The newsroom at the grey lady, the New York Times, is a little less than it was with the death of the legendary R.W. Apple Jr.

When I was growing up during the days of the Mercury and Apollo space programs, the astronauts were real heroes. They still are, by the way. I was a young men when the world waited for the men to walk on the moon in 1969. I hiked about 25 miles that day through the Sangre de Cristo mountains to be near a television so I could watch Neil Armstrong on a battered black and white television.