The Daily Dose/July 24, 2019
By Gaylon Kent
America’s Funniest Guy
Leading Off
As readers of this feature know, we’ve been featuring Apollo 11 both in this segment and in the On This Date segment this week. It’s the 50th anniversary of what Roy Neal of NBC News called man’s greatest adventure and today marks the 50th anniversary of the end of that mission when Apollo 11’s splashed down in the Pacific Ocean.
The term man’s greatest adventure is appropriate, simply because of where we went. Other adventures we’ve taken over the centuries would come close to qualifying, too and some of those might even be more incredible because Apollo had the support of 400,000 others guiding them. Other adventurers lacked this luxury. When you get right down to it, though, Apollo 11 was merely humans being humans: we saw someplace we’ve never been and we decided to go there.
And when you get right down to it, Apollo didn’t really find anything earth-shattering, either. Certainly, an unmanned mission could have discovered everything us humans did. Sure, they brought some rocks back, but the mysteries of how and why we were formed are still with us. That’s all right. Like great explorers before and since, the twelve men who walked on the moon found what was there for them to find.
No, the greatest legacy of Apollo is not what they did, but that they actually went and did it. Nine times we sent men to the moon. Three missions (Apollos 8, 10, and 13) orbited the moon and came home while the others landed, explored, took off, and came home. Us humans are no longer wondering what it’s like to be on the moon because every July 20th, Apollo provides an example of what we’ve accomplished.
Apollo still has one more mission to accomplish, though: to inspire us to once again see how far we can go. Perhaps one day it will accomplish that mission.
Today At The Site
The Diary of a Nobody: Amy is in for some night audit training, and it’s been a triumphant week of sleep for Sparrow so far. Today’s Diary.
Amy was out front when the crew came by for 0400 muster…I don’t do that..Now, it is a time-honored front desk clerk instinct to be at the front desk when the lobby is occupied…It’s a good instinct, frankly, but with the 0400 crew I don’t bother…Their coffee service is ready and if they need me they know they can ring the bell…As it was, the crew consumed almost a pot of coffee this morning but the big news the favored creamer today was half & half…I am not making this up…French vanilla got some modest action, but hazelnut, usually a 0400 bellwether, got no action at all.
It’s Sparrow, an average man passing an average life.
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On This Date
In 1969 – Man’s greatest adventure – the first lunar landing – ends as Apollo 11 splashes down in the Pacific Ocean, about 900 miles west of Hawaii. Originally, Columbia found itself upside down, but the ship was righted when bags designed to right upside down command modules were deployed. The crew was met by Navy frogmen who tossed in isolation garments after opening the hatch and the crew was ultimately lifted to a helicopter, flown to the USS Hornet and immediately placed into quarantine, where they would remain for three weeks. The entire mission, from liftoff to splashdown, took 195 hours, 18 minutes, and 35 seconds.
In 1968 – Hoyt Wilhelm of the Chicago White Sox establishes a new major league record for most appearances by a pitcher, appearing in his 907th career game, pitching the final inning in a 1-0 White Sox loss to the Oakland Athletics. Wilhelm broke the record established by Cy Young, who had first set the mark in 1905. Wilhelm made his first major league appearance on April 18, 1952 with the New York Giants, and after the 1972 season with 1,070 games pitched. The record was broken in 1998 by Dennis Eckersley and is now held by Jesse Orosco, with 1,252 games pitched.
In 1961 – Bobby Lewis is at #1 on the Billboard Hot 100 for the third of seven consecutive weeks with Tossin’ and Turnin’. It was the first of two top 40 hits for Lewis, who later in the year hot #9 with One Track Mind. Tossin’ and Turnin’ was also in its fourth of ten weeks at #1 on Billboard’s soul chart, was Billboard’s biggest hit of the year, its fourth-biggest of the decade, and it placed 36th on Billboard’s 60th anniversary Hot 100 chart last year. Now 96, Lewis lives in New Jersey.
Quotebook
I would have been happy doing anything they told me to do.
Neil Armstrong
Answer To The Last Trivia Question
Three Chicago White Six pitchers have thrown perfect games: Charlie Robertson, Mark Breuhle, and Philip Humber.
Today’s Stumper
How many games did Hoyt Wilhelm start in his major league career? – Answer next time!
