by Dan McCaffery for the Sarnia Observer
(2003) The day human beings first set foot on the moon was the day the earth – or at least Sarnia – stood still.
The Observer sent a reporter out that historic July 20, 1969 evening to find out how the city would react to the fantastic voyage of Apollo 11. “As a quarter moon hung low in the western sky Sunday night, the City of Sarnia was strangely quiet,” he wrote. “For several minutes, traffic seemed still. The collective heart of the community skipped a few beats…then slowly returned to normal. Across the river in Port Huron, fireworks exploded as the moon dipped below the horizon. In those short minutes before, man had done the impossible – with everyone looking on.”
The paper sought out community leaders and ordinary Sarnians to get their reactions. Mayor Paul Blundy thought the moon landing was great because it had drawn the people of the earth together in a peaceful pursuit. But Chief Fred Plain of Sarnia’s First Nation warned, “an Indian from the Six Nations Confederacy had predicted dire consequences since, under their long-house tradition, the moon is a sacred symbol.”
At Twilight Haven Home for the Aged in Petrolia, meanwhile, the event created mixed reactions. Administrator H.R. Nicholson said some residents were upset because TV coverage of the landing had interrupted their favourite programs. Others expressed the hope that they’d still be around when people landed on Mars. For the most part, the seniors didn’t get too worked up about the whole thing. “Actually, they get far more excited over a square dance,” he said.
The Observer’s editor was certainly impressed. He wrote: “A man on the moon. The very phrase triggers the imagination and for everyone (with the possible exception of the very young, who are already accustomed to such spectacular accomplishments) the Apollo voyage stands as mankind’s greatest (and costliest) adventure.
In earlier editions, the paper had pointed out that Sarnian Owen Maynard had been involved in everything from designing spaceships to picking out the lunar landing site. In fact, he worked on the original Mercury program that first put Americans in space. Later, he was a key player in the Apollo program as chief of systems engineering, where the command and lunar modules were created. He was considered one of the fathers of the lunar module known as the Eagle. NASA awarded him two distinguished service medals for his work on the Apollo 8 and 11 missions.
The Observer also noted that the voice people heard talking to the astronauts on TV from Mission Control belonged to none other than Owen Maynard.