Scholars think of the Baby Boom (婴儿潮) generation as those Americans born between 1946 and 1964. But in my opinion, a Baby Boomer is an American born after the Second World War who remembers the Apollo 11 moon landing. For those of us, Apollo 11 was the biggest thing that had ever happened in our lives. It marked our lives just as the Great Depression and the Second World War had marked our parents' and grandparents' lives. We were the last generation to have been born before humans became a space-faring species; we were the first generation to come of age as members of that space-faring species.
In July, 1969, I was eight years old. My parents, younger sister, and I were spending our first summer in our new house, which we moved into the last April. I was enjoying a typical child's summer filled with lemonade and watermelon, fireworks and hide-and-seek. And there was the moon, which made this typical child's summer become unusual.
I had taken to science early and was interested in the space program in particular. I never missed any launch on TV as well as the related reports in newspaper. In my eyes, rockets, spaceships, spacemen, and others about outer space were all so attractive that I could never resist them. What had been science fiction for my parents was science fact for me. And Neil Armstrong, Michael Collins and Buzz Aldrin were my heroes.
I followed every report about Apollo 11from beginning to end. On the morning of July 16, Saturn V rocket, the most powerful machine made by human beings, pushed the three astronauts on their way into history. I watched the news reports of the trip to the moon on TV. Finally, on the afternoon of July 20, 1969 Armstrong and Aldrin landed their lunar spaceship, the Eagle, on the surface of the moon. I can't remember exactly watching much more of the moonwalk; I was young and sleepy, so I went back to bed. I watched Armstrong and Aldrin leave the moon the following day for the journey home, which ended eight of the most extraordinary days in human experience and in the life of one eight-year-old boy.
注意：续写词数应为150左右。
Being children, my sister and I went to bed early on that exciting evening……
……
This little blue planet in only the beginning.
