Astronauts riding horses, without electricity.

Here's a short story I wrote for the 40th anniversary of the moon landing, which I know was last week. But hope you enjoy.

Ellis sits on his front porch, rocking in his rocking chair, looking at the newspaper. Then he glances at the newly built Highway 127, connecting Dunlap to Chattanooga, across Signal Mtn. It was built by the CCC to take the sting out of the Depression. He hated seeing the highway get built, but it was a better route than the back roads lacing the mountain. It also provided better advertising for the Barker General Store. He sipped a little more on the cold, sweaty glass of water. He looked to the right at his garden, then back down to the paper. Maybe he was just in disbelief. Maybe he had been washing his prized Buick when it was too hot. Maybe it was a hoax or a misprint. "Surely" he whispered under his breath, "there's no way."

In the paper there was an article discussing the possibility of space travel. During the war there had been several rocket tests by both the Nazis and America. Now it seemed as if America and the Soviets were racing to get into space to spy on each other. Ellis just stared at the paper in disbelief, thoughts racing in his mind like a dog chasing squirrels.

As a young boy at the ripe age of twelve, he remembers hearing about the Titanic sinking. Then as an adult he witnessed many people kill themselves over the stock market, and had just seen many young men die in WW2 before their prime. After hearing so much bad news, maybe just the bizarreness of the thought of people in space surprised him the most. And it gripped him.

Years later, 1969 to be specific, this race as he described it would come to an end. Ellis and his wife go to their son's house to watch the landing, where they had made an exception with the children on their bedtime. They understood the significance of that night, and they wanted their children to remember it for the rest of their lives. After Neil Armstrong's famous words were forever etched in the stone of history, Ellis thought back to that day on his front porch and was once again in disbelief. His grandson David asked, "What's the matter GG?"

"Oh, just ponderin'." Ellis quickly replied, hoping David would pursue him.

Much to his amusement, David asked him "About what?"

"How much things have changed." Ellis replied. "When I was your age, we still didn't have cars. We had to stare at horse's asses everywhere we wanted to go unless we walked. The roads were not paved, so they were too rough for bicycles. We still had to go out to use outhouses and pump our own water by hand, because indoor plumbing was still only for the wealthy. An' now! Now..." He trailed off as he got choked up.

David chimed in "It's OK GG, you can tell me. What were you going to say?"

Ellis gathered his thoughts, paused, and then replied perhaps with his strongest ever southern accent, "We're putting men on the moon right now as we speak, and there's no telling what in the world you're going to see in your lifetime." He then shed the serious tone when he said, "An' I thought electricity was a wonder!"

To this day, as David looks down at his cell phone which uses satellites in space, he remembers his grandfather's conversation with him. "Forty years ago today, on July 20th, is when one of my best memories with my grandfather took place as I witnessed history."