It was the summer of 1973, and I was a 17-year-old Boy Scout who seemed destined to “age out” at First Class rank, unless I could earn one final merit badge, which would advance me to Star. I decided to pursue one of the newest badges, Space Exploration.

Unfortunately, I discovered that, in my rural southeastern Ohio Scout district, there were no qualified counselors for this badge. When I went to my Scoutmaster for advice, he offered the response that he always gave to a problem he didn’t have an answer for: sarcasm. “You claim you’ve written to all these astronauts and gotten their autographs,” he said. “Get one of them as a counselor.”

America was just completing the Apollo moon-landing program. We had met the challenge that John F. Kennedy had set for us in the early 1960s. The summer I was 17, one astronaut towered above the others: the first man to set foot on the lunar surface, Neil Armstrong.

Armstrong, an Ohio native, had left the space program and purchased a farm in southwestern Ohio. He consistently refused lucrative endorsement offers and commercial ventures in order to avoid the appearance of taking advantage of his place in history. Instead, he accepted a teaching position with the University of Cincinnati and did his best to blend back into everyday life, enjoying his family and farm.

With a little amateur detective work, I was able to find out where he lived. One Saturday, I drove my car 150 miles to the town of Lebanon. Mustering every ounce of bravado I had, I pulled into his dusty driveway and parked behind an Opel Kadett station wagon. Another vehicle, a four-door Chevrolet, stood in front of the equipment shed that doubled as a garage. Not the automobiles you would expect an astronaut to drive. The century-old farmhouse was in obvious need of repairs, and there were signs of remodeling and construction all around it, but no crew. Could it be that the first man on the moon was actually fixing up his own place? Taking a deep breath, I knocked on the back door. In a moment, my hero appeared, wearing jeans and a torn shirt, with sawdust in his hair.

I introduced myself as a Boy Scout who had driven across Ohio to ask his help. I had said a silent prayer that Neil Armstrong, the Eagle Scout from Wapakoneta, would look on this intrusion from a First Class Scout from Marietta in a favorable light. Mr. Armstrong paused for a moment and then said that, since the house was being renovated, he would prefer to talk outside.

We settled against the fender of his Chevrolet, and he listened as I explained my need for a merit-badge counselor. With a skeptical grin, he agreed to take a look at whatever work I had brought with me. Elated, I ran to my car and opened the trunk, where I had my