I may be the only person in America my age
who didn't watch Neil Armstrong walk on the moon.
It was a conscious choice.
Talk of patriotism and courage
was too much for me to handle
that July of '69.
I would soon be on my way to Basic Training
and Vietnam after that, I assumed.
After a year of fighting the draft,
I was too filled with hatred and fear
and the resignation that comes with defeat
to give a damn about somebody walking on the moon.
Since his retirement from a college teaching career, Wayne Scheer has published hundreds of short stories, essays and poems on line and in print, including Revealing Moments, a collection of flash stories, published by Thumbscrews Press. His work has been nominated for four Pushcart Prizes and a Best of the Net. He lives in Atlanta with his wife and can be contacted at wvscheer(at)aol.com.
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