Neil Armstrong, Mr Gorski and the neighbour’s kid

This is a true story, apparently. At least, I really, really hope it’s true.

When Neil Armstrong landed on the moon his last words were: “Good luck Mr Gorski.” Everyone know’s the old, “one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind”, rubbish he came out with first, probably at the instructions of some NASA press officer.

No, “Good luck Mr Gorski”. Now, for years no-one knew who Mr Gorski was, and Neil would never say. Journalists checked the lists of astronauts for a Gorski, then when they had no luck, they searched for known cosmonauts. They couldn’t find any reference to a Mr Gorski.

It was only years later, when Neil was presenting a trophy to that year’s Superbowl winner that a reporter asked him once again, ”who’s Mr Gorski”.

This time the legendary astronaut paused, and replied that since Mr Gorski had died, he could tell the story.

Apparently, when Neil Armstrong was a child, he lived next door to Mr and Mrs Gorski. One day, he was playing football in his back garden and the young Neil whacked the ball over the fence into the Gorski’s yard.

Neil climbed over to retrieve it, then, just as he clamboured back over the fence, he heard the Gorski’s having an almighty argument. There was a pause, then the air shook with the sound of Mrs Gorski screeching: “SEX??!! You’ll get sex when the neighbour’s kid lands on the moon!!!!!!!!!!!!”

I really, really hope that’s a true story, but somehow doubt it.

I actually wrote a song about the story, and when my band was struggling to choose one of the rubbish names we had so far come up with – Voodoo Shoes, Mantis and McFly (!) were the favourites – we eventually settled on Gorski. 

And the song, Mr Gorski, captured the biblical act the protagonist wanted so much in non-too subtle phrases, which were virtually guaranteed to offend. Although, having said that, we once played it in front of the mayor of Crewe and he was tapping his feet along quite happily.

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