This is Rick and his brother Mark. Two sons of Neil.
In the process, they are revisiting their childhoods and the enduring legacy of their father as the first person to walk on the moon.
“I intellectually get it,” Rick said. “But internally I’m not sure I will ever get it. It’s sort of just my dad.”
Even though astronauts were national celebrities in the 1960s, Rick recalled his life was “just normal growing up in the suburbs. It did not seem particularly extraordinary or anything.”
For the occasional family vacations, they flew to Acapulco, Mexico, in a small private plane they co-owned. “He’d fly it,” Mark recalled. “Mom would sit in the co-pilot’s seat, and we’d sit in the back. Usually with an empty bottle or two that we could pee in.”
Only years later did Rick and Mark learn how close their father was to dying that day.
“We didn’t understand the risk,” Rick said. “We didn’t understand the complexity of what they were trying to do.”
Mark said, “We were sheltered. We were never worried about whether dad would come back or not. He was just on a flight. It might as well have been an airplane, a business trip. A business trip to the moon. It really was like that.”
Sumit316 on December 16th, 2018 at 16:47 UTC »
This is Rick and his brother Mark. Two sons of Neil.
Source
Ramaaaa on December 16th, 2018 at 17:19 UTC »
Imagine the angst for his wife, while having to assure the kids that daddy will be back soon.
TheSukis on December 16th, 2018 at 17:48 UTC »
How is this not a more famous picture?