52 Years Today, Our Moon Landing Party and you're invited!

52 years Today, 

Our Moon Landing Party and You're invited!

We were married in 1968.

We moved into a brand new apartment building that had a swimming pool.
Our first-ever, $ 124-a-month 2-bedroom apartment was on the 3rd floor overlooking the pool and a fairway for the golf course that backed onto our property.

Our apartment was close to my wife's first-ever job at Madonna High School 

(no, not named after the singer ... the "real" Madonna).

Every day, weather permitting, we were at the pool. 

Often, we'd stop for take-out dinner at a new fast-food restaurant that opened just up the street - it was the first of many that would open in Toronto. 

We thought it had a hokey name for a restaurant, McDonald's.

Interestingly, we never saw another tenant of the building at the pool - we always had it to ourselves, until one day.

Sunday, July 20, 1969, APPOLO 11 was scheduled to hopefully and successfully land safely on the moon.

It was a blisteringly hot day in Toronto.

We grabbed our stuff and headed to the pool only to find it was standing room only - it looked like the entire building had finally found directions to the pool.

53 years later, we don't really take much notice of stories of space travel and exploration. 

That summer day in 1969 was special.

As we looked around the pool at the neighbours we hadn't met yet, we decided we had to have a house party (this brain wave may have been the impetus for us becoming what friends used to call us, "party central").

You might say our Moon Landing idea launched us -  we've had a thousand parties since.

We really didn't have a plan or a proper invite ... I just approached each person and said,

"We are having a Moon Landing party today, do you want to come"?

Sure!

Who are you again?

What can I bring?

Who else is coming?

What time are they going to land?

Everyone started arriving at our apartment late in the afternoon. 

They were very reserved, and shy - like us, they didn't know anyone.

There was the proper English couple, the cop who was in the Equine division, the Indian-from-India students, and a couple just off the boat from Scotland. We were a group of about 25 in total sitting in a semi-circle in front of our 19" TV that was showing this fabulous moment in history, in black & white. 

Beer flowed. Casseroles appeared out of nowhere and lots of what the Scots and the Brits called "crisps" completed the dinner menu.

It didn't take long before our shy, reserved "moonies" were sitting on each other's laps, revealing a little more about themselves than perhaps they should have and treating each other like long-lost friends.

The moon landing was really less about the actual event, there wasn't a lot of movement on the TV screen but we all cheered when Armstrong said, "One small step for man" ...  you know the rest. 53 years later, I decided to finish his legendary for-men-only statement with the editorial page from the cartoon in Toronto Star, below.

Our evening ended with some potential fireworks.

By midnight and several beverages later, the folks who had never been to the pool, all decided we were going over the wall and go swimming. Breaking the apartment/pool rules in 1969 was a very big deal - it just wasn't done. But, it was a great way to finish off our spectacular day in history.

Incidentally, with the exception of the Scottish couple, none of the other  "moonies" ever came back to the pool for the remainder of the summer.

ps ... I did spend time with the Indian students. They were a very interesting bunch. They had a friend visit them in 1968. He brought along his musical instrument - something I'd never heard of. He played his Sitar in the stairway of the building because he liked the sound of the echo.

He hadn't become a dad to Norah Jones yet.

His name was Ravi Shankar.