It was an unusually warm Christmas Eve at my Uncle Archie's house. My family had driven to Savannah from Orlando with a car load of "Santa" gifts. I was 10, and had pretty much figured Santa for a ruse, but I really didn't want to let go of the fantasy. It took away from my parents fighting again and my Dad had lost his job. There wasn't a partridge in the pear tree for us, just ravens in the live oaks along the dock. The launch of Apollo 8 was on the morning we left, so we delayed our start to see it. The cartoons that touted and mocked the inventions of the future were about to come true. All the scoffing about lunar travel and it’s impossibility silenced for all time. Our house was 40 miles west of the launch pad and the schoolyard at the end of the street made viewing launches easy. We could see the glint off the fantastical machine as the craft vectored away from shore. When the dot made 15 degrees over t...
