On July 20, 1969, 500 million people watched as Neil Armstrong took the first step on the moon. We are all familiar with his famous quote: That's one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind. I remember thinking that this was quite an enigmatic thing to say. I would lie in bed and wonder how Armstrong differeniated between man and mankind. I thought that, on top of being the world's most famous astronaut, he must also be a prolific philospher.
Some time later I found out that that wasn't what he wanted to say. Radio transmissions were unable to pick up the "a". That's one small step for a man, one giant leap for mankind.
The exclusion of one little article, one of the smallest words in the English language, had me engaged in an internal battle to discover what Armstrong had meant that lasted years.
Sometimes the smallest things are the most meaningful. We overlook them, and things cease to make sense.
While Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin secured their place in history by becoming the first men to step foot on the moon, Michael Collins orbited above them. He was to guide them home again, but no one knows his name.
We have all seen images of man's visits to the moon and of what was left behind.
The American flag, rigid and forbidding. A flag's grace comes on the breeze. It is useless without it.
The footprints. The sole of the astronaut stamped for hundreds of years, so they tell us, on the soft soil of the moon's surface.
The family photograph. A snapshot of Charles Duke and his family in their Houston, Texas, backyard left in 1972.
A paperclip, perfect in its design and purpose, yet so often overlooked.
