It was 1969, the year I grew my wings. The world spun faster. Music was amazing, everything was new, exciting. Neil Armstrong walked on the moon in July. I watched it unfold, a new mommy with a 2-month-old baby. Home, not working or in school, I had time to see it all happen.
I watched Neil Armstrong walk on the moon. Imagine, a real live man on the moon! We saw it on CBS. It was obvious Walter Cronkite wanted to be there too, on the moon 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 last year. He had a good life. Unlike so many others who fell from grace, he remained an honorable man: a real American hero.
I envied him his trip to the moon. If the Mother Ship comes and offers me a trip to the stars, I'm outta here. I'm getting a bit long in the tooth, but if they could do it on Cocoon, maybe we can too. We could go together, our final great adventure.
Just a month later, in August, there was Woodstock. Rumors were flying about this amazing rock concert happening upstate. I had friends who had tickets and were going. I was busy with the baby and wished them well. I was never a big rock concert fan. Too loud for my ears.
Hippies were giving out flowers in Haight-Ashbury but I was happy right where I was. Happier than I'd ever been. I was 22 years old, young, healthy. I really still believed we would change the world. End war. After all was said and done, mostly what we did was make denim a high-fashion fabric.
I still thought the world could be changed. All we had to do was love one another, join together to make it happen. Vietnam was in high gear, but we believed it would end any day. How could it not?
We found out how wrong we were, but for a little while we saw the future brightly, filled with hope.
1969 was a very good year. My favorite year.
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