It was hard telling those kids...that I wasn't going to be there this year. And I knew I was going to miss them. I won't have an opportunity to see them again, unless they stop by the house. Now during the summer, I got lots of notes; kids would stop by the house. I'd be pulling weeds or something and they would come up and give me a hug and say, 'Oh, I can't believe it, this is so wonderful!' and just get very excited about it. It was hard not being in school. I would have loved to have gone back to school.

When I'm 60, maybe, I'll look at my pile of papers and wonder, What really happened that year?

I told them how excited I would be to go into space and how thrilled I was when Alan Shepard made his historic flight, and when John Kennedy announced on the news that the men had landed safely on the moon, and how jealous I was of those men.

I cannot join the space program and restart my life as an astronaut, but this opportunity to connect my abilities as an educator with my interests in history and space is a unique opportunity to fulfill my early fantasies.

Imagine a history teacher making history.

Reach for it. Push yourself as far as you can.

I have the LIFE magazine of the men walking on the moon.