“The stars are not the limit; they are just the beginning.”
— Buzz Aldrin, NASA astronaut and Lunar Module Pilot on Apollo 11, second human to walk on the Moon, July 20, 1969.
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Late Spring, 1961. Summer vacation loomed large in Mount Pleasant, Texas. In a few short days, school kids all over town would swap classrooms and books for bicycles and the swimming pool at Dellwood Park.
Seventh grade in the piney woods of East Texas that year felt less like the happy-go-lucky sixth-grade playground I left behind the year before. More like the classroom confinement of high school, soon to come.
Campuses for both schools were separated only by a faculty parking lot, where David Neeley and I played tetherball many afternoons after school. Waiting for Mr. Ricks to complete his first bus route before coming back for a south-side in-town run.
Just four years earlier, the Russian satellite Sputnik 1 entered orbit, launching dreams and fascination in millions of schoolkids about space and the beginning of the “Space Race.” When comic books like “Sky Masters of the Space Force” focused on the seemingly realistic adventures of an American astronaut.
I’d read the comic books. And the stack of Popular Science magazines sharing my closet with issues of Hot Rod and Car Craft. I heard about the Space Race but understood little about it. Seemed like something politicians promoted on the evening news.
News of the first American in space, Alan Shepard, filled the Friday, May 5, evening television segment. Little more than three weeks after Russian Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin marked a major Space Race victory for the Soviets as the first human in outer space.
I still remember Dad turning on the cabinet model Zenith TV, a relatively new addition to our living room. Vacuum tubes hummed as the set warmed up, eventually rendering a flickering black-and-white image of what was then known as Cape Canaveral in Florida.
News film replayed the day’s events, showing the “Freedom 7” capsule sitting atop the Mercury-Redstone rocket in the morning sunshine. Even as the countdown hit the final ten seconds, I knew it had all taken place hours ago. But I was holding my breath anyway.
Clouds of white smoke erupted. TV speakers boomed with a deep rumble, sending shock waves shaking Mom’s leopard TV lamp planter she’d purchased with S&H Green Stamps.
Then Shepard’s cool, calm voice registered, “Roger, liftoff, and the clock has started!” Saying it like he was just driving downtown to the Perry’s five-and-dime store, or something.
For little more than fifteen minutes, I wasn’t sitting on the living room floor in East Texas. I was there in Freedom 7, headed for the heavens. I wondered how the G-forces felt. How the sky looked, turning from bright blue to deep purple, then into the heavens’ darkness. Seeing the Earth’s curve. I wondered how it felt to be the first American to see the world as a shrinking sphere.
With the replay of the splash down in the Atlantic, I felt excitement. I felt happiness. I felt the dreamlike exuberance of realizing that the Space Age was no longer just a comic book fantasy; it was reality.
Going to bed that night, I looked at Jack, my childhood cockatiel feathered friend in his cage, and marveled at the thought that today humanity had soared higher than any bird ever could.
Somehow, school seemed less like confinement. Space travel had opened a whole new world to youngsters everywhere. For a nation, it placed the universe within arm’s reach, empowering even kids in small Texas towns to reach for the stars.
Thursday evening of last week, I was that kid again. Watching Artimus II return from a trip around the moon and back, bringing good news and astronauts Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover, Christina Koch, and Jeremy Hansen to the exact location calculated and at the precise planned time.
The world was ready for some good news, and Artimes II just might be the best news in a while for young and old alike. Reminding us of what we are capable of when we work together as one.
Reaching for the stars.
—Leon Aldridge
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Leon Aldridge is a veteran editor, publisher, and communications professional, currently enjoying semi-retirement while awaiting his next challenge. His columns appear in: The Center Light and Champion, The Mount Pleasant Tribune, the Rosenberg Fort Bend Herald, the Taylor Press, the Alpine Avalanche, the Fort Stockton Pioneer, the Elgin Courier, The Monitor in Naples, and Motor Sports Magazine.
© Leon Aldridge and A Story Worth Telling 2026. Feel free to use excerpts with full and clear credit given to Leon Aldridge and ‘A Story Worth Telling.’
A Story Worth Telling 