If somebody'd said before the flight, 'Are you going to get carried away looking at the Earth from the Moon?' I would have say, 'No, no way.' But yet when I first looked back at the Earth, standing on the Moon, I cried.

Of course, in our grade school, in those days, there were no organized sports at all. We just went out and ran around the school yard for recess.

When I first looked back at the Earth, standing on the Moon I cried

I realized up there that our planet is not infinite. It's fragile. That may not be obvious to a lot of folks, and it's tough that people are fighting each other here on Earth instead of trying to get together and live on this planet. We look pretty vulnerable in the darkness of space.

So everything turned out fine, and we were given the opportunity to go to Washington and be briefed on the project of man in space, and given the opportunity to choose whether we wanted to get involved or not.

I'd like to say I was smart enough to finish six grades in five years, but I think perhaps the teacher was just glad to get rid of me.

You may not have any extra talent, but maybe you are just paying more attention to what you are doing.