TODAY’S MEMORY JOGGER: “Where were you and what were you doing the day the first man landed on the moon?”
I looked up the date – that was July 20, 1969. So I’d have been 12 years old, living in Redondo Beach, California. That’s plenty old enough to remember watching this history-making event on t.v.
But I don’t.
Maybe I wasn’t very interested, or it just didn’t make an impact on me at that age. {It wouldn’t be until MUCH later in my adult life that I would develop the desire to travel into outer space – in fact, it’s on my List of Things To Do in My Life.}
There’s no doubt that my dad and my brothers would have had the television tuned to CBS for the entire 27 hours that Walter Cronkite covered the mission. In fact, that may be why I don’t really remember it. Since all other television watching had been pre-empted, I probably simply wandered off.
On the other hand, I DO remember where I was and what I was doing on August 9, 1974, when Nixon resigned the presidency.
I was in Sundance Canyon in Utah, enjoying an end-of-the-semester picnic with the instructors and students of the Medical Laboratory Workshop I’d attended at BYU that summer.
We listened to Nixon’s speech on the bus radio, and I actually remember wondering if I’d always remember that moment.
FOR NEXT WEEK: “What do you think brings good or bad luck?”
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