Neil Armstrong knows quite a lot about Yonder. He grew up in the small town of Wapakoneta (pop. 9474), on Ohio’s western plains, earning the rank of Eagle Scout and graduating from Blume High School.
At age 38, he was the first person to set foot on the Moon (pop. 0). On July 20, 1969, Armstrong left his footprint in the “fine sandy particles” 250,000 miles from home.
People who grew up in wide open spaces seem to have an affinity for outer space. Hometowns of current astronauts include Creve Coeur, Missouri; York, Maine; Ashland, Nebraska; Ft. Huachuca, Arizona -- we really need to look into this! Like Armstrong, John Glenn, the first orbiter of Earth, was a rural Buckeye, hailing from New Concord, Ohio (pop. 2651).
A high school classmate of Neil Armstrong’s said that at the 50th reunion in 1997 “all the class members wrote a short biography of their lives since high school. Neil Armstrong’s identified him as a test pilot, but said nothing about space or a moon landing.”
Armstrong has shunned the spotlight for 40 years now. He and his wife Carol live quietly in a suburb of Cincinnati.