My father, Johannes Carl Schmidt—yes, that was his full name—was head patent attorney at Collison and Co in the 1960s and 1970s.
With his scientific background it seemed only natural that he would become focussed on the television and saw all the moon landings between1969 and 1971. He was particularly riveted watching Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin being the first to walk on the moon. Dad even took me to see them parade along an Adelaide street in 1971.
However, my Aunty Hilda was totally different. She was eleven years older than Dad, in her mid-seventies when Armstrong walked on the moon.
She would come from Glynde Lutheran Homes in her old FJ Holden to visit us. She and Dad would get into heated arguments when it came to the moon landing. She would say, ‘Hogwash, John. Man never walked on the moon. It’s a myth. God never intended him to.
‘You know, John, it was all filmed in the Nevada desert, using Hollywood crews. Also, John, how come when they unveiled the US flag it was swaying as if being blown in the wind? Isn’t there meant to be no atmosphere up there?’
Dad, quite overwhelmed, would fire back, ‘Did you think, Hilda, the Russians would let the Americans say they had landed on the moon first if they hadn’t? It was a battle to see who was first, Hilda.’
My father regarded the moon landing as this world’s greatest achievement until his passing. My Auntie Hilda went to her grave in the 1980s thinking that somewhere in the Nevada desert there is a bunch of used US space junk.
Burnside Writers Group 