I remember exactly what I was doing 45 years ago this past week.
With a toy Saturn V model in hand--a foot-long replica of the tapered, white-with-black trim, three-stage rocket--I was glued to my family's television set.
On July 16, 1969, I (along with 600 million other viewers worldwide) watched the real Apollo 11 rocket blast off.
On July 20, I saw the lunar module touch down at the Sea of Tranquility.
Later that night, the vision of Neil Armstrong in grainy black and white putting the first human footprint on the moon's surface was etched into my memory forever.
Four days later, I was exultant with the rest of the country when the Apollo 11 crew splashed down in the Pacific Ocean.
The Russians may have beaten us into orbit, but before the decade was out, just as President John F. Kennedy had promised, American astronauts were triumphantly saluting Old Glory staked in the lunar soil.
That triumphant mission has stuck with me.
Every July 20, I remember it--not as the harbinger of interplanetary space travel or conquest, but simply as a unifying national accomplishment.
I was fascinated by astronomy and science as a youngster, and recited statistical trivia about the Saturn V and the moon with the same enthusiasm as that typically reserved for the hitting averages and stats on the baseball cards we boys all collected.
But there was so much I didn't know or realize then, couldn't really even comprehend as a youth, about the Apollo program.
I had no idea, for example, that just a year before his "giant leap for mankind" Neil Armstrong had nearly been killed in a lunar landing training vehicle. Had he waited a second later to eject when the vehicle started banking out of control, his parachute would not have had time to open.
I knew little about Armstrong's impressive history as an early flyer (he soloed before he could drive), naval aviator, Korean War veteran (78 missions at age 21) or research pilot.
I didn't know that before assuming manual control of the lunar module as it descended to the moon's surface (to avoid boulders in the targeted landing area), Armstrong had flown more than 200 different types of aircraft.
I didn't realize the magnitude of the collaborative effort behind the mission: billions of dollars (and that's way before we got used to rounding numbers in billions), hundreds of thousands of people, with titanic organizations like Boeing, Douglas and IBM all producing major components of the massive Saturn V.
It never occurred to me that, as a precaution in the event of an abort, shaped explosive charges were placed on the outer surfaces of the rocket to allow the range safety officer to destroy it (the detonation system was inactive while the Saturn V was still on the launch pad).
Or that while the astronauts sped toward the moon, and the world anxiously awaited their arrival and landing, William Safire prepared a condolence speech for President Nixon just in case the astronauts got stranded there.
Sophistications such as those elude young minds, which are more drawn to the simple concepts of exploration, competition and achievement.
Looking around today, I'm wondering what the next moon shot will be.
What's the next grand effort that we will adopt as a nation?
It's not likely to be another space mission. The Apollo program was born of the conditions at the time, its urgency bolstered by both Kennedy's aggressive deadline and his untimely assassination.
Few experts today see value in costly space exploration unless colonization is the goal, and few scientists see colonization as a real possibility any time soon, if ever.
Besides, a manned trip to Mars would be a snoozer compared to Apollo.
But our children need seminal events like the moon shot to show what can be achieved, in the name of noble aspirations, when people unite in common efforts.
Every child needs a July 20, a toy rocket, and wide eyes.
Mosquito postscript
Even a century ago, Arkansas earned national attention for "remarkable" mosquito issues.
Someone showed me a circa 1915 news story, referring to a Walnut Ridge Blade article in which an Alicia resident was quoted as having mosquitoes on his property ranging in size from a horsefly to a jay bird.
The insect's startling dimensions were observed by a woman traveling through Walnut Ridge on a train, who encountered the oversized pests during a stop.
"Something that big ought to have to buy a ticket," she said.
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Dana Kelley is a freelance writer from Jonesboro.
Editorial on 07/25/2014