Nearly 50 years ago.

I was seated between my great-grandfather, John William Garrett Clary, and his brother in law, my great-great uncle, Alpha Jones, on my great-grandparents’ Davenport (brand name for a sofa) as we watched the scratchy black and white images of Neil Armstrong walking on the moon.

I had a fake portrait (like the one below) in a plastic white frame of Armstrong hanging in my bedroom. Mother had purchased it several weeks prior to the launch.

When I moved to Dayton in August 1990 I learned Neil Armstrong lived in nearby Lebanon, Ohio, and was quite accessible to the public. I never saw him as I passed through the city.

15 years ago two of my sons and I stood at the Wright Brothers’ graves at the concluding ceremonies of the Inventing Flight festival to honor 100 years of Flight. That day, former astronaut and Ohio US Senator John Glenn introduced the guest speaker, Neil Armstrong.

I was in heaven.

May 2012, we gathered again at the Wright Family gravesite to listen to Armstrong speak at the 100th anniversary of Wilbur Wright’s death.

A few months later, Neil Armstrong, one of my childhood heroes, slipped away.

What a wonderful childhood memory shared with several generations of my family.