Fifty years ago during the summer of 1969 human-space flight reached, and humans walked on, the surface of the moon. The next year we scored the SECOND person to walk the lunar trail as UP commencement speaker. Not Neil Armstrong, but Buzz Aldrin spoke to the 1970 graduation class, commissioned the new AFROTC cadets, and left us inspired. Astronaut Edwin Aldrin served as Mission Specialist on the Apollo Eleven craft that landed on the moon 20 July 1969.
I graduated in 1970. What I recall about the commencement address is that Buzz Aldrin wasn’t initially scheduled to present it. Rather, Daniel Patrick Moynihan was to give the address but fate intervened. We graduated on May 10th, just six days after national guardsmen had shot several students at Kent State, wounding several and killing four. In the aftermath, protests arose on college campuses across the country, some of them violent. Accordingly, President Nixon forbade his advisers and cabinet members from appearing at college functions. Moynihan was then a counselor to Nixon, and, therefore, cancelled his appearance at the University of Portland commencement ceremony. Aldrin was there originally to receive an honorary degree but stepped in to replace Moynihan as the commencement speaker. This was less than a year after he had walked on the moon with Neil Armstrong. There was something special about being addressed by the second man to have walked on the moon.
The words of his commencement address are just as true today.
Another small connection to the UP community. I was at that commencement to celebrate my younger brother’s and first cousin’s graduation. I was standing with my cousin’s father John A. (Jack) Teske (Fr. Lloyd Teske’s CSC younger brother – both ND grads – as am I). He was on the aisle. As the dignitaries recessed, Col. Aldrin spotted my uncle, broke from the procession and came over and said, “:Jack, what are you doing here? I’ll see you outside.” My eyes, of course, got as big as saucers. They did chat outside. Turns out that my Uncle Jack’s employer Garrett Corporation had been responsible for the life-support system on the Apollo project. Jack was the chief engineer and worked with all (or at least most) of the program astronauts. He later went on to be CEO. At least three of Jack’s six kids (I think four) are UP grads – and all are also early Salzburgers. Jack, now 94 years young, still supports, I believe, a number of scholarships at UP in the names of Fr. Lloyd and his late wife Lois.
Hope to make the reunion again this year.
Tony Teske, Salzburg 1964-65