October 4, 1957 I was ten. We went into the front yard and stood, looking at the dark sky, mentally filtering out the stars. Daddy spotted it first: a moving dot. I could hear the awe in my parents' voices as we watched.
I'd heard the talk and knew the possibilities: Maybe they were watching us, right that minute! Maybe they would drop bombs on us from space. Maybe ... maybe this meant they were better than we were, smarter and better educated!
What it meant, in reality—the Russians' launch of Sputnik, the first man-made satellite—was that American schools started teaching science and math to grade-school children. That Kennedy, half a decade later, would speak of the New Frontier and a national goal to put a man on the moon. That science fiction was suddenly real and walking on the earth.
But then, in 1957, in the midst of the Cold War, we were afraid.
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Posts
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October 4, 1957
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Supper with friends
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