**

"I had the good fortune of growing up in the multi-ethnic, melting pot city of Passaic, New Jersey. Among the parents in that small city were many immigrants whose primary goal was to ensure an excellent education for their children so they could grow and succeed in this new country. In a prior book, Wonderful Passaic, I described the adventures and adversities of growing up in Passaic during the Depression and World War II. It was those adventures and adversities that provided the fundamental bedrock for my participation in the Apollo Program.

During my teenage years, I worked at my father and uncle’s men’s store (called "Moe and Morris") on the corner of Monroe Street and Lucille Place. The store’s specialty was the sale of pants. It was through a "revolution" that occurred in the pants business following World War II when I first thought about man going to the Moon.

The revolution was the postwar introduction of zippers on the fly of men’s pants instead of buttons. Now perhaps that doesn’t sound like much of a revolution, but as a matter of absolute fact, it raised a fear that man had never exhibited before — the fear of "it" getting stuck in the zipper.

Everybody claimed to have heard of someone who had a friend who had a catastrophic accident with a zipper. Therefore, every man, who for his entire life had used buttons on the fly, was very reticent about buying new pants with these "new fangled zippers." And yet the pants industry, in order to offset the inflation of wages that followed World War II, had eliminated installation of costly buttonholes in favor of the zipper. It was left to the retailer to convince the buying public that the use of zippers was preferable, and of course, safe.

In the spring of 1946 I was thirteen years old, and I worked at the store after school. Because many sales of pants were being lost because of the "zipper fear," my father and uncle sat in the back of the store discussing what to do while I dusted shirts on the store shelves. I could overhear them trying to come up with a method of convincing people that zippers were safe. I could also hear my father saying, "No, no, he wouldn’t do that."

However, my uncle was the stronger partner. He called and asked me to come to the back. He then said that my father and he had discussed a way to convince customers that it was safe to buy pants with zippers. My uncle calmly explained what he would like me to do whenever a reluctant pants customer was about to walk out without buying. He said I was to step on top of the stool that was used to try on shoes, unzip my fly and whip "it" out and then rezip the fly to show there was no danger. As I said, my uncle was the strong partner; however, there was no way that I would do that, even for him. What thirteen-year-old would?

Because of my stubbornness, my uncle had an alternate suggestion. He would sew a rabbit’s foot on the front of my underwear. Then when I would unzip, I would not have to expose myself. I would simply show the rabbit’s foot. He was convinced the customers would get a big laugh. I would then simply zip up, having retained my modesty, and yet demonstrate to the customer that zippers were safe.

I didn’t know what to do because I was trapped. My uncle had found a compromise that allowed me to retain a little bit of dignity and yet satisfy the store’s need. Therefore, I reluctantly agreed.

With that, my uncle left the store and walked across Monroe Street and bought a "lucky rabbit’s foot." When he returned, he sewed it on the front of a pair of new underpants and triumphantly handed them to me.

I went into the dressing room, changed underpants, and then put on my pants with a zipper. When I returned my uncle asked me to demonstrate. With my father standing by, I climbed up on the foot stool, unzipped the zipper and out popped the rabbit’s foot. Both my uncle and my father fell over laughing. I then rezipped the pants and they both applauded.

As I recall, about a half hour later a customer came into the store who was interested in buying a pair of Botany pants, the most expensive pants that were sold in the store. They sold for more than $20 a pair, which in 1946 was about a half a week’s salary for the average worker. In fact, they were three times more expensive than most of the pants that the store sold.

My uncle was handling the sale and it was going very smoothly. The person liked the pants, liked the color and liked the fit. But the customer was adamant in demanding that the pants have buttons and no zipper.

My uncle tried to persuade him that zippers were more modern, better, warmer, cleaner, and any other improvement he could think of. But this person was just absolutely opposed to zippers. He had heard stories of men who severely injured themselves with zippers. He wanted buttons.

I knew what was coming.

My uncle called my name, "Bobby, please come here." He then introduced me as his nephew and said that I had been wearing zippers on my fly for a long time (in fact, it was only for a month). My uncle admitted he had heard the stupid stories about people damaging themselves with zippers, but nothing like that had ever really happened, "Isn’t that right, Bobby?" I said, "Yes, they’re perfectly safe and they’re so much warmer in the cold weather." The man was not convinced. My uncle said, "Bobby, show him." So there I was, climbing up on the foot stool with this stranger watching me. I unzipped my fly and whipped out the rabbit’s foot. The customer, my uncle, and my father (who was lurking in the background), all broke out laughing. I then zipped up my fly.

No, that’s not true. What was true was I then attempted to zip up my fly. Unfortunately, the hair on the rabbit’s foot got caught in the zipper and ripped about one inch of skin off of the rabbit’s foot. The customer’s eyes bulged and he kept murmuring over and over, "Oh my God, Oh my God . . . "

I glanced at my uncle who was somewhere between being shocked and enraged, and my father who couldn’t believe that his son — his pride and joy — was really a schmuck. The customer finally said, "No, I’m not going to buy one of these new fangled type of pants. Never." My uncle tried to calm him but the customer’s last sarcastic words, as he walked out, were, "I’ll believe that zippers are safe when I believe somebody can fly to the Moon and walk on it."

As the customer walked out of the store, it was obvious that my uncle was furious with me. I tried to sooth things by saying that Flash Gordon in the weekly serial playing at the Lincoln Theater had gone to the Moon. My uncle roared back, "No one has ever gone, nor would anyone ever go to the Moon!" I didn’t answer him but I promised myself that when I finished school I would work on how to send a man to the Moon.

(And I did.)"