Andy Young

It’s a good bet anyone born before John F. Kennedy’s assassination remembers exactly what he or she was doing on the night of July 20, 1969.

I know I do.

My parents, 11-year-old brother, nine-year-old sister and I were congregated in what we  called “Grandpa’s Room” in my childhood home, transfixed by the events taking place on the screen of a small black-and-white television.  It was exactly 10:56 p.m. Eastern Daylight Time when Neil Armstrong uttered, “That’s one small step for a man, one giant leap for mankind,” as he became the first person to set foot on the surface of the moon.

Sadly though, my father’s father, for whom the tiny bedroom was named, was absent. After more than 83 years of life, the last seven of which had been spent under the same roof as his son, daughter-in-law, and three grandchildren, Grandpa Young had, in that very same room, quietly and with very little warning stopped breathing one night just a month and a half prior to the moon landing.

Had he lived just six additional weeks he’d have witnessed the climax of Apollo 11’s mission with the rest of his family, and it would have been great to observe his reaction. While he’d probably have pointed out that some of the money required to put Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin on the lunar surface might have been better spent on the less fortunate here on Earth, it’s more than likely, given the technological advances he’d witnessed during his lifetime, that my grandfather would have enjoyed witnessing that event more than the rest of us combined.

Abraham J. Young was born January 12, 1886, and though no eyewitnesses are left to confirm it, his birth likely occurred at home rather than in a hospital. He spent more than half of his life living where neither he nor his neighbors had electricity or running water. Like most people born in the late 19^th century, my grandfather never had a telephone at home until he was past 50 years old. If he wanted a midnight snack, the concept of which was probably unknown until he was around 60, he’d have had to get it from the icebox, which was what he called the refrigerator in our house until the day he died. I’m not sure when my dad’s father first acquired a television set, but I do remember one of the very special treats of my young life occurred on Oct. 9, 1965, when he took me over to a friend’s house to see the third game of that fall’s World Series on a color TV!

During the first half of my grandfather’s life it was rare for anyone to venture more than 50 miles from where he or she had been born; those traveling further often as not had such mobility mandated and paid for by some branch of the United States Military.

Before the midpoint of the 20^th century long distance trains were prohibitively expensive, only the privileged class had automobiles, and America’s highway system was primitive compared to what exists today. Air travel made many people of that generation nervous, even if they could afford it. Grandpa Young was 41 years old when Charles Lindbergh made his solo transatlantic flight aboard the Spirit of St. Louis. The term “airport” wasn’t even a word until the final third of my grandfather’s life.

Newscaster-turned-author Tom Brokaw famously coined the phrase “The Greatest Generation” to refer to those who came of age during the Great Depression and World War II, and then went on to build modern America. While it’s hard to deny the remarkable contributions of that all-too-quickly shrinking group of people, it’s fair to say the previous generation, the one which spawned the folks Mr. Brokaw wrote about, were pretty great themselves.

It would have been fantastic if Abe Young, a member of that generation, had witnessed what the rest of his family did five decades ago this month. While his son, daughter-in-law, and grandchildren were all appropriately impressed by the moon landing, only he would have been able to fully appreciate the enormity of what mankind had accomplished during a lifetime that began during Grover Cleveland’s first term as president and ultimately concluded just a month and a half before Neil Armstrong’s boot made the first human footprint on moon soil.