CAM Writer Mark Basquill's "July 20, 1969"

I'm thrilled that Mark has agreed to share this "micro essay," a response to one of our weekly writing prompts. This group of CAM creative writing workshop participants continues to produce heartfelt, engaging, and accessible works of which this is only one fine example.

July 20, 1969

This July 20thmarks the 50thanniversary of the day Neil Armstrong took man’s first steps on the moon, if you believe that sort of thing. That’s an odd thing to say about a plain fact, “If you believe that sort of thing.” Either it happened or it didn’t. 

If you don’t believe the data, physical evidence, moonrocks, and actual live TV broadcast watched by an estimated half a billion people across the globe at the time, including the skeptical Russians, then my testimony of what happened on that day isn’t likely to convince you. 

I grew up in Philadelphia but spent every summer of my pre-adult life except for 1971 at the Jersey Shore. In 1969 my parents and grandmother chipped in to rent a three-bedroom apartment on the third floor of a rickety three-story apartment building at 222 Congress Avenue in Atlantic City. It was midway down the beach block and taller than the single-family homes below. The rickety but relatively safe front porch provided clear views of the Absecon Island lighthouse to the left and the boardwalk as it curved from Garden Pier to the inlet on the right.

On some muggy nights that rickety porch became an escape pod for my mother. After arguments with her mother or my father she would sit out there in a low beach chair, smoke a bunch of cigarettes, and sip a little something. On nights like that, the rickety porch would also become a launch pad for interstellar travel for her eight-year-old son. If the fight wasn’t too bad and my younger brothers were asleep, she’d let me sit out there with her and look over the ocean for shooting stars.

The cramped living room inside the porch door was just big enough for one musty couch, one coffee table, a metal TV table, and the black-and-white set that sat on it. 

My mother slept in the front bedroom. Dad slept there, too, when he came on the weekends from work in Philly. My brothers and I slept in the middle bedroom. My grandmother slept in the last bedroom before the kitchen, and she didn’t sleep much at all. 

I don’t recall the day of July 20th at all. We probably did the usual summer Saturday at the shore things. Woke up, geared up, walked down Congress Avenue through the tunnel under the boardwalk to the beach, put in our 9-5 on the sand, walked back, changed clothes, and strolled on the boardwalk. My grandmother might have even bought me root beer hard candy.

What I do remember is the argument, the TV, and the porch that night. After we were pretty much in bed, my mom got a phone call from my dad. He wasn’t coming down Sunday. He was working overtime at the Navy Yard. Mom yelled some things about him being a son of a bitch and how we were all going to drive her crazy, especially her mother. After mom hung up, my grandmother came out of her room and started in on her about her no-good Irish drunk husband.     

After they tired of shouting at each other, my grandmother slammed her bedroom door. My mother packed my brothers and me back in gritty sand-filled beds and turned on the TV in the living room. My brothers settled back down quickly. I heard Walter Cronkite’s voice and snuck out to see if it was really happening. 

The TV was on, but mom had already gone to the porch. 

 Just before 11:00 I told my mom it was about to really happen. I sat mesmerized on the couch. She leaned against the porch doorway smoking. When Neil Armstrong planted the flag, she blew a plume of smoke, her blue eyes welled up, then sparkled. She smiled the only smile I remember seeing that day, head tilted, lips closed like when she was proud of the way I looked after she straightened my St. Monica School tie. After that solitary magnificent smile, she went back to the porch, lit another cigarette, and sipped a little more something. 

I followed her out to the porch. The crescent moon hung far above the ocean. Until the clouds swallowed up that sliver of light, or I fell asleep, I can’t remember which, I looked for the American flag on Tranquility Base, or any evidence of the magnificence I’d just witnessed.  

Mark Basquill ( copyright, 2019)