My Favorite Year – 1969

September 8, 2012 by Teepee12 | 10 Comments

It was 1969, the year I grew my own wings. The world spun faster on its axis. Everything changed.

Neil Armstrong walked on the moon in July 1969. I watched it unfold. I was a new mommy with a 2 months old baby boy. Home with the baby and not working or in school, I had time to see it happen.

Neil Armstrong descending the ladder on the lunar module.

I saw Neil Armstrong walk on the moon. Imagine, a real live man on the moon!

We viewed it on CBS. It was obvious Walter Cronkite wanted to be up there too. Up there, with Neil and the rest of Apollo 11. He could barely control his excitement, almost in tears, his voice breaking with emotion.

The great Arthur C. Clarke was his guest for that historic broadcast. Neil Armstrong died a few weeks ago … He had a good life. Unlike so many others who fell from grace, he remained an honorable man: a real American hero.

How I envied him his trip to the moon. I always tell my husband that no man will ever take me away from him, but if the Mother Ship comes and offers me a trip to the stars, sorry bub, I’m outta here. I’m getting a bit long in the tooth, but if they could do it on Cocoon, maybe there’s time for me, too. Maybe Garry can come with me.

The view from the Apollo 11 Command and Service Module (CSM) “Columbia” shows the Earth rising above the Moon’s horizon on July 20th, 1969. The lunar terrain pictured is in the area of Smyth’s Sea on the near side. (NASA)

Woodstock was just a month away and there were rumors flying about this amazing rock concert that was going to happen upstate. I had friends who had tickets and were going. I was busy with the baby and wished them well.

There were hippies giving out flowers in the Haight-Ashbury area of San Francisco. But I didn’t envy them because I was happy that year, probably happier than I’d ever been and in some ways, happier than at anytime since.

I was young, still healthy. I believed we would change the world, end war, make the world a better place. I still thought the world could be changed. All we had to do was love one another and join together to make it happen. Vietnam was in high gear, but we believed it was going to end any day … and though we soon found out how terribly wrong we were, for a little bit of time, we saw the future brightly and full of hope.

I had a baby boy and I sang “Come a little closer to my breast” by the Holy Modal Rounders (The Incredible String Band made it famous, but the Rounders sang it first). I had met them at a local folk music club and though they’d been the stonedest group of people I’d ever met, but that song was a great lullaby and it made my son laugh.

___

Everything’s Fine Right Now

Who’s that knocking on my door?

Can’t see no-one right now.

Got my baby here by me,

can’t stop, no, no, not now.

-

Oh, come a little closer to my breast,

I’ll tell you that you’re the one I really love the best,

and you don’t have to worry about any of the rest,

’cause everything’s fine right now.

-

And you don’t have to talk and you don’t have to sing,

You don’t have to do nothing at all;

Just lie around and do as you please,

you don’t have far to fall.

-

Oh, come a little closer to my breast,

I’ll tell you that you’re the one I really love the best,

and you don’t have to worry about any of the rest,

’cause everything’s fine right now.

-

Oh, my, my, it looks kind of dark.

Looks like the night’s rolled on.

Best thing you do is just lie here by me,

of course only just until the dawn.

-

Oh, come a little closer to my breast,

I’ll tell you that you’re the one I really love the best,

and you don’t have to worry about any of the rest,

’cause everything’s fine right now.

___

It was the year of the Miracle Mets. I watched as they took New York all the way to the top. A World Series win. 1969. What a year. I rocked my son to sleep and discovered Oktoberfest beer. New York went crazy for the Mets. It should have been the Dodgers, but they’d abandoned us for the west coast.

I wore patchwork bell-bottom jeans and rose-tinted spectacles. I had long fringes on my sleeves and a baby on my hip.

The music was wonderful. How young we were, and how sure that we could do anything, everything. We were going to end war … end THE war … right every wrong. Just as we found the peak, we would drop back into a valley that was a darker place. But for that year, that happy year, the stars aligned for us.

Decades passed; youth was long ago. The drugs we take control our blood pressure, not our state of consciousness. They aren’t any fun at all. I worry about Social Security and Medicare and I know I’m not going to fix what’s wrong with the world. I’ve lived a lifetime. My granddaughter is barely younger than I was then.

I’ve remarried, lived in another country, owned houses, moved from the city to the country, and partied with a President … but 1969 remains my year.