Man Walks on Moon

157-1/2 Morris Ave Athens 05-12-2014Wife Lila  and I, newlyweds, watched the moon landing from a bedroom in this apartment at 157-1/2 Morris Ave., in Athens, Ohio. The bedroom was so tiny that the BED barely fit it it. It was cooled by a beat-up old air conditioner that Dad had pulled out of one of his construction trailers.

To call it a dump would be an overstatement. I couldn’t afford a police monitor for the apartment, so I’d park my car where this blue one is, and alligator-clip a pair of wires to the monitor in the car, which was attached to a speaker in the living room.

The area above the garages was divided into two apartments, the two windows at the left were for the living room; the two higher windows to their right were the kitchen. The other two sets of windows belonged to another tenant.

When we moved out, the landlord, a local lawyer, said he was going to keep our damage deposit because of A, B and C. When I complained that those things existed when we moved in, he said, “Sorry, Kid, you should have made note of them.”

About a year later, the lawyer gave me a call. “You shot some photos of a car vs. train crash that could be very helpful to my client,” he said, like we were old pals.

Trust me, I got our deposit back on that deal.

Bob painted the apartment

Photo partner Bob Rogers moved into the place when we moved out. He shot the landlord a deal: you pay for the paint, and I’ll provide the labor. What the landlord didn’t know was that Bob planned to paint the whole interior in a flat black so he could use the walls as photo backgrounds.

I wonder if the person who is living there today ever managed to cover up  that black paint?

11 Replies to “Man Walks on Moon”

  1. We were living in a one room efficiency apartment in CG before moving to Madison. We didn’t have a tv and borrowed one that Don’s grandparents had before getting a better one. Thus, we are watching the moon landing on a 50’s era tv.

  2. My wife and I were newlyweds living in a 3rd floor one bedroom apartment in Sandhofen Germany. We had a coal stove for heat and a coal fired water heater. No air conditioner and no TV. Our Hungarian born landlord who lived on the first floor and who had been a slave laborer during WW2 asked us to watch the moon landing on their. TV. It was interesting. The background audio on TV was in English with a German translator voice over. Landlords family did not speak English. My wife and I spoke very little German.

  3. Our first apartment at 114 1/2 E. Davis was on the square in Fayette Missouri. It had been part of the old Lucy Lee Hospital. We have part of the old hallway, two private rooms and the medicine room was our kitchen. there were no windows in the kitchen or bathroom. The apartment was on the second floor over a jewelry store. The front steps to the second floor were steep and the back steps to the building had a lean to them but seemed sound. I would be glad to show you a current photo but several years ago that building collapsed! We paid $55.00 a month including utilities! There is now a new building housing a Dollar General store on the site. Today I guess the new building squeezed in between the old buildings is holding up the rest of the block!

  4. I was a Jackie Richard’s mom and dad’s house that night. Watched it on Jack Richard’s black and white TV and wondered…wow what next! I still remember President Kennedy speaking on getting to the moon before in the end of the decade and America did it.

  5. I was in ROTC Summer Camp at Ft Bragg, North Carolina. On weekends several of us would rent a cheap, but air conditioned, motel room just to get away from the heat and humidity of the barracks. We definitely had the moon landing on the TV. I was so exhausted from the week that I couldn’t stay awake. I fell asleep on the floor and missed the live landing!

  6. We were living in Eau Gallie/Melbourne, FL and went to our friends’ house in Indian Harbour Beach, FL to watch the landing. They had a brand new larger color TV and wanted to show it off. Unfortunately, they didn’t have cable yet and their reception was not very good. We should have stayed home.

  7. That day friends and I were near Hannibal in a quarry collecting fossils. We heard the landing on the car radio. We then drove home and Mary & I and our four month old sat in our mobile home and watched the First Steps on our tiny B&W TV. Little did I know that I’d later be in charge of mapping the landing site for Apollo 17’s Astronauts to record their exploratory treks.

  8. I was working in St. Louis at (D&B) – my first fulltime job after graduating,living in a one room apartment and watched it on my 9″ black & white TV by myself. I also missed Woodstock that summer unlike the 10 million kids who apparently went there.

  9. I was anxiously awaiting the birth of my second child, Jason, in Santa Ana, CA. AFTER the moon landing, the first thing the next morning, July 21, 1969, my sweet son made his own landing on this earth! Holding him in my arms for the first time as I watched the astronauts ascend down that spaceship ladder onto the moon, I thought, “WOW! What a great new beginning for our family, our country and the world! GOD IS SO AWESOME!”

  10. My Wife and I were on vacation in Europe. we were in Madrid Spain at the Hotel Colon (Columbus)that date and it was 3AM in the morning when they announced the landing. We watched it on a color TV in the main lobby. I will never forget the second it happened taxi horns went nuts in the street, people were dancing in the streets, the sidewalks, everywhere. Cheers went up as it became a fiesta; it was nice to be an American as we were treated with respect and some awe. I also remember the TV dubbed in Spanish comparing it to Columbus discovering America!

  11. I watched from a stool at Jack’s Snax Bar in Estes Park, Colorado after freshman year. Yes, the drinking age for beer was 18. Grainy black and white television. Heard Neil Armstrong say “That’s one small step for man . . .” I read a story lately about something he said under his breath. Look in up. Whether true or apochryphal, it’s hilarious.

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