Lunar landing: Jeanne Watson

Jeanne Watson, 50, of Nesconset, was a girl growing up in Bethpage, then the headquarters of Grumman. She's now a medical administrator.

We used to call them Grummanites. A lot of people worked there. . . . My father [Hans Ringwald, who was a Nassau County police officer] always continued to do side work [as a machinist]. And Grumman subcontracted to local machine shops, and there was one in town called Howe Machine and they subcontracted to my dad. So he made various little parts, ball bearings, bushings. I don't know the terms, but they were made out of metal and Teflon and aluminum, special metals they were using because they were going in space . . . some of the parts he made went into the landing gear of the LEM [lunar excursion module].

I remember very well all that scratchy black-and-white imagery [of the moon landing]. . . . It had a huge impact on me and all of us kids [her four siblings]. I think all of us have remained tremendously interested in space exploration. . . . We very much identified with it because we were the home of the LEM.

I get choked up when I watch a special about NASA. . . . It was a national pride issue and, of course, all the technology that came from it. . . . People were fired up, motivated as a country. We're going to beat the rest of the world. We're going to be the first. It wasn't just local pride. It was the whole country. But to be right there [in Bethpage], we knew we were making a piece of history, even as little kids, we knew that.