RIP Neil Armstrong - Aug. 5, 1930 – Aug. 25, 2012

Things like the event of landing a man on the moon did not impress me. I would not have bothered to read the big-headlined story in The Detroit Free Press, which I read daily in those days. Shuttles? Technical. Boring. I was not political at the time except in expressing as much disgust as I could for Richard Nixon (who now seems so sane and decent compared to the leaders of today's Republican party) and laughing at the faux Judy Agnew diary published monthly in The Realist magazine, which made the person who told a New York Times reporter that she had “no use” for hippies, “although I don’t know any, really” seem stupider than she actually was.

Today the first man to walk on the moon was buried. President Obama ordered that flags at national sites be lowered to half-staff in Neil Armstrong's honor. I was pleased to do so; I'd come to have immense respect for the man from Wapokoneta, Ohio, who'd refused to exchange his fame and glory for profit or for an enlarged ego; he did not exploit the honor he'd been granted; he was perfectly accomplished at the wonderful trait of modesty.