One Small Step- 38 Years are Gone
I sat in the radio studio at WMPT in S. Williamsport, Pa. on that distant afternoon. I had the TV on in the production studio on the other side of the glass and the ABC news feed on the air. It was 4:17 in the afternoon:

Houston, Tranquility Base here. The Eagle has landed.

The only song I could think of to play that afternoon as we prepared to come back to the music was an old Kingston Trio song- The New Frontier. Here's the chorus that was inspired by the election of JFK almost 9 years earlier:

Some to the rivers and some to the sea.
Some to the soil that our fathers made free.
Then on to the stars in the heav'ns for to see.
This is the new frontier. This is the new frontier.

It was a remarkable moment. Man had landed on the moon; for the first time- ever- a human was somewhere other than on old terra firma. It was later that night at about 10:56 pm on the east coast when we sat in front of the TV as a slightly fuzzy but remarkable picture glowed from the set. Neil Armstrong stepped off the last rung of the ladder with his now famous,

That's one small step for (a) man; one giant leap for mankind.

We watched for a couple hours as Armstrong and Aldrin had a view that no one had ever had before. An earlier flight had brought back the first pictures like it; but now they were on the surface looking back at the great blue-colored ball hanging in the midst of apparent nothingness. Mother Earth.

The day will come. It's got to be.
The day that we may never see.
When man for man and town for town
must bring the peace that shall resound.
This is the new frontier. This is the new frontier.

A fragile looking sphere. So small against the sky. Never again could we look at earth in the same way. Not if we were to think of how little, how seemingly insignificant we might all be in the great scheme of things. How easily we forget, though. When we begin to focus back on ourselves- our individualism, our nationalistic narrow-mindedness, our human shortcomings of greed and fear and racism, to name but a few.

The new frontier? Not yet. But maybe one day.

Just take a closer look at that blue and white earth hanging in the balance.

Some to the rivers and some to the sea.
Some to the soil that our fathers made free.
Then on to the stars in the heav'ns for to see.
This is the new frontier. This is the new frontier.