Which officially is here on the 6th, this coming Tuesday just after 8am... twas a nice clear day like this past Saturday was here, in the old Stillwater Hospital that used to be just north of where Tiger Drug was, when the lad arrived. What a joyful day it was. No - he did not have the beard when he was born contrary to popular belief. And if memory serves me right, he could not walk on water back then, but if you would of asked me, I would have answered - yes he could!
In that year, as I remember, a rather tall slim cat from Miami Oklahoma.. wherever that was... played football at OU and became a Heisman Trophy Winner... wow, Oklahoma Football was KING! and this Steve Owens guy did it in a big way!!! Another thing I remember was True Grit came out in the summer of 1969, not sure the month, maybe June or July, and it was all the rage. Course with Vietnam... it was timely... Nixon became President - We all were some hopeful, yet in the end would be so shamed by him, or his people. Oh.. OU #8 lost TX #2 that year 27 to 17.
A little ole one-eyed fellow, who dropped out of school without finishing the 8th grade, was enshrined in the National Aviation Hall of Fame in 1969. His name is synonymous with aviation and in OK. he is known a pioneer in Aviation and also as the pilot of the plane that crashed killing another famous Oklahoman, Will Rogers, in an Alaska plane crash. His name, Wiley Post.
Another band that seems to have influenced our lives, one way or another, released their album, The Monkees Present, that had "Oklahoma Backroom Dancer" among other songs on it. I think it was the first and last for a long time, before being reinvented...
Another band called it quits that was a lot bigger deal, and had a profound effect on history... the Beatles in Jan of 69 make their last public performance giving an impromptu concert on the roof of the London recording studio.
A man from Oklahoma, Weatherford, who wore a funny suit to work in made it to the The Guinness Book of World Records traveling at the highest speed ever attained by man -- 24,791 statute mph. Thomas Stafford did it in 1969, during the re-entry of the Apollo 10 space capsule.
but most of all I remember as the second life-long event that helped mold me (after the birth of my first son), this:
On July 20, 1969, the human race accomplished its single greatest technological achievement of all time when a human first set foot on another celestial body.
Six hours after landing at 4:17 p.m. Eastern Daylight Time (with less than 30 seconds of fuel remaining), Neil A. Armstrong took the “Small Step” into our greater future when he stepped off the Lunar Module, named “Eagle,” onto the surface of the Moon, from which he could look up and see Earth in the heavens as no one had done before him.
He was shortly joined by “Buzz” Aldrin, and the two astronauts spent 21 hours on the lunar surface and returned 46 pounds of lunar rocks. After their historic walks on the Moon, they successfully docked with the Command Module “Columbia,” in which Michael Collins was patiently orbiting the cold but no longer lifeless Moon.
My life changed forever I thought, but on November 6, 1969, I would be shaken to the core! Holding something that I had helped create... in my hands for the first time, trembling with excitement, eyes full of happy tears, amazed that the ball of flesh in my hands was breathing, so blue eyed... I will never forget holding each of my children for the first time, but I must confess, the first time I had ever held a child, an infant, was my first born. I will never ever forget how profound that was. The event truly shook me to my core being, my soul!
Another musician that was tearing it up on stage played in Denver that year.... and I remember reading that no one ever did things to a guitar like he did that night! He had taken the old rule book and threw it out the window... and influenced music forever!
Lots of footprints from 1969... the most important are those of my first born!
Now ... one last thought... There were no cell phones in 1969. There were no home computers let alone laptops! No blogs! and ole Al Gore, that bag of wind who has yet to tell us the truth about anything, had not invented the internet yet! sigh!
there were no calling plans from phone companies, only tv was free and by antenna, and on and on.
Happy Birthday Phillip Shane Moffat!
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