1969. It was the year I grew wings. The world spun faster and 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.
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 this past week and unlike so many others, 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 shows the Earth rising above the Moon’s horizon on July 20th, 1969. The lunar terrain 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.
Can’t see no-one right now.
Got my baby here by me,
can’t stop, no, no, not now.
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.
You don’t have to do nothing at all;
Just lie around and do as you please,
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.
Looks like the night’s rolled on.
Best thing you do is just lie here by me,
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 and I watched as they took New York all the way to the top. A World Series win. 1969. What a year.
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 fine. It would all change very soon, but for that one year, just that year, everything felt aligned and right. Many years have come and gone. I’ve done a lot of stuff, lived in another country, lived other lives … but 1969 was the best.
Related articles
- Reuters Video: Neil Armstrong dies at age 82 (englishblog.com)
- Remembering Neil Armstrong: Slideshow (history.com)
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Categories: Baseball, History, Television
SERENDIPITY: SEEKING INTELLIGENT LIFE ON EARTH 
July 01, 1969 I began my enlistment in the USAF during the Vietnam War. The government did away with student deferment to the draft and I left my 4 year scholarship to Souther Illinois University, Edwardsville for a career in the military. I was in San Antonio, Texas when they landed the first man on the moon. I had lost 75 pounds in “Fat Boy Camp” in the prior two weeks. I went from a 44″ waist to a 36″ waist in two weeks. I also picked up the bad habit of cigarettes during that camp, touted as an appetite suppressant. In the next 4 years I learned a trade that last me to retirement. I learned how blessed we are in the United States compared to any other country. I lost my innocence as well.
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We must be the same age. That was the year that many friends were drafted and sent to Vietnam. Garry was there as a reporter. He was already out of the Marines (he joined in 1959 at 17). It was, as Dickens said, “The best of times, the worst of times.”
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I was born on Mother’s Day, 1949. 🙂
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Interesting, my whole life I was told I was born on Mother’s Day and yet I just discovered I wasn’t. I was born May 10, 1949, two days after Mother’s Day. LOL
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So, I’m older than you. My son was born on May 7, 1969 … which was immediately before Mother’s Day. The lilacs were blooming. They still always bloom in time for Owen’s birthday. May is a good birthday time.
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As I wrote that 1969 was my year, too, I somehow forgot that my son’s father was in Vietnam. Time’s funny that way – that something so critical, so world-changing, so monumental – could, with time, not be the first thing that comes to mind. Your post brought back only the good stuff, the intimacy of mother and child. It must have been that song, yep, I blame the song…. 🙂
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It’s nice that we remember the good stuff. There’s plenty of bad stuff to remember, but it’s nice to recall that there WERE good times too. It wasn’t ALL shit.
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It wasn’t so much the great stuff happening around us – though there was a lot of it happening – it was that we were young. So very young, and so very unaware of our own vulnerabilities. As innocence is, I guess. But such a year! Such a being-23, 24, 25 – such a wonderful party. Too bad we couldn’t stay, huh?
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Young and sure that we could fix it, all of it. We have learned better, but it was great being full of hope and so sure we knew how to make it all better.
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OMG, remember? You’ve captured my feelings, my experiences, even my song. Maybe not the baseball, but oh, yes – everything else. What a time that was! (Shared with Mike, born 8/5/69)
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Yeah. For us, that really was THE year. You even remember the AbMaPhd … me, you, Garry, and Bob.
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