If you believed they put a man on the moon Man on the moon If you believed there's nothing up his sleeve Then nothing is cool
(Michael Stipe)
July 20th, 1969: Men who had left the safety of our planet first set foot on solid ground beyond the soil of the Earth.
Kennedy said we as a species -- more directly, as a nation -- would visit the Moon and walk on its face. He said it would happen within a decade and challenged the most brilliant minds to find a way to make it work.
And miraculously, they pulled it off. Three men went into space on Apollo 11 on July 16th. Four days later on the 20th, two of them stepped into the dust of the southwestern edge of the Sea of Tranquility.
Not enough can ever be said of the people at NASA who pulled together after the tragedy of 2 1/2 years earlier, when three astronauts died for lack of a door handle in a horrible fire during a training exercise. Apollo 10 almost crashed into the Moon. There were mechanical questions and math a mile long and plenty of other obstacles.
A shitload of movies have been about almost all of it.
Despite it all, mankind made it there successfully, safely. Its astronauts planted the flag of the United States in the thick dust, and looked out at the vastness of space beyond the shiny stepping stone upon which they'd landed.
But the biggest event of my lifetime happened the day before that.
On July 19th, 1969, Airman First Class Tommie Closson, freshly returned from Southeast Asia, married his high school sweetheart, a woman named Linda Hill.
The families knew each other, if only a bit. When both of these crazy kids were small children, the Hills would visit the area and buy fruit from the Closson farm when they visited family nearby. It's almost a certainty that Tom and Linda played together as children, at least a few times, while peaches were being squeezed for firmness and so on.
When her family relocated to the same town, they found each other at school and started dating. They weathered the last part of the 1960s together, survived a car crash, were forced to take my young Aunt with them on dates, and spent a year apart while he went off to war.
When they got married, they had spent an important year apart. They were both 19 years old and it was at the end of a long, strange decade for not only them, but for the world.
Their honeymoon began with one of the biggest history-shattering events in the history of mankind, and ended with their arrival at their new home at his new duty station in Las Vegas.
Eleven months later I showed up, and started crying and pooping with alarming frequency.
The whole world was on the edge of a glorious new adventure in July, 1969. One fraught with ups and downs, good times and bad.
And my parents began a journey that has lasted 50 years. And counting.
Half a century of happy marriage leaves a mark on your kids. Hollie and I grew up in a home filled with love, laughter, music, and the enthusiastic support every kid should have for whatever part of life they decide they want to attack.
Best of all, they were weird, and encouraged us to be weird, as well.
Happy anniversary, NASA. Your achievement was amazing.
But it's still my second favorite thing that happened that month.
We've had some great adventures together, and I know they're not done yet.
Way to stay married, you guys. Love, The Kid You Never Called Junior.