d just punch a hole in the Moon and
shoot out the other side.” I asked if Kenny had been watching the
same TV I had been a few weeks earlier. He said, “That was all staged
in Hollywood.”
Years later I asked Kenny if he changed his mind, he never waivered.
The Moon was like a soda cracker and Neil Armstrong climbed down that
ladder in a Hollywood movie studio.
Randy Danniel
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