PB6 Memories
Eric Hillemann
scrimmaging with the Wisconsin team and others on Saturday. Playing
questions before going over to the Edwards' castle, Willie Keller's
anecdote about why Neil Armstrong enigmatically said "Good luck, Mr.
Gorsky" while on the lunar surface has to be one of the funniest stories
I've heard in a while. Then, playing more questions into the wee hours
_after_ the Edwards party, Wisconsin's Brandon Jones, a true original,
had us in stitches over and over for one thing or another. His plan for
a Wisconsin trash-talking tournament; his "yo' mama" jokes; his
description of the earlier part of his evening soaking in the tub with
the latest issue of GQ; his comment re the tough Terrapin Invitational
questions we were playing (not his cup of tea): "College Bowl is _hard_
. . . let's go shopping!" It won't be as funny in print as it was the
way Brandon said it, but we were rolling on the floor over the way he
indignantly put down the packet he was reading when Clarence Thomas came
up, and said, "I _swear_ it's all done with lighting. I'm sorry, but
that man is just _not_ black!" (Brandon is African-American.)
OK, at the risk of running afoul of the net-censors, here is the Mr.
Gorsky anecdote:
When Apollo Mission Astronaut, Neil Armstrong first walked on the moon,
he not only gave his famous "One Small Step for Man, One Giant Leap for
Mankind" statement, but followed it by several remarks, usual com traffic
between the other astronauts and Mission Control. Just before he
reentered the lander, however, he made the enigmatic remark "Good luck
Mr. Gorsky."
Many people at NASA thought it was a casual remark concerning some rival
Soviet Cosmonaut. However, upon checking, there was no Gorsky in either
the Russian or American space programs.
Over the years many people have questioned him as to what the "Good luck
Mr. Gorsky" statement meant.
A few months ago, (July 5, 1995 in Tampa Bay FL) while answering
questions following a speech, a reporter brought up the 26 year old
question to Armstrong. This time he finally responded. Mr. Gorsky had
finally died, so Neil Armstrong felt he could answer the question.
When he was a kid, he was playing baseball with a friend in the backyard.
His friend hit a fly ball which landed in front of his neighbor's
bedroom window. His neighbors were Mr. and Mrs. Gorksy.
As he leaned down to pick it up, young Armstrong heard Mrs. Gorsky
shouting at Mr. Gorsky. "Oral sex! You want oral sex?! You'll get oral
sex when the kid next door walks on the moon!"
Michael Christophe Wilson
> Date: 30 JAN 1996 16:31:21 GMT
> From: Eric Hillemann <ehil...@carleton.edu>
> Newgroups: alt.college.college-bowl
> Subject: PB6 Memories
>
> When Apollo Mission Astronaut, Neil Armstrong first walked on the moon,
> he not only gave his famous "One Small Step for Man, One Giant Leap for
> Mankind" statement, but followed it by several remarks, usual com traffic
> between the other astronauts and Mission Control.
The actual words said by Armstrong on were: "That's one small step for
_a_ man, one giant leap for mankind." The com traffic also fuzzed up the
word "a" so that it was never recognized by Mission Control but was later
corrected by Armstrong himself once he was asked about it. Just
another question of controversy concerning his speech... I don't know,
he could have come up with something better than that.... perhaps telling
the Gorsky story (as you wrote it) would have been, in my opinion, a more
entertaining choice.
Mike Wilson
Duke University