Over forty years ago, Neil Armstrong became the first man to walk on the moon. I watched; my mother got me up from bed rightly believing that this was something I should remember. Neil Armstrong was one of the quietest of the Apollo astronauts in later life, preferring privacy and the occasional meeting with high school kids to gladhanding a bunch of politicians or (for that matter) SF fans. I never met him. It doesn’t matter: he’s one of the abiding reasons that, despite everything, I remain proud to be an American.
Too many people I care about have died recently, dammit. The SFFNet memorial rose is overloaded with names, and I expect that there will be a number of memorial services at the 70th World Science Fiction and Fantasy Convention next weekend in Chicago. I won’t be there, but I’ll be thinking of Neil, and Sally Ride, and SF writer, horse nut and irrepressible punster Josepha Sherman, with the rest of you who are. :-)