The undeniable fact about aging is that one accumulates reminders of past stories from celebrations, movies, music, old friends and more. In addition, one develops the ability to enhance the facts of a story which makes it even better, at least for the storyteller.

As an aside, one might even build a political campaign from enhanced stories. But I digress.

We have recently seen movies using Apollo 11’s moon landing as a backdrop, including at Rose Theater, which presented “Fly Me To The Moon.” This movie is a concocted story about the development of a fake landing as a way to guarantee the world does see a landing in the event of a failure of the real one. (Hence, there would be no embarrassment to the U.S.) “First Man” is a more dramatic movie on NetFlix about astronaut Neil Armstrong, who was the first person to stand on the moon as a part of Apollo 11.

We have noted the 55th anniversary of the successful moon landing in July 1969.

Finally, the excellent program at Rotary last week by Megan Churchwell, the curator of the Navy History Museum in Bremerton. She commented on Navy pea coats being available at military surplus stores. I assured her that some of us got our coats the old-fashioned way, from some grizzled petty officer in Navy boot camp.

All of this more easily resurrects stories from that time and provides enhancement opportunities!

One story many of you have either heard me tell or read in this column in the past occurred on July 17, 1969, the day the USA landed on the moon. You are excused from further reading unless you want to catch the current enhancements.

I was in the Navy and aboard the USS Belmont, a technical research ship whose description was a euphemism for “spy ship,” and whose name was in no way related to LMC General Manager Brian Belmont. Our mission that summer was to shadow the Moskva, a Russian helicopter carrier operating in the Mediterranean. The Moskva was fairly new with a mission of detecting submarines, particularly U.S. submarines, using helicopters with sonobuoys hanging from them into the water. It made for an interesting sight. Given their mission, the ship had several accompanying Russian warships. 

The worldwide interest in the moon landing probably generated the plan for the landing to happen on a Sunday afternoon in the U.S., thus maximizing the television audience. Those of you sensitive to the different time zones realize that the landing occurred in the evening in the Mediterranean, and it was dark.

What an opportunity. The Belmont put up the “holiday flag,” shone spotlights on it, shot off flares, which, all in all, appeared to start “World War 3.” We then sent a message off to the Russians notifying them that “we landed on the moon!” Their ships were maybe a short 10 miles away and it was easy to communicate with them if needed. However, they did not respond to our less-than-humble declaration of lunar exploration success.

In our efforts to ensure they remained informed of our victory in the race to put a man on the moon, we repeated the message while the Belmont’s exuberant light show continued. We noted that a couple of the Russian ships sent a couple of messages back and forth probably generating permission from a fleet commander to respond to us. They finally sent the message, “Yankees, go to bed.” There it is, the ultimate in Russian humor.

Upon the return to Norfolk, the Belmont was decommissioned. The Moskva was decommissioned in the 1980s only to be replaced by another Moskva which was either sunk or badly damaged recently, depending on whether you like the Russian or Ukrainian version of events. No matter, I am sure there are sailors who will relate enhanced versions of the story and others for decades to come.

Love a curmudgeon and have a great week!

Ned is not a trained journalist even though this is the 732nd column he has written for The Leader. Reach him at ned@ptleader.com