3 Things I Remember About: 1969

This is the fifth in a series.

(1) I moved from Primary School to the 4th grade at Elementary School. I was in Mrs. Laney’s class. Later in life, she let me hunt quail on her land north of my hometown. We used to play kickball at recess, and all the guys used to try to kick the ball on the roof of the school. That was sort of like hitting a baseball out of the park.

(2) I distinctly remember watching on TV as Neil Armstrong became the first man to walk on the moon on July 20, 1969. I was amazed that something like that was possible. There were a few people, including more than one in my class, who thought the whole thing was staged by the government. Many years later after I moved to Houston, I became friends with Gene Cernan, the last man to walk on the moon, and was able to hear a lot of amazing stories first hand.

(3) I remember the nightly news with Walter Cronkite. He would always give a report about Vietnam- the name of some village where a battle happened, how many Americans killed and how many Americans got killed. I didn’t think all that much about it at the time, but in hindsight it seems almost surreal. I guess there’s so much instant information today that we get somehow desensitized to all of these wars we’re fighting. Back then there was one report a day- a death scorecard every night that told us who allegedly won the war that day.

Technorati Tags: