I haven’t written about an ordinary day in a long time. Let me try.

Yesterday was Tuesday. I woke at 6:15 and made coffee while Betty slept in — she doesn’t start until 8 at the school. I read the newspaper at the kitchen table: the main news is about Vietnam (always Vietnam) and a civil rights bill moving through Congress and something about a Teamster pension dispute. The space news is inside: a brief note about the upcoming unmanned Apollo test flights.

I got to the office at 8:30. I work insurance claims — property and casualty, nothing exciting. Yesterday there was a fire claim from a restaurant in Lancaster that I’m reviewing, a fender-bender series from a single intersection that suggests someone should look at the signal timing, and a homeowner flooding claim that I’m fairly sure involves some creative interpretation of “sudden and accidental.”

At lunch I read a magazine article about the Apollo spacecraft that I’d set aside earlier in the week. The article described the command module’s environmental control system — the equipment that maintains cabin atmosphere, temperature, and humidity. I made notes in the margin. Harold would ask me later why I make notes in magazines and I would say because I want to remember things and he would shake his head.

Harold came over for dinner — his wife Edna was at her sister’s. Betty made a roast. We sat at the kitchen table for two hours. Harold talked about his job (heavy equipment sales), his garden plans for spring, his nephew’s situation in Vietnam. I talked about the restaurant fire claim and the Apollo article. Betty moved between conversations, adding things where she had opinions, disappearing to read when she didn’t.

Harold asked when the next actual rocket launch was. I said probably late summer, the first Lunar Orbiter. He nodded. “So nothing dramatic until then.” I said that was mostly right. He said “Good. My nerves can use a rest.”

This is what following the space program looks like from Ohio. Reading, taking notes, waiting. Dinner conversations. A magazine in a lunch bag.

I’m keeping this notebook so that whatever small part I played — witness, attendant, enthusiast — is recorded somewhere. History mostly records the people who made things happen. Somebody should record the people who watched it happen.