My often-maligned basement (Jane is constantly telling me
to “clean that mess up”) now yields another treasure. I found my bottle of Wapakoneta Moon Sauce,
personally presented by the late astronaut Neil Armstrong. I’ve never tasted it
and only have the one bottle from a six-pack Mr. Armstrong had with him on a
trip to Indiana University.
He was a humble man like my friend Sir Edmund Hillary. Mr. Armstrong’s achievement of being the
first man on the moon even surpasses Sir Edmund’s climb of Mt. Everest in
notoriety. But both were extraordinary heroes.
Several years after the Apollo 11 success, Mr. Armstrong was
scheduled for a lecture at my alma mater, Indiana University. I was a recent
grad and into my corporate stint with Cummins Engine Company. Because I had worked for the I.U. Foundation,
sponsor of the lecture, during college, I was asked to pick up Mr. Armstrong at
the airport and bring him to the campus in Bloomington. That was a real honor
for me.
We had about 45 unencumbered minutes to chat and the
subjects covered the waterfront. Most of all, it was clear that he was a
champion of higher education and he said, in more than one way, that he felt
our country’s success in the space race could be attributed to the focus of our
institutions of higher learning. I certainly hope that was true.
He was carrying with him a large leather brief case. In the
course of our conversation, he pulled out a bottle of Wapakoneta Moon Sauce. It
was a novelty cream soda made by the Pepsi Bottler in his hometown of
Wapakoneta, Ohio, southwest of Toledo.
He said it gave him a great laugh and he enjoyed taking the edge off
austere occasions by presenting bottles of it to dignitaries. He planned to present a bottle to Herman B.
Wells, the Chancellor of IU at the time.
Most importantly, he asked me if I wanted a bottle and, of
course, I declined…NOT. How cool was
that. The bottle has been on bookshelves
in my offices and at home in my basement archive ever since.
Last weekend, we lost another true hero. It’s sad to see
their numbers dwindling. The definition
of “hero” seems to be changing today. I’m not sure when the next one will come along
but, until then, I will cherish my bottle of Wapakoneta Moon Sauce and the
inspiration behind it. You’ll never see
my bottle on eBay.
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