John Kilroy - 7/21/09
APOLLO 11, Outward Bound H-17
40 years ago and a few days before Armstrong walked on the moon, I was 'enjoying' my solo on Little Ray Island in Penobscot Bay. In the years since I'd developed the terribly romantic but slightly misguided notion that I was all alone on that little rock at the very moment that Neil Armstrong took his historic steps. Well, not quite...
It was early July, 1969. I had just finished my junior year in college. My dad, who always thought I could be improved (!), was involved with our local church which sponsored an inner-city kid to go to this "Outward Bound" thing on Hurricane Island up in Maine. He thought that experience might knock some kind of sense into me, and signed me up. Sounded like fun. I took a bus from Worcester, Massachusetts to Boston, then hitchhiked to Rockland, Maine, where I found a rooming house for the night. Shipped out the next morning. Left my beloved Camels behind.
At 20, I was the oldest kid in my watch, and had more in common with the staff than my peers. I was never much of an athlete, not a lot of fire in the belly, but managed, right away, to be one of the leaders in the daily run around the island. See, we had to wake up at some dark and early hour and run 3 miles or so around Hurricane Island then jump into frigid Penobscot Bay before breakfast. If even one kid didn't do it, no one ate. It didn't take long for me to realize that my being the first to finish the run wasn't doing me or anyone else any good. I spent the rest of the mornings in camp running alongside and encouraging that fat whiny kid from New York City! We never missed a meal. That was one of my best life lessons, ever.
I found my journal yesterday while the world was celebrating the 40th anniversary of that Apollo mission to the moon. I was hoping to prove my long-held fantasy. But the dates didn't line up. I began that solo on July 7, 1969. My notes are fun to read -- "... as I was walking along the north end of the island, a sloop came by. I ran all the way to my rock to watch it go. It just went into the bay, circled around, and is coming back. Perhaps they forgot the can opener." "Steamed the red crab for lunch. It cooked well and didn't taste as bad as the others have. I left the other 4 crabs in my left boot, having no other container for them." And, "NOTE: I think the 'raspberries' I have been so joyously eating are really wild strawberries. I'm accustomed to seeing strawberries much larger." There were, as one might imagine, wild blueberries all over that little Maine island - but alas, in early July they were nothing but small gray bb's."
