July 20th, 1969 - "One giant leap for Mankind."

3 months before my 15th birthday we landed on the Moon. The decade long quest to reach the seemingly unattainable was at an end. Or, perhaps it was only the beginning. 

It was a Sunday, and we were all sitting in front of our television sets, wondering,  hoping, for the landing to go well. It did. The actual landing took place at 1:47 PM, with only 40 seconds of fuel left. It wasn't until 10:56 PM that Neil Armstrong stepped out of the lander. 

As he descended the ladder from the Lunar Module, which had been attached to the Apollo 11 spacecraft, he uttered the words he had so carefully gone over in his head during the 5 day, 240,000 mile journey. "That's one small step for (a) man. And one giant leap for Mankind." Almost 30 minutes later he was joined by Edward "Buzz" Aldrin on the srface. Michael Collins was orbiting in the Apollo 11 capsule.

The next day, a Monday, the nespapers in New York City carried the dateline on their front pages as "Moonday, July 21, 1969." It was a time of elation and a time of wonder. It was a day which no one could ever forget. 

"I'll Never Fall in Love Again" - Tom Jones (1969)

This is one of those records which can transport me back to a time and place so vividly that I can still feel the raindrops pelting the car on the side of the road outside Miami in 1969. We were on a road trip to St. Augustine, and then down to Miami, to see my mother's cousin who owned a nightclub there. The music on the car radio ranged from rock to pop to folk to Broadway show tunes.

That's the way it was then. With only the AM radio for entertainment, and no "ear buds", families shared the time, and music, while in the car. It was a good system, and as I've said, I can still feel the rain pelting the car, and see and hear the thunder and lightning raging outside the windows of our 1966 Pontiac. This version of the Tom Jones hit differs only slightly from the released version, but when you watch him sing, it opens a whole new dimension to the song. He's really feeling it.

Although this Tom Jones song was over a year old when we made the trip, I do remember it coming on a few times, especially when we pulled over to wait out that violent thunderstorm. It's a very distinct and pleasureable memory, safe in the car with my parents. And I even remember the follow up song being Bob Dylan's "Lay, Lady, Lay", which my Mom really liked. This was our last vacation together as a family.

This is another song from "Nashville Skyline" which my Mom enjoyed. She said he finally had found his voice. Funny thing was, I was wondering what had happened to it! Great song and great memories...

This Week In Music - 1969

"1969 - The Year Everything Changed" by Rob Kirkpatrick

This book is a chronological review of the year 1969. With so much having been written about 1968, sometimes 1969 gets lost in the shuffle. I have always considered 1969 to be the year that the "Woodstock Nation" died. The era of peace and love sort of ended at Altamont Speedway in California that December when the Rolling Stones hired the Hells Angels to be the "security" for the concert. A crowd of over 500,000 people allowed themselves to be intimidated by less than a couple of hundred bikers. The fact that someone was murdered in front of the stage, while the Rolling Stones kept playing, underscores the myriad of problems which plagued our society throughout the 60's and would spill over into the 70's. Some might say that the seeds for some of todays problems were planted back then.

The year itself was just as exciting as 1968, but in a different sort of way. While 1968 was a year of great hope, 1969 was a year when the "hippie" movement clearly became commercial. Capitilizing on the sexual revolution, "O! Calcutta" became the number 1 show on Broadway. "I Am Curious (Yellow)" was considered a landmark movie.

In California Charles Manson was able to use the mind expanding properties of LSD to control a band of followers, directing them to murder for the dubious purpose of inciting a race war. San Francisco was reeling under the threat of the "Zodiac" killer, while Lt. William Calley was charged for his role in the systematic killings of unarmed women and children in My Lai, Vietnam.

In politics, President Nixon was in office and beginning his slow descent to his place in history. Ted Kennedy was busy partying with his own campaign staff and made his famous "swim" against unbeatable currents, leaving Mary Jo Kopechne to die, trapped in his car at the bottom of Chappaquiddick. Although this would end his hopes of ever becoming President, it had no effect on his position as head of the Senate Ethics Committee, a post he would occupy for 41 more years, until his death in 2010.

In the midst of all of this there were some very positive things going on as well. Man landed on the Moon, and the first Boeing 747 "jumbo jet" took flight, enabling more people than ever before to travel at an affordable rate. Gays grew tired of being harassed for their sexual orientation and fought back against police in New York City's Greenwich Village, in what would become known as the "Stonewall Riots." This would be the beginning of the Gay Rights Movement.

The Arts and Music scene were active. The Who released the first so-called rock opera, "Tommy." Neil Young and Steve Stills left Buffalo Springfield to form their own bands. Neil Young formed Crazy Horse and Steve Stills founded Crosby, Stills and Nash, which Neil Young would later join.

In Sports, there was Joe Namath, quarterback for the New York Jets, losing his career because he owned a restaurant where alcohol was served. The New York Mets were on the way to their first World Series against the Baltimore Orioles, which they would win. (I think I went to Game 5, at Shea Stadium, with John DiStefano.)

The book is augmented by a time line showing the news events of the year. And it was a busy one. Reading this book makes you aware that 1969 was not only the turning point of a decade, but also a watershed year, both in who we were and what we have, as a society, become.

"We Seven" by The Mercury Astronauts

If you were over 5 or 6 years old in 1960 you will remember the first Mercury flights that presaged our landing on the Moon in 1969. Theses were 1 man capsules designed solely to test whether man could break through the atmosphere, orbit the earth, perform various mechanical jobs outside the capsule and return safely. These were all the same elements required to land on the Moon.

The Russians had already beat us with the first man in space by some 6 months. We were bound and determined to catch up and pass them in the “Space Race.” The ultimate goal was a manned landing on the surface of the Moon before the end of the decade.

7 men were deemed qualified to undertake the rigorous training that would be required to perform these initial missions. They would work closely with the engineers and scientists who would develop the capsules and the gear required for them.

I remember the first blast off from Cape Canaveral, later Kennedy Space Center, by Alan B. Shepard in April of 1961. I was in 1st grade and on split sessions. So I got to watch the event on TV before heading off to school in the afternoon. That first flight was 15 minutes up and back down, just enough time to punch through the atmosphere and splash down in the Pacific Ocean. There the capsule and Shepard were both retrieved by an aircraft carrier. It was all so dramatic and scary. It was the unknown. And we got to watch it live.

The charm of this book is the telling of the story by the 7 men who lived it. They worked together to perfect the mission they would be tasked to perform. The stories they relate here are both anecdotal and scientific in nature. One moment you are learning about spacecraft attitude adjustments and the next you are reading about weightlessness and its’ effects on the human nervous system.

Everything had to be designed specifically for the mission. This was new ground being broken and there were no real rules.

The book is written in such a way that each astronaut takes his turn writing about a particular subject. This gives the reader a good overview of the subject from 7 different perspectives. The book traces the story of the 7 men from the selection process and on through to each of their individual flights.

It’s hard to write a book about such a complex subject and still have it remain “readable.” And these guys do a great job of it. Scott Carpenter, Gordon Cooper, John Glenn, Virgil Grissom, Wally Schirra, Alan Shepard and Deke Slayton were 7 men whose extraordinary courage changed history. And now they have given us a superb, inside look at the work behind those achievements.